Chapter 2

It was already March, and the snow hadn't stopped.

Snow like this — thick and relentless — always brought me back to the night I first met Ethan.

I was nineteen. A sophomore at NYU Tisch.

He was the kind of investor that made school administrators straighten their spines and smile too hard.

I was chosen to attend the fundraiser dinner. The reward was a supporting role in an upcoming production.

A few glasses of whiskey in, the gentlemen in the room stopped pretending. They started pushing drinks on me.

Ethan was at the head of the table. He tapped one finger against the side of his glass, unhurried.

"That's enough. Leave her alone."

Just that. No one pushed another drink on me for the rest of the night.

I looked up, startled. He glanced over at the same moment.

One second, in a room full of noise and flattery. Our eyes met.

I thanked him and didn't think much of it. A man like that had no reason to ever cross paths with someone like me again.

But after that night, he kept appearing.

Always the one rescuing me.

A role stolen by the dean's daughter — one word from him and it was returned.

A blizzard night when I couldn't get a cab — he drove me back to the dorms himself.

My father's surgery, the hospital out of O-negative blood — Ethan Mercer, in his tailored suit, donated four hundred cc's without being asked.

He was too good to me. Good enough to scare me.

I was afraid it was just boredom. That I was a distraction for a man who had everything.

I was the one who broke first.

"What do you want?" I said. "Is it to sleep with me? Then let's get it over with." I reached for my buttons. "After that, we're even."

He stilled my hands. Pulled my shirt closed. Let out a quiet breath.

"Zara. What do you want?"

My lashes trembled. I made myself hold his gaze.

"I want to be loved like I'm enough," I said. "Can you do that?"

Ethan went still.

Then, slowly, a smile. He lifted my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles. His voice was soft enough to undo a person.

"Yes."

He wasn't lying. He loved me the way I'd asked to be loved.

But love isn't everything. It wasn't strong enough to close the distance between where he came from and where I did.

Class is a wall you can't charm your way through. No matter how high I climbed, I couldn't make it disappear.

The day we ended things, Chicago was under its first snow of the year.

The night before, we moved through every room of the apartment. He cooked dinner.

When I finished eating, he said: "I'm getting married."

A few seconds of silence. Then I set down my chopsticks and said, "Okay."

We sat there for a long time. The food went cold.

Eventually he spoke. "The apartment and the car are yours. The projects I promised, still yours. That check — I added a zero."

"Anything else?"

"No."

Ethan nodded. He stood, turned, and walked out into the snow.

I watched his back until it was gone.

Somewhere in that moment, I felt the faint pull of something I couldn't name. We'd been together seven years and I didn't think I'd ever said it out loud. Those three words.

Seven years. Snow after snow after snow. I'd let myself believe we might grow old in it.

I let myself believe there would still be time.

What a shame.

The snow thickened. His silhouette dissolved into white.

My vision blurred. I touched my face, slow and dull, only then registering the cold.

Tears.