Sitting on the bench that used to be mine and Lorraine's favourite in the park, I watch my shadow drag over the ground as the sun passes from the sky and wonder why I let Keanu fool me again.

The metal bars turn cold against my back. The last of the teenagers drift down the trail and disappear down the path leading to the park's exit. Soon, I am alone with only the gentle afternoon breeze for company.

Still, I wait.

Still, there's no sign of Keanu.

Of course he isn't coming. He has a fiancée, and she didn't look pleased to let him go anywhere with me. Not that I blame her, knowing Keanu's wandering eyes and philandering hands.

He probably only offered to make plans to be polite, but he didn't mean it. Most people don't.

I check my watch. It's 7:12. I can wait a little longer.

When darkness creeps into the sky like rot spreading through a tree trunk, I stand with a sigh. There are better ways I can be spending my evening than waiting for a man who's never going to show up.

I promised Ellery I'd be back in time to binge Bridgerton with her after dinner. I may as well go home now so we can get an early start on the series.

Before I can leave the bench, a man in shorts and sneakers comes sprinting from between the bushes flanking the path.

"Thank goodness you're still here! I thought I'd missed you." Keanu stops, panting as he smiles at me.

In the fading light, his dimples sink deep into his cheeks. That smile makes my heart clench, makes me want to kiss him even after how he hurt me.

Even though I can't.

"Well, I'm still here," I say brightly, stating the obvious just to fill the silence.

The last I saw of Keanu, he was undressing Lorraine in our kitchen. It shouldn't be a surprise that we don't know what to say to each other on our first meeting alone.

Our actions of the past have tangled us in a web we have yet to unravel.

"So, ready to hike?" Keanu tilts his head in the direction of the trail.

"Oh, yeah. I even put on my hiking boots." I lift a leg to show him.

He grins. "I'm afraid I'm not as prepared as you are, but I should make it to the top, shouldn't I?"

I nod, a smile pulling at my reluctant lips. "You should. The trail isn't that long, and we're not so old that we need special shoes to take it."

"Am I glad about that," Keanu says as I fall into step with him. "I thought I'd be a grandfather when you finally returned to Colorado if old age didn't take me before that."

His voice holds a jesting note, but I don't laugh. I don't even smile, because if it wasn't for Ellery and her son, it would've been the truth.

An uncomfortable silence wedges between us.

The ninebark shrubs growing beside the path brush against my legs like an overly familiar cat. I don't remember the walkway being so narrow. It used to have enough space for Keanu and me to walk side by side.

Then again, we didn't have such a big space between us all the times we came up here.

Keanu clears his throat as we reach the first bend in the road. "Sorry I kept you waiting. We had an emergency at the restaurant."

At that, I can't help but smile. "Good Food is still around?"

"And better than ever." Keanu's voice is warm with pride.

"I'm sure. They have the best man at the helm." I nudge him.

We reach an incline. We hold onto the bars at the sides of the path to keep our footing in the loose dirt. These must be new. I don't remember seeing them before.

Keanu smiles. "I couldn't do it without my father. He's not as young as he used to be, but his experience makes up for it. He's the brains, but I do the physical work."

"Have you opened your own restaurant yet?"

"Nah." There is a wistful edge to Keanu's voice, but as soon as I notice it, it's gone. "I gave up on that. Good Food may not be my baby, but it's a successful business, and I can make a comfortable living managing it. I stepped up when my father's hip replacement meant he couldn't run it anymore. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave any space in my life for my dream."

We come to another bend, but the path flattens out. I almost don't see the bridge passing over the pond until my boots ring against the metal. This is new too. I remember the bridge being wooden.

Keanu's footsteps clang behind me. The bridge is too narrow for two people.

I know what it's like to see my hopes die. I want to comfort Keanu, even though he's the one who killed my dreams. I want to tell him that we can't change the way things work out, but we can change what we make of our circumstances.

He speaks before I do. "Did you ever get around to opening your own flower shop?"

We dreamt of that way back in high school. I planned to open my florist beside Keanu's restaurant on the main street. I'd do his décor, and he'd make me lunch every day.

I can't believe he still remembers that.

"No, I started my own garden design business," I say.

Keanu gives a low whistle. "That's impressive. I guess the gift for the flower business runs in the family, huh?"

"I guess." I smile.

I've been surrounded by flowers all my life. I'm as comfortable around them as if they're my own family. It's no surprise that I've chosen a job where I work with them every day.

For me, there is no greater pleasure than arriving at a stretch of plain green lawn and watching it come alive with every choice I made. Shrubs add personality. Flowers add colour. The gardens I design are bright and blooming where my life feels dull and barren no matter my choices.

My mother owns a florist. I worked there for most of high school. It was sheltered employment, but it was a great chance to earn a little cash.

It was during one of my shifts that Keanu had bought the first rose he ever gave me. I found the flower in my locker the next day with a note I only recognised as Keanu's when we were paired together for a biology assignment a few days later.

Young love is so innocent and soft. Although I know it doesn't stay that way, I smile at the memory.

"Your mother is doing the flowers for my wedding," Keanu says. "Renata insisted."

This time, he's the one to speak to fill that awkward space between us, but his words don't bury it, only deepen it.

His wedding and his fiancée are the last things I want to talk about.

I dodge a branch that jumps out at me from the growing darkness. The trees have grown in the years since I was here, and their branches hang lower than I remember.

"So, you must have someone special back home, right?" Keanu asks behind me.

In the darkness, he is nothing more than a shadow. Still, my heart skips a beat at being this close to him after so long.

Yes, but he's about to marry someone else, I want to say in answer to his question, but all I say is no.

Every relationship I've had since Keanu has imploded. If I didn't know better, I'd say my high school sweetheart still trails after me despite me leaving him behind in Colorado, not because I want him to, but because I can't let him go.

He passes through my dreams even when I'm unaware I was thinking about him. He haunts my every date like a promise that this new relationship is as doomed as ours was.

The last thing he said to me was, "Acacia, this isn't what it looks like!"—the classic line of the unfaithful. I committed to spending my life with him. Then we ended, without even a goodbye.

Maybe if I do a proper farewell now, I can stop this—him—from following me throughout my life. Maybe I can finally find my happiness, wherever it's hiding.

The ground flattens out at our feet. The end of the trail comes up in front of us, saving me from the aftermath of my words, the uncomfortable silence and insincere pity that Keanu would give me out of courtesy.

We step into the clearing. The view from Starship Point is almost as I remember except for the lights, which are more and brighter. It's breath-taking enough to ease away that awkwardness between me and Keanu that never used to be there before.

I sit at the edge of the cliff. Beneath me, the grass gives way to dirt and stones. I gaze down at the town. My town. It hasn't aged, just embellished itself like a garden with topiaries added along its boundaries.

Keanu sits beside me, arms wrapping around his knees. This could be any one of those times we came up here just to hang out, but it isn't, because he hasn't put his arm around me like he always used to. I clasp my hands together to keep them from wandering anywhere they shouldn't.

My throat opens, and I find I can talk again. "Renata seems wonderful. Just don't break her heart like you did mine."

From the corner of my eye, I see Keanu's dim form turn to me.

"That's actually what I brought you up here to talk about."

I knew there had to be a reason. He wouldn't have asked to see me, even gone against his fiancée's wishes just to "catch up".

I turn to him. "You want to apologise?"

"No, I want to set the record straight." He bites his lip. "I never cheated on you."

My mouth falls open. After all these years, he dares to lie to me.

To think I loved this man. To think I had my heart set on marrying him, once.

I narrow my eyes. "What are you talking about? You and Lorraine—"

"Acacia, please listen." Keanu takes my hand.

I wrench it away. "I know what I saw!"

Tears burn in my eyes. It's like he's humiliating me all over again.

Nothing was worse than running out to the store and returning home to find my fiancé undressing my best friend in our kitchen. The three of us went everywhere together, but I was too stupid to see that I was the third wheel, not Lorraine.

Keanu must think I'm the same fool I was then.

"I'm not arguing with that," he says. "But there's a lot you didn't see."

I want to slap him, but I don't. I clench my fists so tightly that my nails cut into my palm. Still, it's less than the pain I have been carrying in my heart since the day I realised I lost Keanu.

I don't want to know what I didn't see, all the times he and Lorraine must've slept together in my bed, all the times they must've snuck a kiss, laughing at me behind my back.

"Acacia, hear me out." Keanu turns my face to his. When he looks at me like that, I can't refuse him, as pathetic as that is.

I sigh in resignation, looking down at the tiny tufts of grass peeking out of the sand.

Never again will I let Keanu Lucas see me cry.

"Lorraine came to our apartment that day looking for you. She wanted to try on her dress for the wedding and see what you thought. I told her you had just gone to pick up a few things at the store, but you'd be back soon. She went to put on the dress, but the zipper got stuck, and she panicked. That's when she came to me to help her. That's also when you came in and saw us."

Slowly, I raise my eyes to Keanu's. I search for any sign of dishonesty, any sign that there's not a word of his I can trust, but all I see is earnestness gleaming like a pond in the sunlight.

He's not lying.

A sickening feeling rises within me, squeezing my stomach, crushing my lungs.

Keanu never cheated on me.

I assumed the worst of him and cut him out of my life because of that. I let my greatest love go because of my insecurity and mistrust.

My mouth opens and closes wordlessly. My mind races with too many thoughts for me to comprehend, apologies, questions, emotions. How do I put my feelings into words? There's no term in the dictionary that can describe how I feel, I'm sure.

Keanu holds my gaze. "I loved you more than you can imagine. I would've never cheated on you."

He did love me, and it was greater than any I ever knew. It was in the kisses he used to wake me up on Monday mornings. It was in the flowers he used to leave for me in the kitchen on those days he left home while I was still asleep.

The truth was always there if I looked harder, if I wasn't so quick to judge.

People consoled me after what I thought I found out, saying I deserved better, but they were wrong. Keanu was the one who deserved better. I had thought the worst of him, and nothing could be further from the truth.

I shake my head. This can't be right. I can't be the villain in my own story.

My and Keanu's breakup shaped me as a person. It shaped my life after I left Colorado.

And it had all been a lie.

There was a reason why I assumed what I did when I walked in on my fiancé and my best friend.

"But you and Lorraine... you were such good friends that I sometimes wondered—"

"We were good friends because we were neighbours," he says. "But that's all we were."

I hug myself as I turn away from him, the only comfort there is to be found on an afternoon like this. My life is falling apart around me again. My hands grasp at it, but only sand slips through my fingers. Homes with shaky foundations never stand for long.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" I ask.

If Keanu had, this all could've been avoided.

I wouldn't have been so heartbroken I barely recognised my thoughts and feelings as mine. I wouldn't have spent years wondering what my life with Keanu would've been like because I would've been married to him. I would've lived the happily ever after I can only dream of now.

Keanu gives a wry smile. "You ran from us so quickly. You weren't answering my texts or my calls. Your friends and family refused to talk to me, even to take a message from me to you... and I don't blame them for thinking what you did."

I give him a sheepish smile. He was right. I never gave him the chance to explain.

I feel like the worst person on the planet. All these years, I've been blaming Keanu for hurting me, but I broke my own heart. Even worse, I broke his heart too.

"Keanu, I—"

"I should've fought for you harder." His shoulders sag. He looks down at my hand resting in his. His voice is heavy with wistfulness. "Instead I let you go. I think of you every day, you know. I wonder where you are and whether you're happy."

I hate seeing him sad. My fingers curl around his hand like vines refusing to surrender their chosen pillar. His palm is warm against mine, slightly rougher than I remember, but I wish I didn't have to let him go.

Keanu isn't married yet. The thought shines a reluctant beam of hope through my dense dismay. It's not too late to fix this. All I must do is be honest.

"I think of you too." My voice is scratchy, but I don't tell him what those thoughts are about.

I still smile to think of how messy his hair was when he woke up. I still think about how wonderful it had been to taste him the last thing before bed. I remember how full my heart felt when he spoke of the restaurant he would start, all grinning and glowing.

But memories are in the past for a reason.

Keanu cups my face in his hand. He's close enough to kiss me, but I know he won't.

He's not the lying, cheating bastard I thought he was. He's the best man I've ever met.

And he belongs to someone else now.

I pull my hand away from him before I forget that.

"I'm getting married on Saturday," Keanu says. "I'm glad we cleared this up before then."

"Me too," I lie.

How can Keanu be so at peace? Our conversation has only left me feeling worse than before, sickened by how I had messed up my own life by being too hasty and jumping to conclusions.

He has unburdened himself of the past, but now it's a weight I must bear.

It doesn't seem fair, but it's nothing less than I deserve.

There's a touch of sadness in Keanu's smile, but he pulls me into a hug. I press against him in a desperate bid to hold on to him, a climbing plant clinging to a trellis for support.