Chapter 1

Reece Carter

I have always known my first love.

When you're six, you don't call it that. You tell your dad that you ‘made a friend today'. The boy from next door.

At seven, he comes over to your house and stands next to you while you blow out your candles because he's ‘your best friend'.

Then, at thirteen, the lines begin to blur.

At sixteen, you breathe into his mouth in a kiss so tender it could make angels sigh that you are his forever, and he is yours. The world disappears around you, and nothing else exists. You give him all your firsts, and he gives you all of his. You make promises made only to first loves: Forever and always and eternally .

I have always known Asher Cameron.

I have no recollection of a moment in my life when he did not exist. He came to live next door at some point not long after my mother left, and that's all I knew.

But when sixteen became seventeen, and we got careless with our secrets, my father destroyed Asher. I'll never forget his rage the day he found my journal with all those secrets, nor the disbelief in Asher's eyes when he realized what the price would be for loving me. Asher's family, so unlike mine, took him away to protect him. To save him from us. From me. I was the reason he had to leave and losing Asher and his parents felt as if they had died.

A click of heels cuts through the air gently. Elaine Connerly, my realtor, is doing one last look through the house. I don't move. She's given me my space to say goodbye to the home I thought I would grow old in with my wife. The home we would watch our daughter grow up in, celebrate unicorn birthdays in, ground her in for some or other petty reason no one would remember in a week. The home she would leave for college one day.

But things don't always work out the way you think. Dreams are unkind, deceptive evils. Only there to show you all the things you'll never have. They're there – all the wonders of life. Just not for you. You're too much. An attention seeker. Too demanding for love. So demanding, in fact, that people get tired of you. Other times, you're not enough. Too weak. Not man enough.

Asher never got tired of me.

A sigh keeps my chest from tightening. I've been here long enough. Elaine will want to wrap things up. The property photographer left ages ago. He got some nice aerial shots, he told Elaine. The place will sell in no time. It's the perfect house for a family.

I take a step back. Yes. We built it with money from my trust fund – my father's money, and he never lets me forget it – for that exact reason. For a family. For Abigail.

I didn't care much for its size and opulence. I always preferred smaller spaces, like Asher's house next door when we were kids. But what if Abby grew up to have tons of friends? We had sleepovers and parties to think about. A dozen teenage girls under one roof needed their space.

My eyes burn, blurring the bright yellow and black hand-painted bees that occupy the soft yellow wall behind the wooden crib. I'd convinced myself she would love the bees when she was old enough.

I place my hand over my mouth, using my thumb and index finger to pull down the skin under my eyes so my tears won't fall.

How long have I been standing here? Thirty minutes? I blink the tears away, dragging my fingers carefully over my lower lashes where some of my tears are caught, and the wall comes into focus again. The last few months melt away and I cast my eyes around the room, watching the reel play in my mind as if it were happening now.

"Are you sure you want yellow on yellow?" I ask Julie, pointing to the paint samples in her hand.

She's cross-legged on the floor, her round, heavy belly almost touching the soft yellow carpet when she leans forward to place the samples on it.

Julie was the most beautiful pregnant woman I'd ever seen. Maybe I was being biased because she was carrying my child. Maybe all the beauty she had inside her was shining through, and that is what made her so beautiful. There was only one person more beautiful to me than Julie, but that wasn't to say I didn't love her. I didn't love her the same, but I loved her, nonetheless.

"Yeah. I think so," Julie says. "It's . . . calming. Do you think she'll like it?"

I'd laughed. We would've had to wait about four or five years before our daughter would develop enough of her own personality to tell us how much we sucked for choosing yellow for her bedroom walls. And carpet. And crib. Even the lamp shade and dresser were yellow.

I have to blink away my tears again. Maybe she would've loved yellow. Abigail. Maybe Abigail would have loved yellow. It's what I told Julie, but obviously, we couldn't have known for sure. We would just have to wait and see. But now, we'll never know. Now, we can't wait and see. All the what ifs and maybes are now forever out of our reach. We left the hospital with nothing more than a new set of vocabulary that will haunt us forever: umbilical cord prolapse. Fetal distress. Unstable vital signs.

Sometimes I feel so alone it overwhelms me. Sometimes, I think I'm okay and sometimes it's like I'm drowning. I know she's gone, Abigail. I know in my head it's not my fault, and there was nothing anyone could have done, but still, I can't stop blaming myself.

Elaine's voice comes from just behind me, in the hall. "Meet me out front when you're ready?" she says. Her voice is soaked in compassion, and I want to tell her to stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. It's over and it's finished. Please act normal. But this is what she must do. If she doesn't, I'll accuse her of being insensitive. She can't win. No one can win because grief cannot be comforted.

I angle my head but don't turn around. I need to look at the bees. Their bright colors are all that's left in my gray world. "Yeah. Thanks, Elaine."

"Do you want to leave all the gardening tools? Any new owner would love that," she says.

"Sure."

She comes to stand next to me. I think she wants to say something, but whatever she wants to say is interrupted by the roar of trucks coming up the driveway. The movers. There is enough furniture in this house to require three moving trucks.

I have to pull large amounts of oxygen into my lungs to keep this unbearable sadness from bursting through my chest. Deep breaths, dragging in and out of my body.

It's just stuff. Just couches my daughter will never jump on. Just TVs – the bedroom one and the living room one – she will never watch her favorite shows on. Just blankets we won't be able to cuddle up under on cold nights while Julie makes hot chocolate in the kitchen – extra cream for Abigail because maybe she would've liked extra cream.

I can hear her voice in my head – the voice I have never heard, and will never hear – yelling, "More cream, Mama." How can I know the sound of her voice when she never even whimpered after Julie bravely brought her into this world?

It's just stuff.

"Julie texted. She asked how you're holding up."

I hear the moving staff outside, directing their drivers into the parking spaces. Our house is big with ample parking, but lining up three giant moving trucks will be complicated with the trees that go with the wrap-around garden.

"Swing left!" someone yells.

How am I holding up? I don't know. I don't know if I'm holding up at all.

"She says she's sorry she's not here. She just—" Again, Elaine's voice is steeped in sadness.

Elaine isn't just my realtor. She started off as my friend in college but, over the years, I couldn't compete with how much she and Julie had in common. They became best friends, and we all remained close. She's the one who has held Julie together these last four months. I wish it could've been me. I wish I could've been the one to console my wife when we lost our daughter. But I was so lost, and I couldn't find my wife in this sea of grief, and she couldn't find me.

No one should lose a child. Ever. Under any circumstances, Elaine told me over and over. Sometimes I thank her for being with us. Other times, I hate her because she has two sets of twins. Four healthy girls, born three years apart. Four healthy, alive girls. Julie and I wanted only one healthy, alive girl. We wanted only Abigail.

"She just can't take it, Reece. Being here. Watching them pack everything up. Don't hate her for it." Her voice is soft, conveying her respect for the gravity of our situation.

"How can I hate her, Elaine? If anything, she should hate me."

"She asked for the divorce, remember? She's not resentful. Please believe that."

"I know. Still, I feel like I've abandoned her."

"She understands you, Reece. The truth is the very best thing you could have offered her. She knows that."

"She won't be able to conceive again."

"Staying together won't change that."

"Still, I promised to be with her through all things."

"She knew where you belonged."

Not that it matters now, where I belonged. The place where I thought I would always belong – with Asher – belongs to someone else now. A man named Sawyer Reed, according to the one and only Facebook update Asher ever made.

"Julie will be okay," Elaine says. "You'll both be."

I swallow the rocks jammed inside my throat. "Thank you."

"What's your father saying about everything?"

I shrug. "The usual."

Elaine sighs, but there's nothing that can be done. My father tried to turn me into the man he wished I'd become. I just couldn't live up to the expectations. I wasn't smart enough. Not popular with the in-crowds. Not strong and manly enough.

Eventually, after struggling through college and barely graduating, my father gave me a job as an accountant at his construction firm. It's the only job I've ever had and if I'm being honest, it's all for decoration. My father's pity. "Weak like your mother", he always says.

"We'll leave the nursery for last. We probably won't get to it until tomorrow or maybe even the day after. The trucks will stay overnight," Elaine says, looking around the yellow room. She'd spent many nights here too, before and after . . . Julie's pregnancy . . . before and after Abigail's birth and death. I don't know what to call it.

It seems impossible that the higher powers would let a person live only fifteen minutes on this earth.

A birth certificate and a death certificate issued on the same day. A heartbeat that lasted fifteen minutes.

Like knives slicing through my vocal cords, the ache in my throat is unbearable.

Abigail has gone to a better place, the priest said. She's gone to where we all long to go. She was brave and strong.

Julie was inconsolable. So shattered she could hardly stand for the prayers. I couldn't let myself fall apart. If I fell apart, I would break her even more. So, I held her. And I held onto her. And I said goodbye to the only perfect piece of me. Of all the things I am, Abigail was the only perfect part.

"I'll see to the movers," Elaine says quietly.

"Yes. Leave the nursery for last," I say, realizing I hadn't answered her.

"You still have your set of keys, just in case you stay longer than us?"

"Yes."

Elaine leaves me alone but returns a few moments later with a wooden rocking horse from our bedroom. "I thought we should keep all the toys together," she says.

I nod sharply, steeling myself against the pounding in my temples, swallowing the knives inside my throat. I'm bleeding on the inside, unable to breathe as I watch her place a small stack of baby books inside the crib.

Finally, a single tear demands acknowledgement for this unbearable nightmare, and for the first time since I walked back into our forever home, the finality of what is happening bursts through the haphazardly built walls I've kept around myself these last few months.

Elaine leaves, closing the door quietly behind her. I pick up a book from the pile. A soft melody begins when I open the first page, along with pop-up pictures.

I begin to read.

Page one.

"Where did you go, little bear?"

"Why, I went to take a nap."

Page two.

"Silly bear, it's been six months."

"What does six months mean?"

Page three.

"I don't know. I'll ask my Daddy."

"Daddy, what does six months mean?"

I slam the book shut.

"Six months is time, Abby," I whisper into the empty room. "It's a long time for people but only a short nap time for bears."

I close my eyes, tears falling, and I hear her voice inside my head, giggling while she speaks. "Thank you, Daddy. I love you, Daddy."

And then the voice morphs into something else and my nightmare begins again.

"Why didn't you save me, Daddy? Why did you make me only for me to die, Daddy?"

"Why, Daddy?"

"Why, Daddy?"

"Why, Daddy?"