To a Place He Can't Find

Instead of the apartment Cole had arranged, I went back to my old studio, the one I'd had before we were married.

Breathing in the familiar, dusty air of my old life, my mind drifted back to when I first met Cole.

I used to sketch designs in a little coffee shop, and one rainy day, Cole and his friends moved in down the street. It wasn't long before he started wandering over to my table to chat.

When he found out I loved jazz, he showed up at my doorstep with two front-row tickets to a sold-out show at an exclusive jazz club, knocking until I answered. I opened the door to find him leaning against the frame, a bright smile on his face.

Cole squeezed past me, waving the tickets. "Come on, let's go," he boasted smugly. "Be careful, the bassist there is heartbreakingly good."

My heart hammered as I took the tickets. He squeezed past me into the apartment, his face only turning red when he seemed to realize how close he'd gotten.

After that, I went to a university on the East Coast for further studies, while Cole expanded his finance business on the West Coast. We were long-distance, but every quarter, rain or shine, he would fly out to see me, two jazz club tickets in hand.

He’d tell me all about the bands, playfully grumbling about the expensive airfare, though his voice never held any genuine bite.

Dating felt natural, and soon after, we were married. He launched his own successful business, we moved into that penthouse, and the jazz clubs stopped. Instead, he would ask, puzzled, "Haven't you gotten tired of that noisy music after all these years?"

I had believed his love was real. But hearts change.

The sharp ding of a notification on my phone pulled me back to the present. I stared at the Instagram post from Chloe. Her slender shoulders were bare as Cole's head was buried in the crook of her neck, a luxury yacht blurred in the background. Her pale hand was clutching his back, her eyes half-closed in a look of pure intoxication.

I didn't have to guess what they were doing.

I rushed to the bathroom and dry-heaved until my stomach ached. After recovering, I immediately blocked Chloe.

Just then, a GIF of a designer sketching appeared on my phone, followed by a text from Rhys Covington. "What are you up to? I miss you."

Rhys was my senior project partner in college. I had been admitted to a top university with excellent grades, and at the beginning of the semester, the professor paired us up for a semester-long project.

Rhys was my partner. He had striking eyes and a sharp jawline, but the first look he gave me was so stern and unfriendly it sent a jolt of ice down my spine. My first instinct was to keep my distance.

For a long time, we didn't speak. During late nights in the design studio, I was so nervous about tiptoeing past him for water that I'd take the long way around to the fountain on the other side of the building.

That was, until one night I snuck out of the studio and slammed right into someone around the corner.

"Pfft!" I heard a soft laugh from above and looked up to see Rhys leaning against the wall, grinning at me.

Embarrassed and annoyed, I snapped, "How long have you been out here?"

"Just as you were tiptoeing out," he said, his voice slow and teasing. "I had a feeling you were going to walk into something. Guess my intuition was on point." He tilted his head, shrugged, and the grin on his face widened.

I was stunned. Suddenly, my partner didn't seem so intimidating.

After that, I started asking for his advice on design problems, and he would patiently guide me. When he realized how shaky my foundational knowledge was, he showed up the next day with a stack of professional theory books.

I looked at him, confused.

"Read these," he explained. "If there's anything you don't understand, just ask me."

I started buying him coffee to thank him for the extra tutoring, a small ritual that continued right up until graduation. Unsurprisingly, he was hired straight out of college by the Covington Group. Before we parted ways, he asked for my phone number.

But Rhys didn't text me after that. Not until a week ago, when he suddenly contacted me, asking, "How have you been lately?"

After my divorce from Cole was finalized, I was a crying mess. In my grief and confusion, I pressed the call button.

Rhys listened to me sob for half an hour without a single interruption, somehow piecing together the story of my divorce and Chloe's harassment from my broken words.

The sounds of boisterous laughter from the living room dragged me from my memories, back to that awful night. I remembered looking down at Rhys's text, at his simple question: Will you marry me? My reply had been just as simple. "I will."