I sigh in frustration when the tiny clasp to the strand of pearls slips from my clumsy fingers yet again. I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to slip this necklace on for the last five minutes, and my arms are beginning to feel like deadweights. But when another set of fingers entwines with mine at the base of my neck, my breath catches in surprise. I drop my arms and fold my hands together in my lap as he quickly hooks the two ends of the necklace together before resting his hands on top of my shoulders. His palms are smooth and warm against my skin. His touch is gentle and kind, just like the man he is. It soothes me and erases all my irritation, as it always does.

“The pearls look beautiful on you. I was afraid you didn’t like them.”

I force a smile onto my face as our eyes meet in the mirror, wishing his compliment made me feel happy and beautiful instead of sad and disgusted with the person I’ve become. The pearls around my neck feel like a noose, choking the life out of me, and I want nothing more than to rip them off and laugh like a madwoman as the beads scatter across the floor. Instead, I squeeze my hands together as hard as I can until the feeling passes.

“I love the necklace, Landry, it’s beautiful,” I lie, my eyes flashing to the jewelry box that sits on top of the vanity in front of me before moving back to his face. He smiles confidently, naturally assuming I’m thinking about the countless other necklaces, bracelets, and earrings he’s given me recently, neatly resting on the red velvet that lines the inside of the box. He’s oblivious to the secret compartment under one of the drawers and that’s exactly how I want to keep it.

“Your mother is supposed to be the star of the party tonight, but I have a feeling you’re going to give her a run for her money,” Landry laughs as I stand up from the chair at my dressing table and turn around to face him.

My stomach churns when he whistles admiringly at the black strapless floor-length dress my mother’s stylist picked out for me to wear tonight. Landry McAllister is a handsome man and he loves me. I wish that were enough. I wish I could forget about the life I used to dream of and the plans I used to make. I wish I could stop thinking about those broken dreams, accept my fate and just be happy. All of this wishing and regretting has killed something inside me that I’ll never be able to bring back to life. I’ll never be able to give Landry what he needs, no matter how hard I try, and I feel a physical ache in my chest, knowing he deserves more.

My hand unconsciously presses against my left thigh when a dull pain throbs through the muscle as I stand. Glancing out the window beyond Landry’s shoulder, I see a flash of lightning and the beginnings of a storm send raindrops splattering against the glass. The pain in my leg is never gone, always hovering under the skin, around the muscle and in my bones, making its presence known and reminding me I once had dreams. Dreams that went beyond the walls of this prison I’ve been exiled to.

Aside from the constant pain, the storm is another reminder of everything I’ve lost. Everything that was taken from me in the blink of an eye, six years ago, on another rainy night when I lost control. Of my life, my dreams, and my car on that wet and winding road.

Now, I have nothing but memories and regrets. Day after day filled with fake smiles, feigned happiness and pretending like I never hoped for bigger and better things. Twenty-eight years old and every decision about my life is made for me, without consideration for what I want, what I need or what matters to me.

I wonder if Landry knows how much I want to scream every time he looks at me like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. I wonder if he notices the guilt clouding my face when he touches me and it never sets my body on fire. I know it would break him if he found out that the only reason I’m with him now is because I have to protect the only person I ever truly loved, and I hate myself for doing that to Landry. I always thought my feelings for him would change and grow. I assumed the love he gave to me would be enough to fix my broken heart and make me whole again, but it’s done the opposite. I’ve become this numb shell of a woman I don’t even recognize anymore for a man who probably only used me, but I don’t know how to stop. He left this town without saying good-bye and then he left this earth without giving me closure. He left me to pick up the pieces and protect his family and his name and I hate him for that. I’ve allowed someone else to make all my decisions, rule my life and crush my dreams because I don’t know how to stop loving him more than I hate him.

Shouting voices and the pounding of footsteps in the hallway outside my room distract us. Landry walks quickly to the doorway, stopping one of my mother’s household staff as she rushes past. With his back turned and his attention focused away from me, I slowly and quietly slide open the bottom drawer of my jewelry box and lift the lid of the hidden compartment. I run my fingertips over the dog tags and wish I could forget how the cold metal used to feel warm against my skin from the heat of his body. How they would dangle down between us, grazing against the skin of my chest when he moved above me. I know I should have gotten rid of them a long time ago, but they’re a constant reminder that everything I do is for him, even if what we had was all a lie.

The quiet conversation in my doorway penetrates my thoughts when I hear the staff member tell Landry there’s some sort of emergency and it’s all over the news.

“Your mother is in a panic and needs all hands on deck.”

I close the drawer to the jewelry box right before Landry looks over his shoulder at me. Putting on a smile, I wave my hand at him.

“It’s fine, go see what’s happening and I’ll meet you downstairs,” I tell him.

He tells the woman to let my mother know he’ll be there in a few minutes, walking back across the room to me when she scurries away. I keep the smile on my face when he grabs one of my hands and brings it up to his mouth, kissing the top quickly and then sighing as he lowers our joined hands.

“I won’t be long, I’m sure it’s nothing. Your mother panics over everything,” he laughs softly.

Landry has been in love with me since I was a teenager and he worked as an aide for my father, the senator of South Carolina. Ten years my senior, Landry came from a family as wealthy and affluent as my own and my parents never shied away from trying to push the two of us together once I turned eighteen. I wanted to hate him simply because my parents approved of him and because of the pathetic way he followed my father around like a puppy. I spent all four years of high school faking politeness when he’d try to talk to me and every year after that turning down his requests for a date. I’d like to say I did it for the sole purpose of pissing my mother off after my father died and she became obsessed with pushing the two of us together, but I’d be lying. While Landry spent our high school and college years chasing after me, I spent those years chasing after someone else. Someone who gave me butterflies each time I saw him, someone whose life was different from mine in every way and someone who took my heart with him when he left, making it impossible for me to ever give it to another.

“And as her financial advisor and the man she’s backing to become our new state senator, you’re required to panic whenever she does,” I remind Landry. “Although considering you have your own things to worry about with your upcoming election, she shouldn’t lean on you so much.”

Landry chuckles, giving our joined hands a squeeze. “Your mother let me stick around after your father died and helped me make all of the contacts I needed to make a bid for the senate. If I win this thing, it will be because of her. Whatever Georgia wants, Georgia gets.”

I paste a smile on my face at his words instead of rolling my eyes sarcastically. Landry kisses my cheek and I watch him leave the room, wishing I had something left to give him. Wishing I wasn’t a liar and a fraud. Wishing I could magically glue the broken pieces of my heart back together and give them to him, because I know he would cherish it. He’s a good man, even if he is one of the sheep in my mother’s flock and I was coerced into dating him.

Sitting down on the edge of my bed, I grab the remote from my nightstand and power on the television hanging on the wall across from me, using my free hand to rub the pain from my aching leg. I know I’ll be briefed immediately on whatever major crisis my mother is having a conniption over so I won’t say the wrong thing if I’m questioned by reporters at her charity event this evening, but since I have nothing else to do while I wait, I might as well get the scoop ahead of time.

When I get to CNN, the reporter’s voice fills my quiet room. I’m barely paying attention to what she’s saying, busy smoothing down the front of my dress and checking for stray pieces of lint. Every word she speaks runs together in a blur of background noise, until she says a name I recognize. A name I haven’t heard or spoken in years, but couldn’t stop thinking about every second of every day. A name that makes my heart beat faster and my hands start to shake. My head whips up to stare at the television with wide, unbelieving eyes, and my heart drops into my stomach. They flash a picture of him on the screen from Marine Corps graduation day, but the sight of him in his dress blues isn’t what makes my world tilt on its axis. It’s the sound of his name coming from a stranger’s lips in the quiet room that steals the breath from my lungs, making it impossible to do anything but stare at the television as my hand flies up to cover my mouth and hold back the sobs.

The rapid thump of my heart sounds like a drum in my ears, making it impossible for me to hear anything else the reporter says. A wave of nausea rushes through me and I press a shaking hand to my stomach as I stand on unsteady legs while a memory from so many years ago rushes through my mind. Even though I want nothing more than to forget about that moment and the day I signed my fate, I’m unable to stop my eyes from closing as I relive it.

“It’s a lie. He would never betray his country. You have to fix this, please!” I begged my mother as I stood in her office with my broken heart clutched tightly in my hands.

She scoffed at me. She didn’t care about my pain, the tears streaming down my cheeks, or my conviction that he would never do something like that.

“You don’t know anything about him. He used you and then threw you away like a piece of trash,” she replied as she stuck the knife deeper into my chest.

I didn’t need to be reminded of what he’d done. It had been slowly chipping away my confidence and pieces of my heart every day since he’d left, but unlike my mother, I could separate the man who broke me from the man who fought for his country. The soldier I knew would never do something this appalling.

“He’s not a traitor. He doesn’t deserve this and neither does his family. Please, Mother, I’m begging you.”

She stared at me for a few quiet moments, studying me as I angrily swiped the tears from my cheeks and lifted my chin in the air to show her I wasn’t backing down. I would do whatever it took to clear his name.

“I could call in a few favors, but it’s going to cost you. Nothing in this life is free, Shelby.”

Her words sent a chill down my spine, wondering just how much she would demand as payment, but knowing I would agree to anything in that moment.

“I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care about anything but making sure he’s remembered as a hero. I’ll do anything if you just make this go away. Please, I’ll do whatever you ask.”

The conversation I had with my mother five years ago plays on a loop until I can’t stop the voices in my head and I have to grab and tug at fistfuls of hair just to stop myself from screaming.

He’s alive.

I promised to do whatever she asked when I feared he’d be remembered as a traitor instead of a hero, and she took everything I had to give as payment. Once she had me under her thumb, it quickly became a slippery slope filled with reminders and threats to keep me in line until I’d fallen so far down the rabbit hole I didn’t know how to find my way out.

He’s alive.

I can’t stop the tears from falling. I can’t force back the sobs of relief that something like this is actually happening. How many people lose someone they love, knowing they’ll never see them again, never touch them again, never hear their voice again, only to find out it was all a mistake? How many people wish they could turn back the clock for just one more moment, just a few seconds in time so they could look into their loved one’s eyes, run their hands down the side of their loved one’s face, and hear them speak? It’s a dream that everyone who’s lost someone has. A dream that slowly turns into a nightmare you feel like you’ll never wake up from. Something you know is impossible, but you can’t stop obsessing about. I’ve prayed and I’ve screamed and I’ve cried, wanting the impossible, and now, I have it.

He’s alive.

I gave up everything to protect him and to save his sister from a controversy that would ruin her in this town. They’d already suffered enough after their parents died—the rumors, the whispers, the finger-pointing and judgment following them everywhere they went…they didn’t need anything else marring their fragile reputation. Especially something so completely absurd as Eli being a traitor to his country.

Every dream I let slip through my fingers, every decision I handed over for someone else to make for me, and every piece of myself I’ve lost in the last five years was for him. No matter how badly he shattered my heart, nothing could erase the good memories he left behind. I’ve wished on over a thousand stars for over a thousand days for closure and to finally have an answer why. My heart never healed and I could never let go because I just wanted to know why.

Why he lied.

Why he used me.

Why he left the way he did.

The hardest thing I’ve ever done was get out of bed the morning after news hit that he was gone and live through the pain of knowing he’d never smile again, never laugh again, never speak again, never exist again. It was the hardest thing until now.

He’s alive.

I could try and pretend this news will finally set me free, but that would just be a waste of time. I know my mother will find a way to make sure I don’t stray from the path she’s forced me to take.

The hardest thing I’ll have to do is face him again and let him see what I’ve become, knowing I’ll never be able to tell him the truth without repercussions. I’ll finally get the closure I need, but I know it will cost me. Nothing in this life is free.

“Oh, good, you turned on the news. Can you believe this?”

Landry rushes toward me and takes the remote from my hand, changing the channel to another news outlet. His preoccupation gives me time to push back my feelings, take control of my mind and my heart, wipe the tears from my cheeks, and remove all traces of the hope and fear and desperation that I know are written all over my face. I stare at Landry’s profile and watch a muscle tick in his jaw as he listens to the news. A jaw I’ve run my fingers over and kissed. My eyes move down to his hand clutching tightly to the remote as he switches back and forth between channels. A hand that I’ve held tightly in my own and felt roaming all over my body. Seeing him standing here next to me is like a bucket of cold water dumped over my head, bringing me back to reality, reminding me of the promises I made and what my life is now.

He’s alive.

“Your mother is losing her mind because a reporter did some digging and called her with this crazy story that you had an affair with that Elijah guy they found and they want her to make a statement,” Landry says with a laugh. “Didn’t he used to work here on the plantation as a stable boy? Shelby Eubanks, the heiress of the Eubanks empire and daughter of the Queen of Charleston, dating a stable boy! The things these people will come up with to make headlines…”

His voice sounds far away and echoes in my ear like he’s speaking inside a tunnel instead of right in front of me, pointing the remote at the television and flipping from one channel to the next, while he drones on and on about the impossibility that I would ever lower myself to have an affair with the hired help.

The name I never thought I’d hear again feels like the stab of a knife into my chest each time another newsperson utters it until my vision starts to blur and my shaking legs finally give out. My body crumbles and I stare up at Landry as he drops the remote and quickly turns when he hears me hit the floor. He looks like he’s standing in front of a strobe light, his worried face vanishing and then quickly reappearing as my eyes blink rapidly.

I’ve spent the last five years compartmentalizing things into before and after. There’s a secret place in my head where I’ve hidden all of my memories of before Eli died. I keep those memories buried and refuse to think about them. I refuse to remember that time in my life when I was young and stupid and so foolishly in love and full of dreams. When my leg wasn’t made up of shattered bones with pins holding them together. When dancing, and the love I had for a man who was so different from me, were going to be my ticket away from this town and out of this life.

After Eli died, after my dreams died…that’s who I am now. Moving through life like a robot and locking the door to before is the only way I know how to keep moving, keep breathing, and keep waking up each morning.

I never thought before and after would collide. I never thought I’d have to unlock that door and be forced to brace myself for the explosion of memories, covering my head and shielding my heart from the pain I know it will bring.

I hear Landry shout for help from far away and I close my eyes, letting the darkness take me away from the name that continues to whisper through my ears.

Elijah James.

He’s alive.

And it will cost me.