I’d tried to talk with him over the last few days—to bring us back to the happy young couple we’d once been. But nothing seemed to work. The search for common ground between the two of us was like the hunt for Amelia Earhart all those years ago. After a while, you wondered when it was time to call it quits and move on.

But this wasn’t just some history lesson I was studying. This was my life.

A life I’d drastically changed for the man stumbling into bed next to me.

The shuffling abruptly stopped as his warm body closed around me. A hand caressed my hip before I felt the full weight of him behind me. I tried not to recoil from his touch as the whiff of perfume and booze wafted toward me.

His arms tightened around me, and suddenly, he began to tremble.

Turning quickly, I found myself face-to-face with the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with… and he was broken beyond measure.

“Tyler? What happened? Are you all right?” I asked, frantically reaching for the lamp on the edge of the nightstand. When I finally found it, the room went ablaze with the glow of the lamp, as I searched him from top to bottom, trying to find some sort of clue or physical injury that would cause such anguish.

He was still drunk. I could tell that much. His eyes were glossy, his hands were clammy, and he was sweating so much he was already sticking to the sheets.

“I’ve destroyed everything,” he mumbled, his eyes finally finding mine. It was as if he’d just realized I was in the same room. It sobered him greatly. He sat upright as he wiped tears from his eyes.

“You have to go,” he said flatly.

“What? What are you saying, Tyler?” I said, reaching out to comfort him.

He put a steady hand out, keeping a safe distance between us… as if the very idea of touching me disgusted him.

“I slept with another woman tonight, Cara. I didn’t mean to, but things got out of hand. You should go. Please, just go. I can’t—just go.”

His confession hit me like a battering ram. My worst fear had been confirmed.

I’d been trying to convince myself for weeks that we’d make it through this, that it would just take time to find our way back to each other after so long.

But now it was all over.

In the blink of an eye.

I couldn’t even stand to look at him anymore.

“I guess I should go,” I said softly, grabbing what I could in my haze.

I managed to snag a change of clothes and a toothbrush. I’d have to come back for everything else.

Oh God, where would I go?