Chapter 1

My boyfriend had been acting weird lately.

He was always looking down at his phone with a faint, secretive smile.

Every now and then, I would catch the scent of unfamiliar women's perfume on his clothes.

I asked him if he was cheating on me.

He denied it right away and said I was being paranoid.

He even shoved his phone toward me, telling me to search through it myself and see if there were any suspicious girls in his contacts.

I didn't find anything.

Until today, when I spotted a long blonde hair on his crisp white shirt. It wasn't mine.

I demanded a reasonable explanation.

Irritated, he pulled out his phone again and pushed it into my hands.

He had no idea that this time, I had learned my lesson.

I opened his Instagram account and posted a quick story to his close friends list:

"Hey guys, guess who I'm hanging out with right now."

In less than three seconds, the replies from his buddies started rolling in.

"Holy shit, did Harper come back?!"

[Harper's back?! For real?! Where are you guys?!]

Harper.

It was a name I had never once heard him mention during our entire relationship.

A sinking feeling took over my chest.

I snapped my head up.

Austin, who had been lounging on the couch, was suddenly sitting bolt upright.

His eyes were glued to the phone in my hand. His lips parted as if he wanted to say something, but not a single sound came out.

The phone kept buzzing violently in my grip, notification after notification popping up on the screen.

After a deafening silence, he practically launched himself off the sofa.

"Give that back to me!" His voice came out raspy, laced with a raw panic and urgency I had never heard from him before.

Instinctively, I hid the phone behind my back and stepped away from him.

"Who is Harper?" I heard my own voice ask. It sounded bone-dry.

I stared at him. The man I had loved for two whole years, the man I thought I knew inside and out, the man I had given all my trust to, suddenly looked like a complete stranger.

"Austin," I said again, my voice trembling uncontrollably. "Who the hell is Harper?"

"Just... just an old friend," he finally choked out.

"Seriously, Chloe, you have to believe me." His tone softened desperately. "That's ancient history. I... I just didn't want to bring her up because I didn't want you overthinking things. I swear, there's nothing between us anymore."

He tried stepping closer again, his expression earnest and pleading. "Don't you know where my heart is? After everything we've been through these past two years, can't you feel how much I love you? Are you really going to doom our relationship just because my dumbass friends typed without thinking?"

It was true. Over the past two years, he really had treated me well. He was attentive and patient. He remembered every anniversary, drove across town in the middle of the night just to get me my favorite takeout, and stayed by my bedside whenever I was sick.

Those warm memories rushed back into my head, clashing violently with the cold dread of suspicion, tearing me apart from the inside out.

He seemed to sense my hesitation.

Seizing the opening, he stepped forward and pulled me gently into his arms. His embrace tightened, resting his chin on top of my head, his voice muffled against my hair.

"I'm sorry, Chloe. It's my fault. I shouldn't have hidden her from you. I just didn't think someone from my past deserved to mess up what we have now. I messed up, okay? Please don't be mad. I'll tell you everything from now on, I promise."

That night, he poured all his tenderness into comforting me. He explained that he and Harper had a brief fling back in college. They parted ways on bad terms because of conflicting personalities, which was why his frat brothers still remembered her so clearly. He swore he had moved on ages ago, claiming he kept quiet only because he knew what a little jealous sweetheart I could be.

It all sounded so logical. His eyes were wide and sincere, tinged with the slight hurt of being falsely accused.

I chose to believe him. Or rather, I chose the two years of love I had poured into him. I chose the tenderness he had shown me every single day.

I deleted the post, and we pretended like none of it had ever happened.

He seemed visibly relieved. In the days that followed, he treated me with even more care, almost walking on eggshells around me.

Life seemed to return to its peaceful routine.