Aaron hadn't been particularly worried when Keeley didn't text back for a few days; it had happened before. The life of a PhD student was demanding.

He flew back less than an hour after his meetings ended, barely catching his plane to be with her on Valentine's Day. He never imagined she wouldn't be home—no one was.

He was about to pound on Aiden's door to find her when an Instagram notification popped up. Keeley had posted a picture of pizza, tagging her location.

Perfect. He'd go meet her there.

The last thing Aaron expected was finding her laughing and eating with Ryan. He hadn't been gone long, and Ryan had already made his move.

He saw red. Fury overriding reason, Aaron approached their table and demanded to speak to Keeley outside. She remained relatively calm, soothing Ryan and promising to return shortly—which only infuriated him further.

He secretly hoped for a simple misunderstanding, perhaps a third friend was in the bathroom. He hadn't expected her to call it a date.

Aaron fully intended to whisk her away, even if she was angry with him, until she spoke words hauntingly familiar.

When you regret something, you tend to remember it vividly. After the police call, every word of his last conversation with his wife was etched in his brain.

Keeley had accused him, with shaking fists and tears streaming down her face, of covering up Lacy's involvement in her father's death.

It wasn't true, of course. He was feigning closeness to Lacy to gather incriminating evidence.

But what did he say instead of the truth? "So what if I am? She's worth more than fifty of you."

Cold. Cruel. Detached. Just like Keeley was now, which was completely unlike her.

He froze in shock as everything clicked. All the confusing aspects of her behavior finally made sense. If she knew those words… Keeley had been reborn, too.

No wonder she resisted his advances. No wonder she was so terrified of him. No wonder she ran away repeatedly. Keeley had every right to hate him if she remembered everything!

Aaron slumped against the wall, sliding to the cold, hard ground outside the restaurant, burying his face in his hands.

Everything made sense. How could he ever win her back after both what he did and what she thought he did? He ignored her, disrespected her choices and dreams, molded her into the perfect Mrs. Hale to avoid bullying but caused her to lose herself, and was responsible for the loss of their baby, her father, and ultimately, her life.

She died believing he hated her. Of course she hated him in return.

Then why had she softened toward him? What had changed? They had been doing so well for a while! And now they were back to square one because she was in love with someone else.

He had only himself to blame. When he thought he was getting a second chance with Keeley, he believed he had a clean slate; that she had no idea what he had done, so they could simply start over.

Knowing she remembered everything… how could they possibly move forward? He needed to think.

Aaron pulled himself up, got in his car, and drove aimlessly around the city, trying to figure out what to do next. He mentally reviewed what he knew.

Keeley had probably always wanted to be a geneticist but abandoned her dreams to marry him and become the perfect socialite wife, making him proud. After her rebirth, all she wanted was to achieve those dreams.

She tried to avoid him and Lacy because she believed they were complicit in her father's death. This explained every high school interaction perfectly.

[The promotional text for Novelfire has been removed as it is irrelevant to the passage.]

He remembered something like a bolt of lightning. The night she was drugged, she was talking to herself, saying it was his fault.

Of course. She must have known it was Lacy all along. It was his fault for putting her on Lacy's radar.

There was something else about that night that bothered him… what was it? Keeley said some strange things when she was disoriented.

The realization hit Aaron so hard he slammed on his brakes, causing the car behind him to honk. He pulled over to process it; it was too terrible. He felt nauseous.

Her glacier. She said her glacier didn't love her, didn't think she was good enough, and that he left her for an ocean. She sobbed and begged Aaron (thinking he was Neptune) not to throw her away, too.

Aaron had lied, telling Keeley he was going to be with Lacy and "their" baby to ensure her safety. He was the glacier; Lacy, the ocean.

Keeley's heart-wrenching questions that night—"Why don't you want me?" "Why do you always reject me?" "Why don't you love me?"—had been directed at him all along. She believed he had abandoned her, when nothing could have been further from the truth.

Oh, Keeley!

His heart shattered as he remembered everything she said while drugged. He broke down, his head on the steering wheel, crying for the first time since he originally lost her.