Twenty years ago. How was it even possible that so much time had passed? She’d lived an entire lifetime since losing Adam, but every time she thought of him, it was a new knife in an old wound that refused to heal.

Clare leaned over her desk and pulled the photo closer, ran her finger across those two faces. They were so young, so happy. So desperately in love with each other—and for practically their whole lives. They had grown up on the same street in the same small town. He had always been part of her life.

Until that night.

Clare sat back in her chair, the photo resting against her chest. She let her head fall over the back of her chair and welcomed the tears that always came whenever she thought about Adam. She still, even now, loved him. Spent too much time imagining so many versions of lives she could have had with him.

Clare wiped her eyes and sat up, stared at the computer screen in front of her that was still illuminating Kaylee’s profile picture. Like Clare, she was now thirty-eight. Unlike Clare, she had what looked like a normal life, if you could assume such a thing from a nuclear family photo complete with husband, wife, and two children—a boy and a girl. But that was all Clare had ever been able to see. Sara Smith and Kaylee Collins-Hensel were not Facebook friends.

Clare reached for her mouse and moved the cursor to hover over the Add Friend button.

Maybe she should leave Kaylee alone. Was this weird? Or even worse than weird, totally wrong to be social-media-stalking your old boyfriend’s twin sister? She twirled Adam’s ring around her finger with her thumb.

Donna’s most accurate critique from that morning came back to her. One can imagine Collins scratching at the surface of the story she wanted to tell. It was an old accusation now freshly thrown down, publicly, whereas eighteen years ago it had only been witnessed by their other roommates.

“What are you afraid of, Clare?” Donna had asked and tossed Clare’s pages on the table between them. “You have to dig deep, get into your characters’ guts. I mean, what is the fucking point of writing anything if you’re not willing to tell your reader a painful truth?”

Donna’s criticisms had always been so hard because of their laser-like accuracy. Clare wanted to tell that story, the one burning inside her, the one she’d been scratching at the surface of for over sixty books.

Donna was right. Clare was afraid of that story, but twenty years was long enough.