Chapter 1

I broke up with Ethan in the departure hall at Penn Station.

“Because she's sitting beside me and you aren't?” he asked, laughing.

“Yes.”

He opened the voice recorder on his phone.

“Say it again. I want this on record when you change your mind.”

We'd known each other since we were seven. We'd been together since eighteen. Ethan had years of evidence that I always came back.

I looked at the phone.

“It's Friday, May twenty-second. Cassie Brooks and Ethan Shaw are done.”

He waited for the rest. Tears, probably. A condition he could promise to meet.

When none came, he played an older recording.

My voice, thick with drink: I miss you. Can we stop doing this?

A woman nearby glanced over.

“Three months ago,” he said. “How long are we breaking up for this time?”

I pushed his phone away.

“As long as I get to decide.”

We'd planned a Memorial Day weekend in Boston with friends. Then his intern, Poppy, wanted to come. He canceled the original booking and reserved new seats for the group.

They were together near the front. I was several cars away.

“I forgot to add you,” he'd said. “By the time I noticed, that was what was left. It's four hours, Cass. You'll survive.”

I'd survive. That had become the entire measure of what he could ask me to accept.

Poppy appeared carrying two coffees. She handed him his usual Americano and kept the iced latte.

“Oh. Sorry. I forgot to ask what you wanted. We always get these at work.”

“Enjoy them,” I said, taking my suitcase.

She caught my sleeve.

“Please don't be upset. I'm just an intern. Graduation's coming, and everything's stressful. Ethan thought a weekend away would help.”

“What about the movie? The dressing-room photos? Were those stress relief too?”

Her eyes filled.

“Cassie,” Ethan snapped. He handed her a tissue. “If you're angry with me, be angry with me.”

“I am.”

Poppy walked toward the doors, crying. He followed her.

I stayed beside my suitcase.

He didn't know I'd canceled the ticket days earlier.

He didn't know the bag held everything I planned to take from our apartment.

And he didn't know my train was going south.