Chapter 1: A Boy Who Fell

Pen’s POV

NOVEMBER 2018

A lot can happen in an hour.

One minute, I was watching my best friend become everything he had ever dreamed of — star player, future pro, the boy every scout in that arena couldn’t stop looking at.

The next, I was standing beneath one of the university buildings, a love letter crushed in my fist, staring at his body on top of a car.

And everyone wanted me to believe he jumped.

***

TEN YEARS LATER

“Are you gonna pick that up?” Ari asked, nodding toward my phone.

My phone had been vibrating against my desk for the last hour. Not constantly, obviously. My mother wasn’t a psychopath. Well. Not legally. But she had called enough times that my phone was starting to feel less like a device and more like a threat.

I sighed, picked it up, and pressed decline for what had to be the tenth time.

Ari stared at me over the rim of her coffee cup.

“I don’t know why she keeps calling,” I muttered, setting the phone facedown.

Corey snorted from the desk across from mine, his eyes still fixed on his computer. “You don’t know?”

I looked at him. “No.”

Ari leaned back in her chair. “Pen.”

“What?”

“This is the fifth blind date you’ve stood up.”

“I didn’t stand him up.”

Corey’s fingers kept moving over his keyboard. “You didn’t show up.”

“Because I was busy.”

“Mmhmm.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What does that mean?”

He finally looked away from his screen, one brow lifting. “Honey, I’ve known you for five years, and that has been your excuse for every man your mother has tried to send your way.”

Annoying.

Mostly because he was right.

“I am busy,” I said.

“Everyone’s busy with something, Pen,” Ari said gently. “But being busy shouldn’t mean shutting people out of your life.”

I reached for the stack of reports beside me, pretending I suddenly cared deeply about quarterly projections. Numbers were easier than people. Numbers didn’t ask why I never made it past a first date. Numbers didn’t look at me like I was wasting my life on a ghost.

Ari’s voice softened. “Look, we get that your mom might not be the perfect matchmaker.”

“She once tried to set me up with a man who corrected the waiter’s pronunciation of gnocchi three times.”

Corey grimaced. “That’s a crime.”

“Exactly.”

“But,” Ari continued, ignoring us, “there’s Henry.”

I froze.

Corey hummed. “Henry is a good one.”

“He’s had a crush on you for months,” Ari said. “And he’s sweet.”

“And good-looking,” Corey added, still typing.

I glanced across the open office before I could stop myself. Henry was two rows down, leaning against his desk with his phone in his hand. As if he felt me looking, he lifted his gaze. Our eyes met for half a second before he quickly looked away, his ears turning pink.

He was cute.

More than cute, actually. Kind eyes. Neat brown hair. Gentle smile. Last week, I had seen him stop traffic to help a stray cat off the road. He’d been late for a meeting because of it and still didn’t look annoyed.

He was good. A good man. And that was exactly the problem. He deserved someone who would love him completely. Someone whose heart didn’t still belong to a boy who had been buried ten years ago.

Before I could answer, my phone vibrated again.

Ari’s mouth twitched. “Saved by the mother.”

I grabbed it and stood. “I should take this before she books the next flight to New York and drags me to dinner herself.”

Corey pointed at me. “She would.”

“She has threatened worse.”

I walked out of the office and into one of the empty common rooms, shutting the glass door behind me before answering.

“Penelope Mathilda Delaney!”

I winced and pulled the phone slightly away from my ear.

“Hello to you too, Mom.”

“Oh, save the fake pleasantries. Why weren’t you at lunch with Matthew?”

“Because I have work. Which I told you.”

“You also told me you would try.”

“I did try.”

“You did not even sit in the same building as the man.”

“That’s still a form of trying if you think about it more leniently.”

“Penelope.”

I closed my eyes.

My full name once was bad. My full government name twice meant Helena Delaney was one emotional breeze away from boarding a plane.

“Mom, I told you I’m too busy to date right now.”

“Busy?” Her voice rose an octave, which meant she probably had her hand pressed to her chest like I had personally invented disappointment.

In the background, I heard my father’s voice, calm and familiar.

“Helena, sweetheart, lower your voice. You’ll give yourself a headache.”

I could picture him perfectly. Sitting somewhere nearby, probably massaging her foot like he always did when she got dramatic, looking amused but pretending not to be because he enjoyed living.

My parents had a beautiful marriage. Not perfect, because no marriage was, but steady in the ways that mattered. Growing up, I used to want that. A love steady enough to come home to. A love that stayed. But not every wish grew into a life, sadly I had come to realize as I grew older.

“Penelope,” my mother said sharply, breaking my current zone out moment.

I blinked. “Sorry. I’m listening.”

“You are twenty-nine. In a few months, you’ll be thirty, and you don’t have a single serious man in your life. Do you want to die single?”

“I mean… would that be the worst thing?”

She gasped like I had announced I was relocating to Mars to marry an alien.

“Penelope Mathilda Delaney, don’t play with me. I will come to New York and lock you in a room with a decent man until you remember how to fall in love.”

“That sounds illegal.”

“It sounds necessary.”

“Mom.”

“No, you listen to me. You cannot keep rejecting everyone.”

“I’m not rejecting everyone.”

“You are hiding.”

The words landed too cleanly…Too annoyingly close.

I looked through the glass wall at the office. People moved around with files and coffee cups and lives that seemed to know where they were going. My reflection stared back at me from the glass. Short brown hair. Brown eyes. Freckles across my nose. A face that looked fine if you didn’t know where to look.

“I’m not hiding,” I said quietly.

My mother went silent. That was worse. Helena Delaney loud was manageable. Helena Delaney gentle could undo me.

“Oh, baby,” she said.

I swallowed. “Mom, please don’t.”

“I worry about you.”

“I know.”

“You work too much. You don’t go out. You don’t call your siblings enough.”

“I called them last week.”

“You texted a meme to the family group chat.”

“It was a very meaningful meme.”

“Penelope.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll call them.”

“And you’ll go on the next date?”

I glanced at the clock on the wall and knew if I let this conversation continue, she would eventually bring up my hair, my supplements, my sleep schedule, and the fact that I still hadn’t visited her in Massachusetts this month.

So, I cut in.

“Okay, Mom. Fine. I’ll show up for the next blind date.”

There was a pause.

When she spoke again, her voice had softened. “Promise?”

“Yes. Pinky promise.”

She let out a relieved breath. “Good. Was that so hard?”

“Excruciating.”

“Dramatic child.”

“Wonder where I got that from.”

“I heard that.”

“You were meant to.”

She huffed, but I could hear the smile in it.

Then, softer, she asked, “How are you?”

There it was. The question beneath all the other questions. Not Are you having sex? Not Are you eating? Not Are you taking your supplements? But are you still bleeding from the same wound?

I could have told her the truth.

That Gavin’s birthday was tomorrow and my chest already felt too tight. That I still remembered the sound my love letter made when it hit the ground. That there were mornings I woke up and forgot for three seconds that he was gone.

Those three seconds were always the cruelest.

But with my mother?

My mother loved me too much. And she needed a break from hurting because of me so, I said, “I’m good.”

Another pause that screamed she didn’t believe me but she loved me enough not to say so.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I love you, baby.”

My throat tightened. “I love you too.”

A second later, my father’s voice called from farther away, “I love you, pumpkin!”

I smiled despite myself. “Love you too, Dad.”

“And call your siblings!” Mom added immediately, because apparently motherly softness had a time limit.

“I will. Bye.”

“Bye, baby.”

I ended the call before she could remember five more things to worry about. For a moment, I stood there with the phone in my hand, staring at nothing. Then I pulled in a slow breath.

Held it.

Let it out.

Everything was fine.

I was fine.

I had a good job. Friends. A family that loved me too loudly. A life that looked stable from the outside. So, what if some parts of me still belonged to a rooftop in Massachusetts? So, what if one name could still knock the air out of my lungs? So, what if tomorrow, like every year, I would drive to the Cabot mansion and sit with the people who had loved him too?

I straightened my shoulders, smoothed a hand over my blouse, and looked at my reflection in the glass.

“Everything’s fine,” I whispered.

My reflection did not look convinced.

I smiled anyway.

“I’m fine.”

Tomorrow, I would drive to the Cabot mansion like I did every year. I didn’t know then that this visit would give me the one thing I had been searching for since the night Gavin fell.

Proof.