Chapter 2

Before I left Susan's office, I asked her not to tell Leo about my application for now.

Nothing had been finalized yet, and I was afraid he would interfere if he caught wind of it.

Not that he seemed to have any attention left for me these days. His mind was on Melissa. Still, I didn't want to take chances.

Leo and I had met two years earlier.

Back then, I had just finished my PhD and stayed on to teach. I was new faculty, still trying to look like I belonged, while Leo Thompson was already an associate professor everyone talked about—the kind of handsome, untouchable star researcher with a cold, polished air that made people lower their voices around him.

I fell for him the moment I saw him.

When I made the first move, he responded. Not warmly, not passionately, but enough. And because I wanted him, I read that "enough" as fate. We got together the way couples did when everything looked right on paper—smoothly, almost inevitably.

Leo was quiet by nature. He never talked much, and he never fed me sweet lines.

Sometimes he would just stare at me, as if he'd drifted away somewhere I couldn't follow. His eyes would go unfocused, his face still and distant, like he was watching a memory instead of me.

I didn't think too hard about it. I told myself that was simply how he loved—deep, restrained, mature.

Later, I learned the truth.

From a certain angle, my face looked a lot like Melissa's.

We dated for two years. The relationship stayed steady on the surface, steady enough that we had reached the point where marriage became a matter of planning instead of imagining.

I was the one brimming with joy. I picked dates, saved wedding ideas on Pinterest, and pictured a small outdoor ceremony in the Boston Public Garden—simple, elegant, ours.

And then Melissa showed up at Leo's door with her son.

That was when I found out Leo had a first love. They had been together for seven years, from high school through college.