torn between hearts

Prologue They say you never forget your first love. But what they don’t tell you is that sometimes, you can fall for two people at once—both of them wearing masks that hide the truth from you. It started with him—Asher. The new student. Mysterious, calm, with a charm that made everything around him seem to fade when he walked into the room. But it wasn’t just his good looks or the way his voice seemed to pull me in. It was the way he looked at me, like there was something about me he recognized—something no one else did. Every time he met my gaze, I felt it—this pull, this strange sense of familiarity, as if I had known him for longer than just a few weeks. As if we had shared a moment in time that I couldn’t remember, but could feel deep inside me. Something unfinished. Something lost. I thought he was exactly what I needed. He was everything I had been searching for. But the more I got to know him, the more complicated everything became. Then there was Ryder Blackwood. He wasn’t new. He was always there—my childhood family friend, the one my family expected me to marry. A promise made long ago by our grandmothers, a wish on their deathbeds that we would one day unite. I didn’t want to marry him. Not when my heart was already taken by Asher. But Ryder was the one who was there. The one who had been my constant, my protector in a world that often felt too big. He was my family’s choice, even though I had never truly seen him in that way. I couldn’t explain it, but something about Ryder’s presence made me feel… safe. Secure. He was always there, watching over me, caring for me in his own way. But it wasn’t enough. Not when I was in love with someone else. When I married Ryder, it was because I had no choice. It was the promise I had to fulfill, even though my heart had already chosen Asher. Even though I was convinced he was the one I was meant to be with. But Asher disappeared. After the wedding, he was gone. And I was left with a man I didn’t recognize—not in the way I thought I would. Ryder was now my husband, but he wasn’t the man I thought I knew. The man I had fallen for never even gave me a chance to truly understand him. Now, I am here, a wife to a man who doesn’t feel like the man I thought I knew. My heart aches for the love I lost, for the boy who left me just when I needed him the most. But even as I sit here, with the weight of a promise I never made and a heart that’s been broken too many times, I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. That something is hidden from me. Ryder is hiding something. And maybe, just maybe, Asher hasn’t truly left. Love is never as simple as it seems. It’s complicated. It’s painful. It tears you apart, piece by piece, until you’re left questioning everything. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the answers I’m searching for. But I’m starting to believe that maybe I’m not meant to. ---