Chapter 1

While we were camping on a mountaintop, Olivia Parker—the childhood best friend of my fiancé, Ethan Hayes—deliberately shook a torn duck-down pillow all over my tent.

I was having a hereditary angioedema attack. I collapsed, convulsing as I desperately shook my emergency pills out of the bottle and swallowed them.

But there was no bitterness in my mouth. Just strawberry Pop Rocks, crackling and exploding across my tongue.

Olivia was curled up in Ethan's arms, waving the candy pouch, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

"Ethan, look at her! She eats a piece of candy and her eyes roll back in her head like she's dying. What an actress!"

"I just replaced her pills with these to mess with her a little, and she actually peed herself. God, can't she take a joke?"

Ethan frowned and tossed a sleeping bag onto me. "Natalie, do you have to ruin the whole weekend for everyone?"

"It was a joke. Why do you always have to give her a hard time?"

"So she swapped out a few pills. And you're really going to lie there and play dead? Get up. Nobody's got time for the performance."

He put his arm around Olivia and walked her to the cliff's edge to watch the sunrise. He didn't look back at me once.

I was close to death when a hiker from the next tent over rushed me to the ER that night.

At dawn, Ethan sent me a photo of the two of them, fingers laced together, facing the sunrise.

"Done putting on a show all night? Get back here and apologize to Olivia."

I looked at the needle marks and bruises covering my arm.

Then I calmly called the wedding planner.

"Next month's wedding. Cancel it."

...

After I hung up, I stared at the white ceiling of the ER for a long time.

My phone buzzed again and again.

In the camping group chat, Ethan had posted a video.

Olivia, wrapped in his shell jacket, sat outside the tent brewing coffee.

Ethan stood behind her, pulling her hood tighter.

They clinked mugs as the sun rose. Their friends cheered, joking that anyone who didn't know better would think they were on their honeymoon.

Underneath the video, Ethan fired off three messages in a row.

[Natalie, after the scene you caused last night, Olivia had a panic attack.]

[She was outside the tent gasping for almost twenty minutes. Her hands shook so bad she couldn't even hold a cup of water.]

[She's been crying all morning. Happy now?]

Olivia followed it up with a crying emoji.

[It's all my fault. I thought they were just regular pills, so I swapped in candy as a joke.]

[Natalie, if you don't want me around Ethan, I'll stop coming.]

Someone in the group jumped in fast.

[Natalie, you're blowing this way out of proportion. Olivia grew up with nobody looking out for her. You know she's been in a bad place lately. Can't you cut her some slack?]

[Wasn't she still crawling around on her own last night? Now she's saying she ended up in the ER? Just to get Ethan to come back and be with her?]

I opened MyChart. The diagnosis page had updated.

Hereditary angioedema, acute laryngeal attack. Below it were my oxygen saturation readings. The lowest was 78%.

I had the screenshot picked out, finger hovering over send, when Ethan's DM came through first.

[Don't post your medical records in the group. Olivia can't handle that right now. Record a video apology, say last night was a misunderstanding, and we'll drop it.]

My finger stopped.

Last month, at my dress fitting, Olivia "accidentally" dumped an entire glass of red wine down my wedding gown.

I stood in front of the mirror and watched the wine bleed down the white fabric.

Before I could even open my mouth, Ethan had his jacket off and wrapped around Olivia.

He never asked whether the broken glass had cut me. All he said was, "We can order another dress. Don't scare Olivia."

The engagement party was the same.

Olivia got drunk, shut off her phone, and vanished.

Ethan opened the app they used to share their locations, checked her last known location, and walked out on the guests.

I stayed behind alone, explaining to both sets of parents and all our friends why he'd suddenly left. Apologizing for him.

He didn't come back until two in the morning, carrying a sleeping Olivia.

The next day, he handed me a little blue Tiffany box.

"Natalie, she's sick. You've always been so understanding. Can't you cut her some slack?"

As if Olivia's feelings always had to come before mine.

I decided not to send the screenshot and left the camping group chat.

Less than a minute later, Ethan called.

"Natalie, what's the deal with you leaving the group chat? The wedding's almost here and you want to start something now?"

"So Olivia threw out a few of your pills. Is that really worth all this?"

Laughter came through on his end, and the sound of lake water slapping the shore.

They were still out there having fun.

And I was lying in a hospital bed where breathing hurt.

"Ethan." My voice was a rasp. I cut him off. "She replaced my emergency medication with candy. Do you understand that?"

The line went quiet for a second.

"You're fine now, aren't you? Olivia was joking. She wasn't trying to hurt you."

That line again.

She didn't mean it.

Which meant no matter what she did, I was supposed to let it go.

"Ow… Ethan, it really hurts…"

Olivia's voice came through the speaker.

Ethan's tone changed instantly.

"What happened? Did you step on a rock? Let me see."

Then, to me: "Olivia cut her foot. I need to take care of it. Stay at the hospital. I'll come by this afternoon."

The line went dead.

I held the phone to my ear after the call ended, staring at the morning light outside the window, then let out a breath.

Something that had been pressing on my chest for three years finally lifted.

I opened my email and found the formal offer from the magazine's Paris office.

I replied: "I accept."