Images flash in front of my eyes, figures in the floral swimsuits of the season and faces in glittery spring-themed makeup that looks more garish than fresh. I turn the pages of the magazine too quickly to notice the finer details, too quickly to care. My mind is somewhere else.

It's a beautiful day, but it feels like a mockery. The primroses bloom a deep pink, a splash of colour in the green garden. It's bright like hope, but it gives me nothing of the sort. The sun beams down at me, too radiant to care that it's at odds with the thunderstorm of feelings inside me.

Ellery comes out onto the porch, her arms empty of her son for the first time since I arrived in Colorado.

With her long chestnut hair and round forget-me-not blue eyes, she's nearly identical to me. I suppose our lives should've been identical too.

I should've also married my high school love, maybe had a kid or two by now, but my life is very different from Ellery's, marred by my actions of the past.

I sniffle at the thought.

Ellery takes the sun lounger beside mine, frowning as she studies my face. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." I keep flipping through the magazine, hoping for something to catch my attention and relieve me of my misery for a little while, but there's nothing.

"No, you're not." Ellery grabs the magazine quicker than I can snatch it back. She holds it out of my reach. "I knew you shouldn't have met up with Keanu. You've been down since you saw him yesterday."

I sigh. It's almost a day since I saw Keanu, but I don't feel any better about what he told me, only worse if such a thing was possible.

The pain and anger and sadness I've been carrying around all these years have directed themselves to the person who is to blame for them: myself.

My mind has been a warzone since yesterday. Nothing I do leads to a truce, not watching Netflix with Ellery or introducing Ryan to the flowers in the garden.

Now that Ellery has taken my magazine, my hands have nothing to distract themselves with, so they fidget with the hem of my t-shirt instead.

"Acacia..." Ellery sighs, setting my magazine on the ground beside her. "I know it was hard for you to hear that Keanu is getting married, but he doesn't deserve you after what he did. You know that, right?"

"That's the thing, El." I raise my eyes to hers. "Keanu never cheated on me."

"What?" Her eyes go round. "But you saw him taking Lorraine's dress off!"

I look away from her, beyond my feet lying on the sun lounger to the manicured grass beyond it and the honeysuckle climbing the pergola on the far side of the garden.

"I saw Keanu with his fingers on the zipper. Yesterday, he told me it got stuck, and he was helping Lorraine with it when I came in."

The world goes a little fuzzy as I say that. It seemed like a lie or a prank the first time I heard it, but now it sounds like a dream.

If only there was some way to wake up from this situation I've gotten myself into.

Ellery shakes her head. Her eyes settle on the glittering swimming pool. Streams of water rush down from the little waterfall built beside it, creating ripples that wrinkle the water's surface.

"Keanu must be lying to save face before his wedding."

"He wouldn't lie," I say.

Ellery turns to me, her eyes wide and incredulous. "But why would he bring this up now? It happened almost a decade ago!"

Thinking about it like that reminds me how old I am. It feels like weeks ago, maybe months, but I know it's much longer from the sadness that has worn down my soul.

My heart softens as it always does at the thought of Keanu. "He said he wanted to make peace with me before he got married."

I wouldn't expect anything different from him. He was always a good man. He wouldn't want this lie to follow him into his new life.

He's really leaving me behind for good. I wish I had the strength to do the same to him. 

Ellery goes quiet, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger the way she does when she's remembering something.

"What is it?" 

Her eyes mist over. "I remember Keanu telling me that... you had just left. He came by my house frantically looking for you. He started talking about the zipper that had gotten stuck, but I told him to get lost. I was just as mad about the whole thing as you were."

"I remember." I can't help a wry smile at that.

I'm silent when I'm angry. Ellery is the complete opposite.

She yells. Sometimes she throws things. I never thought it possible that someone as short as she is can be terrifying, but fury turns her into a vicious ball of angry energy.

I'm Ellery's sister, and I wouldn't mess with her when she's in a mood. No wonder Keanu didn't pursue me further. All the same, I wish he had.

"I refused to pass Keanu's message onto you or tell him where you went." Ellery leans forward, resting her head in her hands. "But I should've." She looks up at me, her eyes heavy with guilt. "He wouldn't maintain the same lie for so many years."

I've been holding onto a hope that Keanu was lying. It would be easier to believe that than know that he had never hurt me, and what broke us up was a misunderstanding that only cleared itself up too late.

With Ellery's words, that hope sputters out, because she's right. They say the truth is easier to remember than a lie. There's no doubt which Keanu would recall better after nine years.

"There's no reason for him to bring this up now unless he wanted to clear his conscience. He can't have an ulterior motive like getting me back." I shake my head. "He's happy with his fiancée."

As much as it saddens me to say that, I can't deny that it's the truth. I know what Keanu looks like when he's happy. After all, he was happy with me once.

It's in the way he glows, the way he grins, even the way he walks, holding his shoulders upright while his feet pass lightly over the ground.

It's not a lightness I've known for many years. I envy him for it, but I can't begrudge him. Nobody deserves happiness more than he does after what I put him through.

Ellery looks down. "I'm so sorry, Acacia. I know how much you've missed him, and if I'd only listened—"

I take her small hand. "This isn't your fault. It's mine. I'm the one who should've listened to him before jumping to conclusions."

In all the years he, Lorraine and I were friends, they never gave me any reason not to trust them. I made connections that didn't exist in the heat of my humiliation after I walked in on them.

I wish I hadn't let my feelings control me. I wish I had slowed down and given Keanu and Lorraine time to explain.

It would've saved me from years of pain. It would've kept our bonds intact.

Ellery grasps both my hands in hers. "You shouldn't blame yourself either. Anyone would've thought the same thing as you in that situation."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." Tears well in my eyes.

I didn't deserve Keanu. I didn't deserve his love or his loyalty. That's why life conspired to take him away from me.

"Oh, Acacia." Ellery draws me to her as the first sob escapes my lips.

"I love him, El." The words coming out of my mouth are so distorted by my tears that they don't even sound like words anymore. "All these years, I've never wanted to be with anyone but him. I don't want him to marry someone else."

We had everything planned.

We talked about how many kids we were going to have, even discussed names. I liked the ones inspired by flowers, but Keanu had preferred those that came from the sea. Eventually, we reached a compromise: we'd take turns naming our children.

We talked about where we were going to retire. We were going to go to Hawaii. It was Keanu's home, and I knew that it would be mine too as long as he was beside me.

It's like my watching my dreams fall apart again, petals torn off by a rough wind.

I sob against Ellery's shoulder. It was me Keanu should be marrying, me he would've married if I hadn't ruined it. I only cry harder at the thought.

Keanu has moved on with his life, and I don't have any choice about it.

"There there," Ellery murmurs, stroking my head as I've seen her do to her son many times.

I withdraw from her, dragging my hands over my eyes. I'm a grown woman, not a baby, and I will not cry like one.

"Feeling better?" Ellery pushes some of my hair behind my ear.

I hiccough. "A little."

Crying releases emotions, but it doesn't take away the problem.

Keanu's confession may have put him at peace, but it has only sent me spiralling in devastation, in confusion.

I'm sure there's still a part of him that loves me. When we bumped into each other on the street, it was as if his fiancée didn't exist to either of us.

It has been nine years since we last spoke. Keanu wedding is set for this weekend. As far as I can tell, he has no intention of changing that.

I don't want to let Keanu go as I did before, but he isn't mine to let go. Looking past the awkwardness between us, the spark is still there, but would winning him back be as simple as that?

I can fight for him like I should've in the first place, or I can accept defeat. The longer I think about it, the more uncertain I become about which to choose.

"What should I do?" I look at Ellery through my blurry eyes.

My tears have traced hot, salty paths down to my mouth.

My sister smiles gently. "Only you know. Listen to your heart."

At that moment, Ryan's cry fractures the tranquil suburban atmosphere. Ellery squeezes my knee before jumping to her feet to answer her baby's call.

I watch her leave, wishing she could stay so that her rational mind could stop my reckless feelings from leading me astray again.

How can I listen to my heart when it doesn't talk? Ellery's advice is cliché, like a mantra her favourite chick-lit heroine would live by, but as she disappears inside the glass door, I realise her words helped.

I do know what I need to do.