To him, of course Contents Title Page Dedication Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Acknowledgments Also by Beth Harbison Copyright Prologue I could tell you what he looked like—his height and physique and the way the contours of his body felt close to mine in the dark; the shape and exact color of his eyes and how they looked when he was happy, sad, pissed, or passionate; the lines of his forearms, biceps, shoulders, and elbows; the curve of his lips and the feel of his mouth against mine; and what his back, and hips, and legs felt like beneath my fingertips. I could tell you what he smelled like and what he tasted like. I could pick his voice out in the crowd at Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Even twenty-three years after the end, I could close my eyes and remember every detail of him, as clearly as if he were right in front of me. But what would be the point in describing all that? All it would do—all it could possibly do—is diminish the whole into a rearrangement of features you would never see the way I saw them. He’d sound like your neighbor, or your brother, or that guy you work with, or some other person you couldn’t possibly imagine inspiring an unending ache in someone’s heart. Everyone has a first love, one person they never completely got over, right? Picture yours. Because when you come down to it, it isn’t really anything about the way they look that distinguishes them in your memory—hair color, physical shape, style —it can all change with time. It’s the way you remember feeling when you looked at them. When I looked at him, I felt real, unconditional love. And I felt completely loved. He was the only person I ever met whose soul I could clearly see in his eyes. And I had more faith in him than I’ve ever had in another human being. After I lost him, on the rare occasions when I saw him, I could feel the shape, the moving embodiment, of the hole in my heart. Not that my life was about that. I moved on, of course. Dated, worked, ate, drank, laughed, cried. Had a child. Things happen, life goes on, and you have to keep moving and think about what’s in front of you or you’ll go insane. So I pushed the part of me that belonged to him way beneath the surface. Just like he did with me. No one would ever have imagined this part of me existed at all, that a piece of my heart deep down was broken beyond repair, or that that guy—the guy who could have been anyone (or no one) to you or the rest of the world—was the cause of it all. He was the only guy I was ever truly in love with. It took me years to move on. Then he came back. Chapter 17 My dreams are almost never fully satisfying. Yes, I might dream I won the lottery and can go out and buy a new house and whatever else I can think of, but inevitably there is also a “grounded” element of the dream; for example, when the IRS comes calling. I dreamed of Nate. At first it was promising. Romantic, intense. We were in the car, “Everything I Own” by Bread was playing, and we were making out, careening toward the hot sex that ended just about every date we had. His shirt was off, and I moved my hands across the broad expanse of his shoulders, remembering the light sprinkling of freckles on his skin, and that one on his ear that had been there forever. Suddenly he grew cold. His body stiffened and he moved his arm away from me. “Nate? What’s wrong?” I drew back. His eyes were fixed, like stone, on something in the distance. Or nothing in the distance. Not on me. I knew that look. It had been years and years, but I knew that look. He was shutting down, closing me out. “Nate?” Panic grew in me. This couldn’t happen again. He couldn’t do this again. I couldn’t stand it. “Nate!” He wouldn’t answer. Something hit my leg, but when I looked down there was nothing there. A phone was ringing. Then everything around us faded and I slowly came to in my bed in McLean Gardens. Rick was next to me, still sound asleep, despite his ringing phone. I tapped him, but he put the pillow over his head. Made no difference to me whether he got the phone or not. I rolled on my side and looked at his back, wondering when the last time was that I’d run my hands over it in ecstasy, feeling him inside of me. I wish I’d told Nate how much he meant to me back when I’d had the chance. I wish I’d given more instead of just taking all the time. I wish I hadn’t done anything like trying to make him jealous. There can’t be anything worse for the ego than dating a teenage girl, you know? Honestly. No matter how she feels about you, you’re still going to be dealing with someone who is insane with hormones and who has, almost inevitably, gotten her ideas about romance from TV, movies, and overwrought pop songs, sung by pretty-boy musicians who have mastered the art of manipulating tender hormonally driven feelings into dollars. No matter what poor Nate had going on in his life—and now that I’m an adult I realize that there was plenty—I was always ready to squeeze a little more attention my way with a mention of, “I saw Derek today at the pool. He asked me out [casual laugh] [lingering ellipsis]…” or “Um … my other line is ringing, I’d better get that and talk to you later…,” whereupon I’d talk to Jordan into the night, keeping half an eye open for Nate to show up in my front yard with a boom box cued to “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel like John Cusack in Say Anything. It never happened. Like I said, Nate wasn’t one for grand gestures. But I still kept trying to pull one out of him. I guess it was a function of my age and immaturity, and maybe basic selfishness. It had to be awful dating me. Nevertheless, I loved Nate with all of my heart, I really did. I guess I just made it hard for him to see that. Or to believe it. In retrospect I guess I was just trying to believe he would love me as much as I loved him and the only way I’d ever seen that demonstrated, I thought—since my parents weren’t newlyweds—was through the over-the-top antics of special guest stars on bad TV shows. So I tried to work it out in my dreams, the way everyone does when they’ve stuffed things so deeply into their subconscious that they’re in constant danger of imploding. Fortunately, Theresa didn’t show up in the dream. She had nothing to do with this, really. At least she had nothing to do with the old issues I needed to work out. Neither did Rick. As if hearing my thoughts, Rick stirred next to me, resisting waking up for work. That was probably what had woken me in the first place. When Camilla was home, it was always her iPod screaming from the bathroom while she got ready for school that woke me. But Camilla was at her grandmother’s, and Amy was at a sleepover, so Rick had stayed over and it was his earlier-than-mine hours that got me up. I turned away from him and closed my eyes, trying to bring the dream back to me, but it was too late. It was gone. I turned onto my back and lay there, discontented. “Good morning,” Rick said, chipper. He was much more of a morning person than I am. “Hey,” I said on a slightly impatient sigh. He laughed at me. “Don’t poke the bear in the morning, huh?” He was quoting something I’d said once when he thought it was funny to goad me when I was too tired for good manners. I looked at him through narrowed, puffy eyes. “It’s never a good idea to poke the bear.” “But sometimes it’s fun.” He got up and stretched. I watched him. He really was a good-looking man. He had an amazing physique, and the kind of face that made fans of Disney high school movies swoon. Blue eyes, strong jaw, perfect straight nose, shaggy brown hair. He was Zac Efron with a few more years and an edge. And he was mine. Why wasn’t I happier about that? Because I was tired and work was a drag right now, that was all. It was nothing to do with Nate, I told myself. That incident needed to just be a blip on my radar. It was a one-night stand, although it was daytime, and Nate was just a