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PROLOGUE

Amanda

“Why isn’t he answering?!” I am the perfectly broken picture of an ugly-crying train wreck as I throw my phone across the room. I swore I’d never be this girl. This pathetic mess of heartbreak. I’d never do it again. Then Jamie Henderson walked into my life, melted my walls, and made me believe I was worth something. Worth everything.

Mackenzie sweeps some hair from my face. “Maybe he had something with the team.”

“No,” I rasp. “The game was over hours ago. And even if he went out with the team, that’s no excuse for him not answering.”

I look around the room at my best friends. The women who chose me when I felt like I wasn’t worth choosing. Mackenzie, Hyla, Rae, Sarah, and Chelsea. All five of them stopped what they were doing and surrounded me with love the second I needed them. Of course they’re here. Ride or die. We always show up for each other.

But as much as I love them, they aren’t the ones I need right now .

Everything is spiraling out of control, and it’s supposed to be Jamie who’s walking through this with me.

This can’t be happening .

Not now. Not like this.

More tears stain my cheeks as my best friends move in closer, forming a circle of love around me.

“He promised he’d always show up when I needed him,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around myself.

But that was before.

Before he achieved his dream. Before he was a major league baseball player.

He convinced me I was his dream too.

And maybe I was until he got what he really wanted.

Maybe I was an idiot to believe there was room for me and baseball in his life.

Maybe I was a desperate, pathetic girl for believing I meant more than the game he built his life around.

I know I’m desperate now because all I want to do is call him again. I want to believe I’m not in this alone.

“Oh, shit,” Hyla mutters, blinking at her phone.

“What?” I ask, my chest tightening. Panic overtakes me. What if he was in a car accident? What if he’s dead?

Oh God.

“Is he okay?” I cry.

“He’s… okay.”

Hyla glances at Chelsea, who looks at the screen and bites her lip.

“Just tell me!” I yell.

Slowly, Hyla crawls over to me, taking my hand as she flips her phone screen toward me.

My blood runs cold, and I’m hit with a new level of agony as my world crashes around me.