SEVENTEEN

Her throat grew tighter and tighter. It was almost impossible to breathe as her running shoes pounded the pavement, splashing and slurping up rainwater. Autumn ran fast. She was desperate for safety and comfort and solitude. She was desperate not to cry until she reached her apartment. She bit the inside of her cheek and lengthened her stride, ignoring the stitch that had formed beneath her ribs.

Pushing her fist against the pain, she turned up the walkway and found her sister huddled beneath the awning. Autumn swallowed a groan. What was Claire doing here at 8:15 on a Saturday morning? Claire never woke up before 8:15 on a Saturday. She was one of those obnoxious adults who could sleep until twelve if the day gave her permission. And yet here she was, bright eyed and well rested, a stack of magazines tucked under her arm.

“What are you doing here?” Autumn asked, breathing heavily as she stepped out from the rain and retrieved the key from her shoe.

“I was too excited to sleep, and I knew you’d be awake.”

Autumn glanced at the magazines in Claire’s arm. They weren’t just any magazines. They were wedding magazines. Bridal magazines. Her attention slid to Claire’s left hand. The bangles on her wrist. Fingernails painted an almost-black purple. And there, in all its sparkling glory, was a beautiful antique ring.

It was like Candy Land all over again, when they played with Grandma Ally. Autumn always managed to get stuck in Molasses Swamp, and she could never seem to draw the right card to get herself going again. Even though she always started out ahead, Claire inevitably passed her by.

The world kept spinning. By nature, people moved forward. Except for her. She was the anomaly, stuck forever in Molasses Swamp. Autumn unlocked the door and let them both in. “Trent proposed?”

“Last night!”

“Congratulations.” Autumn wiped rain and sweat from her brow. Her heart was still pounding. Her throat was still tight. She stopped in front of the elevator and swallowed in an attempt to loosen it.

“You look like you’re going to throw up.”

Autumn cupped her forehead. She didn’t feel well. In fact, she felt like she might faint. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the lack of food. Maybe it was both. “I think I need to lie down.”

By herself.

But Claire stepped onto the lift with her. Autumn was too zapped to argue. She ignored Claire’s prodding stare as the elevator deposited them on the fourth floor. Autumn moved as quickly as possible toward her apartment, her knees shaking. As soon as she got inside, she grabbed a carton of lemonade from the refrigerator and took a long drink, bracing herself against the counter.

Claire flopped the magazines onto the table. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you sleep?”

“Does lying in bed with my eyes closed count?”

“Autumn.”

“Let’s talk about your wedding.”

“Autumn, seriously. What’s going on?”

She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk about any of it. Ever. Not to Maud. Not to Jeannie. Certainly not to Claire.

“I don’t understand. You seemed to be doing a little better. You were answering your phone more. You were returning my text messages. But all of a sudden, you’ve gone comatose again.”

Autumn took a long drink, directly from the container. It was tart and cold, but not refreshing enough to loosen the muscles in her throat.

“Was it the intervention?”

“Claire.”

“I don’t know why I let Jane talk me into it. She was just so darn convincing.”

“Claire.”

“She started showing me that pamphlet and talking about suicide and I don’t know. I just freaked out, I guess.”

“Claire!”

Claire closed her mouth.

“It wasn’t the intervention.”

“What was it, then?”

“Paul Elliott!”

There was a moment of stunned silence. Her sister knew that name. Of course she knew it. Thanks to the whole Lifetime movie mix-up fiasco, the man had made headlines almost as much as Autumn had. The media had treated his horrendous loss like tragic entertainment.

A bubble of hysteria rose in her throat, and with a shuddering breath, words began to tumble forth. “His daughter has been sending me letters. I finally wrote her back a couple of weeks ago, which was the biggest mistake of my life, because she showed up. Here! At my apartment. I had to call Paul, and then he came here, and then she sent me her mother’s earrings, and when I returned them, I ended up eating lasagna at their dinner table. I sat in Vivian’s chair. Reese wants to do this tribute, and I think it’s a good idea, but Paul acts like I’m trying to stab him. And then this morning I hunted him down on the bike path like a psycho.”

Autumn set the carton of lemonade on the counter and sank down onto the linoleum. She gulped in a large breath and gave in to the tears that had threatened ever since Paul cut off her apology. “I haven’t slept in days, and whenever I do, I dream about Seth or Paul or Benjamin Havel. I’m all out of money, and there’s this job opening at that big church a couple of blocks away that really is right up my alley, but I can’t apply for it because Paul goes there and I can’t keep stalking him.”

Claire didn’t speak. She stood there, processing Autumn’s frantic monologue. Then she grabbed a Kleenex box by the toaster and eased onto the floor beside her sister, offering Autumn a tissue.

Autumn used it to mop her eyes.

“You have dreams about Seth?” Claire asked.

“Of everything I just said, that’s what you’re focusing on?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just, Trent mentioned the other day that Seth still asks about you. If you’re having dreams about him, then—”

“Claire!”

She held up her hands.

More silence.

“Okay,” Claire said. “Let’s back up. Who is Reese?”

“Paul’s daughter.”

“She’s been writing you letters?”

Autumn nodded, plucking another tissue from the box and blowing her nose. The crying jag had turned the pounding in her head to jackhammers.

“Since when?”

“Since I woke up from the coma.”

Claire raised her eyebrows.

Autumn mopped her tears and told her sister everything—every last detail, from the letters, the diamond earrings, and everything else that followed. When she was finished, Claire let out a whistle. “You think making a tribute for the people who died is a good idea?”

“My therapist does.”

“Really?”

“She thinks it’ll give me closure.” Actually, that was a lie. Autumn said it would help her let go, and Jeannie agreed that letting go would be a good thing. Whether or not a tribute would actually accomplish that remained to be seen. “The problem is, I don’t know anything about creating a video montage.”

“We know somebody who does.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have no right to ask him for anything.”

Claire pursed her lips, then flicked a nearby crumb. It tumbled and slid beneath the refrigerator.

“I’m not going to bother Seth,” Autumn said.

“I don’t think it would bother him.”

Autumn shook her head. The last time she had seen Seth, she’d handed him back his engagement ring—the one he slid on her finger a couple of days after she woke up. Another story the media grabbed hold of and wrung out for all it was worth.

Miracle Survivor Gets Happy Ending

Seth had called her ridiculous.

He said she was breaking up with him because she didn’t think she deserved a happy ending. “But you do,” he’d said, grabbing her hands. “You do deserve one.”

And then he cried.

Autumn closed her eyes against the memory, guilt piling itself on top of guilt. Brick by heavy brick. Burying her alive. She wondered if she would ever get out from under it.

Paul sat in his basement office, staring down at the letters Reese had written. He opened the top drawer of his desk and found a small pouch stuffed in the back, behind pencils and pens and staples and Post-it notes.

Inside were two rings.

One titanium, size 11. The other, a princess-cut engagement ring, soldered to a diamond-encrusted band, size 5. The coroner had presumed Vivian wore a wedding ring. He told Paul that the blast of the explosion was so intense, it must have blown the ring off her finger.

But Paul knew the truth.

“Nothing good comes from hiding the ugly.”

He pushed a path through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck, his prayer unintelligible—a groaning from the deepest part of his soul. A groaning that matched the wind outside.

Mitch didn’t understand. Sometimes people didn’t set out to hide anything. Sometimes the walls came up so slowly that they weren’t noticed until it was too late. Until the ugly was so wretched and foul that the walls had to stay put.

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, but the events from that horrible weekend came back like rancid bits of memory.

Finding the inappropriate text messages. The sense of betrayal. Whispered, heated arguments behind closed doors. The hurt and the anger. And then numbness. This feeling of being emotionally done. Praying—no, begging—for all of it to just go away, but knowing it couldn’t. All the while, working hard to hide everything from his children.

On Monday, he went to work.

That evening, he found the note. It was propped on the counter, pitching a tent over something shiny and round. Warmth had drained from his face and pooled in his fingers. He stood there, frozen in place, afraid to move any closer. As though the note might rear back and scream. Alerting his children. Alerting the media. Alerting his fear.

Dear Paul, I love him.

—V

After everything, she left. She was willing to inflict their children with the same scars he’d grown up with. Only this time, Paul could do something about it. This time, there was too much at stake. Crumpling the note into his fist, he raced out into the storm after her.

An hour later, a train would explode.

First responders would pull one female survivor from the wreckage.

A female thought to be Vivian Elliott.

Paul leaned back in his chair and slid the diamond ring onto his pinky, picturing Autumn’s face as she apologized in the rain. The torment. The guilt. He couldn’t handle hers. Not when he had his own to bear.

He shut his eyes and for a moment relived the memory that haunted him most. Following a nurse in blue scrubs down a corridor. Walking into a sterile white room. Beeping monitors. The swish-whoosh, swish-whoosh of the ventilator. His chair creaking as he sat by her bed. The slow and confusing realization that something wasn’t right.

It wasn’t Vivian.

For one sliver of a second, he felt the full brunt of the discovery all over again. He felt it as sharply, as keenly, as he had back then. The shock. The confusion. The loss. And also, the relief.

Crushing, debilitating, horrendous relief.

Vivian could no longer ruin anything.

Paul hated himself for even thinking it.

Now Autumn wanted to remember.

She wanted to tell their stories.

But some stories were best left forgotten.