Then, only a few weeks after the wedding, everything changed. Without a phone call, a note, or a goodbye, Mia packed her things and left town. One day she was part of my life, and the next she had vanished.
I was hurt, confused, and embarrassed that I didn’t seem to know her as well as I thought. I grieved her absence quietly, unsure whom to talk to about it.
Aaron tried to comfort me. He reminded me that friendships sometimes drift apart after major life changes, and that people occasionally need space they can’t explain. His steady presence made it easier to move forward, though not entirely. Some mornings I’d pick up my phone expecting a message from her, only to remember that she wasn’t in my life anymore.
As the years went by, the ache softened. I built routines, settled into married life, and allowed time to smooth over the questions I no longer had the energy to ask. Eventually I accepted that I might never know why she left.
Then, three years after she disappeared, she came back.
