AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Prologue
Harlow
Fall 2010—Walla Walla
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOW. I waited for you.”
The instant his voice filtered through the phone, my body stilled and warmed at the same time. My breath came out in a soft, audible huff, and my eyes shut as hundreds of welcome memories flooded my mind.
I didn’t have to look at the screen to know who was calling. I would know that voice anywhere, and I should have been expecting his call. Not just his call. This call. We’d been preparing for and talking about this call for two and a half years now.
My lips and fingers trembled, and I almost dropped the phone as I tried to make my throat work.
“I waited for you,” played over and over again like a broken record. A broken record with the most beautiful music still coming from it.
Turning my head just enough to look over my shoulder, I eyed the guy shrugging into his shirt, and my chest ached when I faced forward again.
No longer seeing the dorm room I was standing in, I let our memories consume me. “I—” I took in a shaky breath, and my voice came out as a strained whisper. “I didn’t wait for you.”
There was nothing. No sound, no response—only the most heartbreaking silence I’ve ever endured.
And it was a heartbreak I would carry with me forever.
Chapter 1
Harlow
Present Day—Richland, Washington
MY EYES SHOT open as the dream faded away, and my dark bedroom blurred for a few seconds as the tears fell steadily across my face, dripping onto the pillow. Locking my jaw against the trembling, I took deep breaths to keep myself calm—to keep myself from giving in to the sobs that were building in my chest.
The heartbreak that had settled over the silence during that phone call was still one I felt today—as if it had just happened rather than four and a half years ago.
I should have known in those seconds that I’d said the wrong words. I should have known I was choosing the wrong man. He would have understood my mistake. He would have still been waiting for me, like he had been for two and a half years.
My Knox.
