Chapter 1 — The Boy Next Door

I thought I was coming home early to surprise my husband with an anniversary gift.

Instead I overheard a single sentence that made me question every memory we had ever shared.

Matthew and I had known each other since we were children. Our families lived next door, and he’d been beside me through school, through birthdays, through every awkward stage of growing up.

In fourth grade, when another kid mocked my thick glasses, Matthew shoved him down and took the detention without a flicker of regret.

“No one gets to make you cry, Ashley,” he told me. That was who he had always been — loyal, patient, protective.

I was the opposite.