Chapter 1

1.

On New Year's Eve, I dragged my suitcase out of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, my heart racing with excitement to be reunited with my boyfriend, Caleb.

As I moved through the crowd, a sickeningly sweet female voice cut through the noise.

“Caleb! I’m here! Where are you?”

I froze.

The same name, the same cloying tone―it was just like me three years ago, desperately crossing the country to be with him.

I shook my head, laughing at my own paranoia.

Then, the full name hit my ears like a physical blow.

“Captain Caleb Hayes! If you don’t come get me right now, I’m going to make a sign and stand outside your Green Beret camp gate!”

My blood ran cold.

Captain Caleb Hayes. My boyfriend. The same name, the same rank, the same unit.

And I had just flown two thousand miles home after a three-month rotation in the Mojave Desert.

…

Driven by some unseen force, I pulled out my phone and sent Caleb a text.

[Hey Caleb, can you get leave tonight? I’m in Seattle.]

He didn't reply.

The girl beside me, arm-in-arm with a friend, walked towards the airport convenience store. She waved her phone triumphantly. "See? It hasn't even been five minutes, and he's already asking where I am."

Laughing, she strolled to a shelf near the checkout counter and grabbed several boxes of condoms.

Her friend teased her, "Whoa, girl! Are you stocking up for a week?"

"You and Caleb are like fire and gasoline. All that complaining you did on the phone was just you bragging to me, wasn't it?"

The girl let out a playful whine. "If I don't drain him completely, who will? That boring, rigid woman who has no idea how to have fun?"

Other travelers in the store glanced over, some of them snickering.

But the girl didn't care at all, swaying her hips as she walked out with her friend.

I paid for my things and silently followed them.

Seattle in December was a miserable mix of cold wind and icy rain. The girl, Scarlett, wore nothing but a backless dress under her coat, her bare legs a stark contrast to the damp air.

She couldn't have been more than in her early twenties, her face glowing with a reckless, youthful energy.

She was the exact opposite of me, always dressed in simple, practical clothes.

At the rideshare pickup area, Scarlett’s friend got into a car and left.

She hummed a song as she kept walking, and miraculously, at every turn, our paths remained identical.

When I recognized the melody she was humming, my steps slowed.

It was "Tennessee Whiskey" by Chris Stapleton. Caleb had sung it at a base mixer once, telling me it was a song just for me.

Scarlett pulled out her phone and made a call. "Caleb, I'm almost there. Can you wait for me at the main gate?"

I couldn't hear his reply, but she whined, "I'm wearing plenty of clothes! I'm not cold at all. If you don't believe me, come check for yourself."

"You can put your hands under my coat, under my dress, under my…"

I looked down at my own phone screen.

No new messages.

The wind whipped into the sleeves of my olive-drab jacket, and I shivered.

My finger hovered over the screen, and I pressed the call button.

A cold, robotic female voice answered: "The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable."

I knew what that meant.

His phone was locked up during a mission or for disciplinary reasons.

It had to be that.

"Caleb!"

Scarlett suddenly broke into a run and threw herself into a man's arms.

I lifted my umbrella slightly and peered forward.

In one glance, I felt like I'd been struck by lightning, frozen to the spot.

The man was in civilian clothes, a look of helpless affection on his face as he hugged Scarlett tightly, ruffling her hair with his other hand.

"I don't know what to do with you."

It was a face I knew better than my own.

When we were seven, both of us army brats growing up on a base in Germany, he pressed his first challenge coin into my hand. "Grace, from now on, half of all my honors are yours."

At fifteen, he awkwardly told me to throw away love letters from other boys. "Those guys aren't good enough for you."

At nineteen, the night before he left for West Point, he stood under my window until dawn, promising he would wait for me.

At twenty-three, he returned from a rotation in Afghanistan, having survived hell and lost twenty pounds, and the first thing he did was come find me at the hospital.

Just last month, he gave me five years of saved-up allowances and his debit card.

"Grace, as soon as my promotion orders come through, we're going to city hall."

For twenty-one years, we were everything to each other, like two redwoods growing side by side, inseparable.

But in that one second.

Everything turned to ash.