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BACK IN APRIL

BEFORE I KNEW I NEEDED TO LEAVE

Here’s how the rest of the story goes, when I’m the one telling it: Peter Collins and I fell in love one day in the park, when the wind swept my hat from my head.

I am arguably the world’s worst small-talker, but he didn’t want to small-talk.

When I told him the hat was a gift from my mother, he wanted to know if we were close, where she lived now, what the gift was for, and by the way, Happy birthday, are you a birthday person? And when I told him, Thank you, and yes, yes, I am, he volunteered that he was too, that his family always treated birthdays like huge personal successes rather than markers of time. And when I told him that sounded beautiful, the birthdays and his family, he said, They’re the reason I’ve always wanted a big family of my own someday, and at that point, I already would’ve been a goner, even if he hadn’t asked me right then, as if there wasn’t garbage sticking to my chestnut-brown hair, What about you? Do you want a big family?

Dating in my late twenties had been hell. This was the kind of question I’d usually ask right before the guy on the other end of the phone ghosted me. As if it had been a formal proposition: Should we skip grabbing a drink and maybe freeze some embryos, just in case?

Peter was different. Stable, steady, practical. The kind of person I could imagine trusting, which didn’t come naturally to me.

Within five weeks, we’d moved in together, synced our lives, friend groups, and schedules. At the first over-the-top birthday party I ever threw him, Peter’s and my respective best friends in Richmond, Cooper and Sadie, hit it off and started dating too.

Within a year, Peter proposed. I said yes.

A year later, while wedding planning, we started looking for a house to buy. His parents, two of the loveliest people I’ve ever met, sent him the listing for a gorgeous old house not far from them in the lakeside Michigan town he’d grown up in.

He’d always wanted to get back there, and now that his software development job had gone remote, nothing was stopping him.

My mom lived in Maryland by then. My dad, a title that really deserves to have scare quotes around it, was out in Southern California. Sadie and Cooper were toying with the possibility of moving to Denver.

And as much as I loved my job in Richmond, what I really wanted—what I’d always wanted—was to be a children’s librarian, and lo and behold, the Waning Bay Public Library was looking to fill that exact position.

So we bought the house in Michigan.

Well, he bought it. I had terrible credit and slim savings. He covered the down payment and insisted on paying the mortgage.

He’d always been so generous, but it felt like too much. Sadie didn’t understand my hang-ups—I let Cooper pay for literally everything, she’d say, he makes a shit-ton more than me—but Sadie hadn’t been raised by Holly Vincent.

There was no way my badass, hyperindependent mother would approve of me relying on Peter so heavily, and so I didn’t approve either.

He came up with a compromise: I’d furnish the place, add piecemeal to the assortment of furniture we’d brought from Richmond, while he covered the bills.

Most of his far-flung friends had cushy white-collar jobs and could afford to take a separate trip for his bachelor party. Whereas Sadie and the rest of my friends were mostly other librarians—or booksellers, or aspiring writers—who couldn’t afford two separate trips. Thus, she and Cooper would fly in a few days before the summer ceremony instead, and we’d do my bachelorette then.

So, three weeks ago, in early April, Peter trudged out for his Night on the Town and I stayed behind to read in our new butter-yellow Victorian. For the first few stops of the night, he texted me cute group shots. His brother, Ben, up from Grand Rapids, and his high school buddy Scott, with whom I’d finally managed to bond by reading the first four Dune novels, along with some other Richmond friends. They all had their arms slung around each other, Peter splitting center—in every picture—with his willowy, platinum-haired, cat-eyed goddess of a best friend, one Petra Collins.

Petra’s boyfriend, Miles, had not been invited to the bachelor party. Peter didn’t hate Miles. He just didn’t think Miles was good enough for Petra, because Miles is a stoner without a college degree.

Petra is also a stoner without a college degree, but I guess it’s different when you’re a perfect ten with a picturesque family and well-padded bank account. Then you’re not a stoner; you’re a free spirit.

Another thing that must, despite my greatest wishes, be mentioned: Petra is preternaturally nice.

She’s that woman who’s instantly familiar with everyone, in a way that makes you feel chosen. Always grabbing your arm, laughing at your jokes, suggesting you try her lip gloss in the bathroom, then insisting you keep it because “it’s better with your coloring.”

I really didn’t want to be jealous of her. It made sense that she went to his bachelor party. She was his best friend. It made sense that I didn’t go. That’s how this antiquated tradition works.

I’d hoped to stay awake long enough to shove a glass of water and some ibuprofen into Peter’s drunken hand when he got home, but I drifted off on the couch.

When I jolted awake at the click of the front door, it was full bright in the living room, so I could see Peter’s surprise at finding me there.

He looked, honestly, like he’d stumbled upon a woman who’d broken into his house and boiled his pet rabbit, rather than his loving fiancée curled on the sofa. But still the alarm bells didn’t go off.

It was hard to feel too panicky with Peter nearby, looking like the very least inventive depiction of the archangel Michael. Six foot four, golden-blond hair, green eyes, and a strong Roman nose.

Not that I have any clue what a Roman nose is. But whenever a historical romance writer mentions one, I think of Peter’s.

“You’re back,” I croaked and got up to greet him. He stiffened in my hug, and I pulled away, my hands still locked against the back of his neck. He took hold of my wrists and unwound them from him, holding them between our chests.

“Can we talk for a minute?” he asked.

“Of course?” I said it like a question. It was.

He walked me to the couch and sat me down. Then, as far as I could figure, a couple of tectonic plates must have smashed together, because the whole world lurched, and my ears started ringing so loudly I could only catch bits of what he was saying. None of it could be right. It didn’t make sense.

Too much to drink . . .

Everyone went home, but we stayed back to sober up . . .

One thing led to another and . . .

God, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you, but . . .

“You cheated on me?” I finally squeaked out, while he was in the middle of yet another indecipherable sentence.

“No!” he said. “I mean, it wasn’t like that. We’re . . . She told me she’s in love with me, Daphne. And I realized I am too. In love. With her. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”