Page 1 of Erik's Redemption
PROLOGUE
Everyone will break at some point. Their pieces will pull apart like little fragments of destruction. The tragedy will cause damage for the world to see and make one wonder if they’ll ever be whole again.
But after the shatter comes a choice, and that choice will decide everything—set the pieces back together or remain broken.
Choose restoration. Because there’s a beauty in survival and the strength that comes from it.
No scar is ugly. Because each one is a sign of those who choose life.
CHAPTER 1
“So he just left?”
Hannah swallowed as she wrapped her fingers around her lavender oat milk latte. This drink had become the highlight of her day. Heck, it had pretty much been the highlight of every day for the last month.
She took a breath before finally looking across the booth at her friends and answering Henry’s question. “Yeah. At some point in the middle of last night, he left. Just like the night before. And just like the night before that. He comes to bed late and leaves before I wake up. He’s avoiding me and I have no idea why.”
Pain lanced across her chest, twisting her insides. The words hurt even more out loud than they did in her head. And there wasn’t just pain, there was panic. Panic that she’d come to love Erik,relyon him, and maybe this was it. Maybe this was their relationship fizzling out.
Brigid reached across the table and covered her hand. “Hey. I can see what you’re thinking. Stop. He loves you. And I’m not saying that because of the ridiculous amount of money he’s spent on your car or your Apple watch or your type 1 devices. Isay it because of the way helooksat you, like the very thought of being apart destroys something inside him.”
“I want that to be true, but since my twenty-fourth birthday, I barely see him, and that’s his doing. He’s just been…off.”
So for a month, she’d lived with a man, slept with a man, she hardly saw. A man who maybe even regretted committing to her.
Her chest squeezed.
“No. Don’t do that.”
Her gaze flew up at Henry’s words. “Don’t do what?” Were her friends mind readers?
“Assume he doesn’t love you. That you’re some kind of mistake. You’re not.” Henry leaned forward. “The man is obsessed with you.”
“Then why did things change?”
Tears pricked at her eyes, and she desperately blinked them away. Crying didn’t solve anything. She hadn’t shed a single tear since things had shifted between her and Erik. This entire time, she’d kept the hope that things would go back to how they were.
“Han.” Brigid’s fingers tightened around her hand. “Talk to him.”
“I’ve tried. He’s so closed off and gives me these half answers. I don’t know what to do anymore.” She sucked in a deep, settling breath. She needed to calm down because stress always made her blood sugars go crazy. “Talk to me about something else. Take my mind off things. Henry, how’s this new guy in your life, and when do we get to meet him?”
Henry had met someone in a bar a few weeks ago and hadn’t been able to stop talking about him since.
A slow smile quirked Henry’s mouth. “Well, I gave him a key to my town house.”
Brigid reared back and gasped. “What? When?”
“Last night.”
Hannah shook her head. “Wait, how long have you two been dating?”
“If we count it from the night we met, which we probably should, then fifteen days.”
Hannah opened and closed her mouth. She didn’t have words. Henry’s relationships were the definition of slow burn. He’d once dumped a boyfriend because the poor guy had given him a key to his place aftersix monthsof dating.
“You must really like him,” she finally said, and took a sip of her latte.
“I do.”
