Chapter 3

"Seriously? Did you two have a fight?"

"We broke up."

Maya fell silent for a beat. When she spoke again, her voice was gentle but firm.

"Our research contracts run for at least three years. If you're sure, report to Boston next week."

One week was more than enough time to close out my life here.

Someone knocked at my door.

"Ms. Brooks? Mr. Hayes said you left something behind. He asked me to deliver it."

Ethan's assistant held out the pale blue crutch. I pushed it back toward him.

"I don't want it. Take it back."

He hesitated. "Mr. Hayes is very worried about you."

Worried?

That was why he had abandoned me at a clinic. Why he had gone days without making a single call.

I started to close the door. The assistant wedged his shoe into the gap.

"Mr. Hayes wants to speak to you himself."

He held his phone through the opening. Ethan's handsome face filled the screen.

"Natalie, this has gone far enough. The drama is getting old."

I stared at the background behind him.

"Where are you?"

He lifted an eyebrow. "Disneyland. Chloe kept complaining that she hadn't been in years."

"Who was complaining? I caught you talking about me again."

"I would never dare."

Chloe launched herself into his arms. The plush ears on her headband brushed his neck.

My breath lodged painfully in my chest.

For my birthday that year, I had bought us two tickets to Disneyland. Ethan had returned them because he hated crowds and thought theme parks were childish.

So it was not that he could not go.

He just could not go with me.

My throat tightened.

"Ethan, I'm ending this."

On the screen, Chloe dragged him away before he even heard me.

"Ignore her. I want to go on the ride over there."

The assistant looked mortified.

"Ms. Brooks, please just take the crutch."

I shut the door in his face.

That evening, Ethan called again.

"Why didn't you accept it?"

"Because we broke up."

He laughed under his breath.

"Chloe was right. Breaking up is the only threat you know how to make. So how long before you come begging me to take you back this time?"

I pressed my lips together.

He had forgotten something. In every argument we had ever had, I was always the one who apologized first.

But I had never once said the words break up.

"Believe whatever you want."

"Fine," he said, humoring me without taking me seriously. "Tomorrow is my grandmother's birthday. Even if you're supposedly leaving me, you need to come see her in person."

For the first time, I hesitated.

In four years with Ethan, his grandmother had been the one member of the Hayes family who always treated me kindly. The first time we met, she took an heirloom emerald bracelet from her wrist and told me the women of the family had worn it for generations.

Now that our relationship was over, I needed to return it.