Chapter 1

The doctor' s words hung in the sterile air.

"Late-stage lung cancer, Ava."

My name. A death sentence.

The fluorescent lights of the Austin clinic hummed, suddenly too loud. I stared at the generic art print on the wall. A field of bluebonnets. Texas. Home.

Not for much longer.

Chloe found me at the vintage guitar shop, tuning a dusty Gibson.

"You heard?" she asked, no preamble. Chloe never wasted words.

"Heard what?" I tried to sound casual, my fingers fumbling on the tuning pegs.

"Ethan Reed. He' s back. And getting married."

Ethan. The name was a phantom limb, an ache I' d carried for years.

Chloe handed me her phone. A local society blog. Ethan, smiling, arm around a polished blonde. Olivia Hayes. Daughter of some big-shot developer. Strategic alliance, the caption probably didn' t say, but I knew. His family' s real estate empire had been crumbling since his father' s fall.

A few days later, I saw him. At Jo' s Coffee on South Congress.

He looked the same, mostly. Older, sharper edges. New York suit instead of faded jeans. But his eyes, that intense blue, they hadn' t changed.

He was laughing, the sound achingly familiar. Olivia was with him, perfect and serene.

My breath caught. My heart hammered a stupid, hopeful rhythm.

I waited until Olivia went to the counter. Then I walked over.

"Ethan?"

He turned. The smile vanished. Recognition flickered, then coldness.

"Ava." He said my name like it tasted bad.

"It' s been a long time," I said, my voice thinner than I wanted.

He just looked at me.

"We have nothing to discuss, Ava." His voice was flat, devoid of any warmth he might have once held for me.

"You' re just going to pretend we never happened?"

"What happened," he said, his jaw tight, "is that your father helped ruin my family. And you stood by. There' s nothing left to say."

He was talking about the affair. My charismatic, reckless father and Ethan' s mother. The scandal that blew their lives apart. His parents' bitter divorce. His father' s subsequent spiral into booze and financial ruin. He' d always blamed us. Me.

Later that week, I saw Ethan' s father outside a liquor store on Sixth Street. He looked like a ghost, thin and trembling, clutching a brown paper bag.

I hesitated, then walked over. "Mr. Reed? Are you alright?"

He blinked at me, unfocused. I bought him a coffee from the place next door, helped him sit on a bench. He didn' t say much.

Ethan found us there. Or rather, he found me sitting with his father. His face was thunderous.

"What the hell do you think you' re doing?" he hissed, pulling me away.

"He looked like he needed help, Ethan."

"My father' s condition is none of your concern. Stay away from him. Stay away from me."

"I mean it, Ava." His voice was low, dangerous, like a coiled snake.

"You think I want to be near any of this? Your judgment? Your perfect new life?"

"Then leave. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of."

The words were meant to hurt. They did.

His father watched us, a flicker of something unreadable in his watery eyes.

As Ethan pulled me further away, my hand instinctively went to straighten the collar of his expensive shirt, a gesture I' d done a thousand times when we were teenagers, when his world hadn' t yet shattered.

He flinched as if burned. I snatched my hand back.

We both stared at my hand, then at each other. A moment of raw, unwelcome memory hung between us.

He shook his head, disgusted. "Don' t."

Then he turned and practically dragged his father away.

That night, I ended up at the Continental Club, the dive bar where my band used to play. The air was thick with stale beer and desperation. Mine fit right in.

Whiskey burned its way down my throat.

Two months. The doctor had said maybe two months if I was lucky.

Not enough time for a miracle. Maybe just enough for a reckoning.

Or one last, stupid mistake.

"Well, well, look who it is. Ava Miller, slumming it with the common folk."

Marcus 'Mark' Jenkins. My former guitarist. The one I' d helped get into rehab years ago. He looked rough, eyes too bright, a nervous energy about him. He still had that slight, unsettling resemblance to a younger, more feral Ethan.

"What do you want, Mark?"

"Heard your old flame' s back in town. Rolling in it, I hear. Maybe you can spare some for old times' sake. I' m in a bit of a bind."

He was talking about Ethan. News traveled fast in Austin' s underbelly.

"I don' t have any money, Mark."

"Don' t lie to me, Ava. A girl like you, always lands on her feet. Or on her back, with someone rich." His smile was ugly.

He grabbed my arm. "Come on, just a little loan."

I pulled away, my skin crawling.

Across the crowded room, I saw him. Ethan.

He was standing near the back, half-hidden in the shadows, watching. His expression was unreadable, but I felt the weight of his judgment like a physical blow.

He saw Mark harassing me. He saw the kind of company I supposedly kept.

He didn' t move. He just watched.

Then, he turned and walked out.