A Heartbeat Away

At seventeen, Hannah saved for a whole year to buy Ethan Vance a birthday gift, only to hear him mock it and toss it to a friend. Humiliated, she threw the watch into a trash can and walked away, meeting his mocking eyes. That same day, her mother's breast cancer diagnosis shattered her family, and her father, disabled and devoted, could not bear the cost. Hannah decided to quit school and work in the city to pay for treatment.

Returning to school in the rain to retrieve the watch, she found it gone. Then came the news that her parents had jumped into the river, leaving her an orphan at eighteen. Eight years later, she still wakes at 4 a.m. calling for them, carrying moderate depression and dreams of Ethan's scornful smile asking if she has no shame.

When a class reunion draws her back, she finds Ethan Vance has been looking for her for eight years, though classmates insist it is only to apologize. Hannah must face the boy she once loved and the mockery that became her nightmare.