Now I needed to choose between the two.

The guy I’d waited years for and knew I would always love, or the guy I’d given myself to and was falling so in love with.

Part of me screamed that the answer was obvious . . . but Knox still only called once every other week, if that. They were always short calls, and nothing like what I’d grown used to. He was always distracted . . . distant, even. For the first time in more than two years, there’d been no monthly flowers. I was so sure that my leaving had started something that had been unavoidable—that maybe he’d even been waiting for. A time where I was gone so he could feel free of me. As my heart had slowly broken, Collin had been there, piecing together what he could. Something I would never forget and would always be grateful for.

No longer seeing the dorm room I was standing in, I let my memories with Knox consume me. All the good—and there were so many good—followed by the recent bad. “I—” I took a shaky breath in, and my voice came out as a strained whisper. “I didn’t wait for you.”

There was nothing. No sound, no response—only the most heartbreaking silence I’ve ever endured.

I wondered how many times my heart could break over a man I’d thought would have it forever.

“Knox, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I whispered into the phone, and tried to mask the way my voice broke with emotion.

Then again, how did either of us expect it not to happen when lately he’d made me feel as though I was only an obligation? How could he have expected me to wait for him when I’d been so sure he’d stopped waiting for me?

“Say something,” I begged when another half minute passed without a word.

Knox cleared his throat, and a few more seconds passed before he said, “I will always love you. Nothing can change that. Happy birthday, Harlow.”

He ended the call abruptly after, and I stood there staring at the wall in my dark room, listening to the rain beat against the windows, and holding the phone against my chest. I didn’t know how to feel when my heart felt like it had just shattered because of my own actions, but still seemed full because of the person just a few feet behind me.

“I gotta go, baby,” Collin said into my ear, then pressed a kiss to my neck. “See you tonight.” He took a few steps away, then stopped and asked, “Hey, are you okay?”

I turned to look at him, and forced a smile on my face. “Of course.”

“Who was on the phone?”

I looked down at the phone and smiled sadly. “Uh, just someone I needed to say goodbye to.”

He nodded slowly as he took a step back, but tilted his head as he stared just below my throat. “Didn’t you mention liking stars?”

“What?” I asked breathlessly, sure I’d heard him wrong.

“Stars . . . didn’t you say you liked them?”

Loved them, something inside of me whispered. “Yes.”

“I didn’t notice before, but now that you’re wearing it, the diamonds on the necklace look like little stars.”

My breath caught in my throat, and my hand reached up to touch the present as Collin called out a goodbye and left my dorm room. The tears in my eyes barely waited until the door shut before they began to fall. I prayed I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life.

Present Day—Richland

“WHAT DID HE do?” Knox asked, his voice dark.

“Nothing, I told you I’m fine.”

His relieved breath filled the phone. “I’ve been going out of my mind thinking of everything he could’ve done to you this weekend.”

“He’s not going to do anything, Knox, but I need to talk to you, just not over the phone. Can you meet me in an hour at the Starbucks where we ran into each other? Or are you working?”

“No, I’m home, and yeah, I’ll be there.”

The door leading back to the rooms opened, and a woman called my name. I stood and whispered into the phone, “I have to go, but I’ll see you in an hour.”

I hung up and followed the nurse through the office, each step harder than the last. I wanted this to be only a nightmare, but each passing second made it more obvious it wasn’t.

After I finished peeing in a cup, I was led back to a room where the doctor was already waiting for me.

“Harlow, take a seat up here for me.” Once I was seated on the exam table, she continued. “I’ll need to go back out to get the results and look over some things, but I wanted to talk to you for a minute first.”

“Okay.”

“I didn’t know you were trying to get pregnant.”

“I wasn’t! I have that implant; I thought it lasted for three years!” I said quickly, and a little too urgently. I tried to calm myself, but my body was shaking again.

She nodded and sent me a sympathetic smile. “Well, like everything, it’s not one hundred percent effective. Now, Harlow,” she said in a softer voice as she pulled up a chair next to where I was sitting, “there are a couple of reasons why I wanted to see you right away when you called us this morning to let us know you had a positive test. You said you don’t know when your last menstrual cycle was since yours have been very light and don’t come as often with the implant, which is common, but it means we don’t know how far along you are.”

I nodded and waited for the rest of what she would say.

“The second is, when you were here getting the implant, you were very . . . well, you appeared to be very nervous about getting it done. You made sure it was something no one would be able to find out about, and that isn’t a common request we get with married women. With that visit, the way you seem to drop weight you don’t have to spare between each yearly exam, and what you just said about not trying to get pregnant . . .” She paused and leaned close. “Do you need me to get you help?”

“What?” I asked, horrified.

“We can get you help if you need it.”

No, no you can’t. No one can help me. Collin knows people everywhere! “No! No, I don’t want help. I-I don’t need it.” I laughed uneasily and shrugged. “I just don’t want a, uh, baby, you know? I don’t think I’m one of those women cut out to be mothers, but my husband, he wants this baby, he really wants a baby. He’s so excited.”

She wore a fake smile, one I knew well because I wore it when I was out with Collin, and waited to see if I would change my mind. But I wouldn’t, I couldn’t. I knew I wasn’t doing a good job of convincing anyone lately, but it was hard when my entire world had flipped within the span of a week and a half. Knox showing up, then me finding out I was pregnant after doing everything to prevent it for years.