Chapter 1: The Cold Truth

They all say that Derek Gallagher loves me.

Their words settle on my shoulders, heavier than the February snow piled along Main Street curbs. I hear them at the grocery store, whispered behind hands, or muttered as I pick up the mail at the end of our icy driveway. In Silver Hollow, everyone thinks they know our story, and I’m supposed to smile and play my part.

After we married, we treated each other like we were just roommates—polite, distant, never really touching. We ate dinners at opposite ends of the table, exchanged half-hearted goodnights, and drifted through our days in quiet, separate rhythms. Sometimes I’d hear the TV flicker in the next room or his keys jangling as he left at dawn, and wonder if I even knew the man I’d promised forever to. The house echoed with forced politeness: his stiff nods, my faint smiles, the careful distance between us on our battered old couch. Like two tenants waiting for the lease to expire.

Until the day I discovered he’d been keeping his old flame—the woman he truly loved—on the side. Red-eyed, I confronted him.

There were hidden texts under a fake name, lipstick on his coat that wasn’t my color, and the lingering scent of someone else’s perfume in his truck. My hands shook as I held up the evidence, anger and heartbreak blurring together until I barely recognized my own voice.

He was more concerned with protecting her reputation than mine. So he had me locked in the guest room.

It wasn’t the lock itself that hurt most—it was knowing he chose her dignity over mine. He called the security guard—the same woman who sometimes nodded politely at me in the hall—and told her to make sure I stayed put. The humiliation burned deeper than the betrayal.

"You can go now."

A broomstick rapped against the door, sharp and urgent, echoing through the room.

I flinched, startled from restless sleep on the thin mattress. Dust motes spun in the shaft of winter sunlight leaking through the curtained window.

The security guard stood at the entrance, looking at me with open contempt.

Her uniform was crisp, badge gleaming. Her face had the wary, flat look of someone who’s seen too much family drama to care. Her words made it clear: she thought I deserved every second in that room.

She was just like everyone else out there.

They all whispered, and now she didn’t even bother to hide her judgment. To her, I was just another small-town scandal.

Deep down, she looked down on me—Mrs. Gallagher.

Her sneer said it all: poor little rich wife, can’t even keep her husband. I stared at her, defiance and shame battling in my chest.

I struggled to get up, and after a long moment, I realized: the me who’d died in a landslide had been given a second chance.

My limbs ached, slow from days curled up alone, but something shifted inside me. Was this a dream, or had I really been pulled from the dirt, fate hitting the reset button? The realization left me dizzy.

Just like before, Derek Gallagher was waiting for me outside the main gate.

The air stung my cheeks as I stepped out. There he was, hands jammed in his coat pockets, standing tall beneath the bare maple tree that always dropped its spiky seeds across the walkway. For a moment, it felt like stepping straight into an old memory—the kind that never quite leaves you.