I met Jake when I was seventeen and at eighteen, I became his wife. The years that followed were enchanted, like a fairy tale romance.

Then, in the blink of an eye, my perfect world unraveled—I lost a part of myself and my dreams shattered around me.

At twenty-five, I was left a widow, pregnant, and mother of two.

Fast forward almost five years—I exist, but I don’t “live.” I had to learn to live without him, with only our memories and my tears. I raised our children, and I lived his dream, without a thought to myself.

That is, until the day at the stoplight, when a pair of violet eyes stared back at me. In that moment, the numbness started to disappear, and lightning hit, changing my world once again.