Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, rape, illness, and substance use.

The Prologue depicts an unidentified narrator committing murder. They have never done anything so shameful before and can hardly believe that they’re taking someone’s life now. Tears follow, but the narrator finds comfort in remembering that there was a good reason for the crime: It was the only way. The reason for the murder and the identity of the victim aren’t revealed.

Tegan Werner lives in a run-down apartment in a small town in Maine and works at the local grocery store. She’s almost eight months pregnant, suffers from sciatica pain, is too poor to live in a safe area, and feels like things in her life are as bad as they can get. On a freezing night in December, she gets home to find Jackson Bruckner waiting for her. He’s an attorney and is there to discuss business with her—business that’s about to make her incredibly rich, thanks to the baby she’s carrying.

Tegan is 23, unmarried, and saving money to go to nursing school. She got pregnant from a one-night stand that she can barely remember and only recently learned who the father is.