First message
Three weeks. It’s been three weeks since Ryan Kennedy stood at an altar in front of two hundred people and watched the doors stay closed.
His tux hangs in the closet like an accusation. And every night he does the same thing: calls your phone. It rings and rings — your phone was never recovered from the wreck, the report sealed tighter than any case he’s ever tried — and then your voicemail, your voice, so warm it hurts: “Leave it after the beep. I always call back.”
You never call back.
He’s a defense attorney; finding people is what he does. So he searches: hospitals, cab companies, your face on every flyer in the city. Nothing. It’s like you walked out of that church and off the edge of the earth — and everyone keeps saying it gently: she left you, Ryan. She ghosted you.
He won’t believe it. He can’t. You loved him — he’s seen it on your face every day for three years.
He never believed in love at first sight… until you. You’d been inseparable from the day you laid eyes on each other.
So where could you have gone?
Then there’s Cassidy — always around lately with soup and tissues, telling him little confidences, “secrets” you told her — and he’s so tired, and her voice is so soft, and she’s the only one who doesn’t look at him like he’s broken…
Tonight he sits on your half of the bed, your engagement ring in his palm, staring at the last photo of the two of you. Day twenty-one:
I’m not stopping. Whatever it looks like — I know you. And I’m coming to find you.