A Breakup to End All Breakups

For five years, a lawyer in Westerbay has watched his girlfriend, Rachel Meyers, cancel their wedding again and again. Each time, her intern, Ethan Cole, needs her, and each time she leaves. The fifty-second attempt ends the same way: she drives Ethan to the hospital while the guests wait. This time, the groom does not argue. He cuts up the suit he has worn fifty-two times and agrees to return with his parents to Elbridge, where they run the city's largest law firm and where he once meant to build his career.

He tells no one his plans. At the office he hands in his resignation, and his manager, Harrison Graham, tries to talk him out of it. Rachel assumes he is sulking and promises dinner at Moonlight Bistro, then drops everything when Ethan appears at the door with a case file. The marks on her neck and the citrus scent tell their own story, and she offers an excuse he no longer believes.

He has already stopped explaining himself, and the distance between them is now something she cannot cross.