10
On the second morning of orientation week, we had the opening ceremony for freshman military training.
My new roommates and I were running late, rushing to the main field. It was a sea of people, and we couldn’t find our assigned
class section. I was standing there, completely lost, when a clear, masculine voice spoke from behind me.
“Excuse me.”
I froze. I knew that voice.
I turned, and he was there. The memory, made real. He was standing against the morning sun, his head tilted slightly down toward
- me.
“Long time no see,” Caleb Hayes said.
That afternoon, I dragged my roommates to the dining hall the second we were dismissed.
That evening, Caleb cornered me outside my dorm. He looked at my roommates, who were all trying to pretend they weren’t watc-
hing. “Can I borrow her for a minute? Please?”
I tried to ignore him and follow them inside, but he caught my hand. “Even a guy on death row gets a chance to explain himself.
Please, Aubrey?”
I scowled and walked with him to a more private spot.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to just disappear like that.” He explained that his family was actually from Northwood, that he’d had a huge fight with them and had run away to Crestwood to finish high school.
“The reason I left so suddenly… my grandmother got sick. Really sick. She’s the only one in that house who was ever kind to me.”
He looked down, his expression pained. “I know it sounds like a bad soap opera plot, but my phone was stolen right after I got back.
I was so busy taking care of my grandmother, and by the time I got a new one, you’d already blocked my old number.”
“I came back to Crestwood once,” he continued, “but it was already senior year. I was afraid if you saw me, it would just mess with
your head, so I stayed away.”
“I’m not lying, Aubrey, I swear. Every word is the truth.”
Girls walking back to the dorm kept glancing over at us, their eyes flicking from his handsome face to mine before quickly looking
away.
I stared at our shadows on the pavement, a thousand thoughts swirling in my head. Finally, I just nodded. “Okay. I understand.”
What was I supposed to feel? Anger? That had faded months ago. Happiness? Not really.
All I wanted was to get away. “If that’s all, I should… go.”
10 5W
Chapter 2
10:58
As I turned to leave, he suddenly wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight. “I like you, Aubrey Hale,” he mumbled into my hair.
“And it’s not some player trying to reform. I’m not ‘dirty.‘ I’ve never had a girlfriend. There was a girl who pursued me for a long time,
and I turned her down. The rumors about me changing girlfriends like I change my clothes? She made all of that up.”
The warmth of his hands seeped through my shirt. I heard his voice again, muffled and close to my ear. “Will you be my girlfriend?”
I didn’t answer. I just pulled away and fled.
11
After orientation, our lives diverged. Caleb was in the Computer Science department on the east campus; I was in the Law School
on the west.
He was good–looking, and from the first week of school, his face was all over the university’s Confessions page.
Eventually, someone posted: @Eyeryone crushing on Caleb Hayes from CS: Give it up. I’m in the Law School and I have a class with
his girlfriend. He literally comes and sits in on her lectures whenever he has a spare minute. It’s sickeningly sweet. Let’s all just
move on, okay?
The attached photo was of me, sitting by the window with a stony expression, while Caleb sat beside me, looking like a kicked
puppy.
The truth was, I had just told him he needed to stop skipping his own classes to come to mine.
But the story that circulated was that Caleb Hayes was a completely devoted, whipped boyfriend.
12
Jax had also applied to schools in Northwood, but his scores weren’t high enough to get into any of the good ones.
On Christmas Day, I was heading out of the main gate when I realized I’d left my phone in my dorm. After I ran back and got it, I
saw him waiting there.
Jackson King.
His eyes lit up when he saw me. “Aubrey. I finally found you.”
I frowned and tried to walk past him.
He was wearing the down jacket and scarf I’d given him for his birthday years ago. “Aubrey,” he said, his voice desperate. “It’s Chris-
tmas. Let’s get dinner together.”
“Asking another man’s girlfriend out to dinner?” A cool voice cut in. Caleb appeared, stepping between us. “Shouldn’t you ask me
first?”
Jax’s hands clenched into fists, the color draining from his face. “Aubrey, is it true?”
“It’s true,” I said, my voice steady. “I have a boyfriend. Please don’t come looking for me again.”
He started shaking his head, a wild look in his eyes. “How… How could you have a boyfriend? You said you were going to marry me
when we were kids.” He looked down, his voice breaking. “I’m the one who lost you, Aubrey.”
Caleb stepped forward and grabbed the front of his jacket. “That’s right. And you should thank your lucky stars for your terrible
judgment. Now, get lost.”
He shoved Jax back. Jax stumbled, looking utterly defeated, and sank onto a nearby bench.
Caleb took my hand and led me away.
As we walked, I heard a faint, broken whisper behind us.
10:58
10:58
Chapter 2
“Aubrey… I’m sorry.”
13
My family’s business had always been dependent on the Kings. Not long after that Christmas, my parents showed up in Northwo-
- od.
They begged me to get back together with Jax.
I stared at them in disbelief. What kind of parents could say something so heartless?
My eyes burned with tears. “If you don’t love me,” I screamed at them, “why did you even have me?”
My mother jabbed a finger at my forehead, her voice a shrill shriek. “Because that quack doctor told me you were going to be a boy!
Otherwise, you never would have been born!”-
The world went silent. A roaring filled my ears as I stumbled backward. They looked like vultures, ready to tear me apart.
Just then, Caleb ran up, pulling me into his arms and covering my ears. “Don’t listen to them,” he murmured. “It’s all bullshit.”
In the end, my father’s company went bankrupt.
नी
Jax had been waiting for me to come crawling to him for help. He didn’t realize I had one last gift for him.
Chloe Reed had spent the last few years trying to find Jax.
The next time he texted me, telling me he was at a hotel downtown and giving me the room number, I forwarded the message to
her.
It was time for the once–happy couple to have their reunion.
The next day, a very pregnant Chloe Reed was causing a scene in the lobby of the King Corporation headquarters, demanding that
Jax take responsibility or she would accuse him of rape.
The funny thing was, Chloe had another man on the side–an obsessive admirer who had been funding her lifestyle for years. When that man found out what had happened, he found Jax and stabbed him, leaving him critically injured and costing him his spleen.
As for Chloe, her admirer beat her so badly she ended up in a permanent vegetative state.
The story was a sensation, both locally and online.
I told myself I would walk toward a bright and promising future.
And them? I’d leave them to rot in the mud where they belonged.
}
“Aubrey Hale, you promised me a sachet. It’s been ages. Where is it?”
Caleb was pestering me about it again. After everything that had happened, I hadn’t wanted to make one, but he never let it go.
I sighed and pulled a small, embroidered good luck charm from my bag. “Here.”
His face lit up like a little kid who’d just been given candy. He was ridiculously happy.
Years later, I would write the final sentence in the acknowledgments of my first book: And to my husband, whose arrival was the salvation of my life.
