“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I can’t do this.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I have to leave.”
“Leave where?”
“Away.”
I actually laughed because it sounded so absurd.
“Richard, stop joking.”
“I’m not joking.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t explain.”
“Then explain.”
Silence.
“I love you.”
“Richard…”
“I always will.”
The line went dead.
He never answered another phone call.
By graduation, he’d vanished so completely that even mutual friends had no idea where he’d gone.
For years, I wondered what I’d done wrong.
Eventually, I stopped asking. Life moved forward.
I married.
Raised Stormy.
Built a good life.
Yet every now and then, usually on quiet train rides through the city, I’d catch sight of someone with dark curls and instinctively look twice.
Not because I expected to find Richard, but because some part of me had never completely stopped looking.
Friday arrived far too quickly.
Stormy rearranged the flowers twice and changed sweaters three times before the doorbell rang.
I smiled.
“I think the poor boy will survive.”
She laughed.
“I hope so.”
At exactly six o’clock, the doorbell rang.
Stormy beat me to the front door. I stayed in the kitchen long enough to hear her laugh before walking into the hallway.
