Chapter 3: Ghosts and Goodbyes

I met Gavin through a hiking club one bright spring morning. The air was sharp with pine and new grass, and all I wanted was to lose myself on the trails, away from my spreadsheets and late-night emails.

Back then, my life was a cycle of 80-hour workweeks, climbing the tech ladder, ordering takeout at midnight, and counting down the days till Saturday’s hike. Nature was my only reset button.

Gavin joined the club my second year. He was just another face at first—a guy with a buzz cut and an REI backpack. But we kept finding ourselves at the front of the pack, always reaching the summit together, breathing hard, grinning at the sky.

He worked in finance; I worked in tech. He loved sports and hiking. So did I. We swapped stories about getting lost on the Appalachian Trail and eating too many s’mores by the campfire.

So when we hit our hundredth mountain together—sweaty, muddy, the air full of birdsong—he turned to me, no grand gesture, and said, "Natalie, let’s date."

No ring hidden in a cupcake, no skywriting—just that. And honestly, it was what I needed. My dad had chased my mom with wild declarations—setting off fireworks across half of Kansas City, getting arrested for disturbing the peace. But that didn’t stop him from being obsessed with having a son after marriage, making my mom choke down herbal supplements for years, until it finally cost her her life in childbirth.

So for me, romance and novelty were overrated. What I wanted was solid ground.

And Gavin was steady, like a good pair of boots. Never late for a date. Gifts were simple but never forgotten. He wouldn’t drive across town in a rainstorm without being asked, but whenever I called, he showed up. Quiet reliability—nothing flashy, but real.

In our third year together, we got married. No drama, no spectacle. Just a small church with our friends and a barbecue at my aunt’s afterward.

Life after marriage rolled on much like before. I cooked, he washed the dishes. I shopped for groceries, he hustled home early to make dinner on Fridays. We argued about laundry and bills but always ended up sharing ice cream on the couch by midnight.

Those easy, uneventful days lulled me into believing Gavin was the perfect partner. Until three years ago, when he took me to a college friend’s wedding out in Columbus.

At the bachelor party, Gavin’s buddy—already several beers in—clung to him, voice thick with tears and whiskey:

"Bro, you used to light up a room. Now you’re just... I dunno, man. If Jenna hadn’t gone overseas, maybe you wouldn’t be so closed off."

Gavin’s eyes darted to me across the table, panic flaring up for just a second. "Don’t listen to him, he’s drunk."

I just smiled, cool and unbothered, and said nothing. But on the drive home, with Ohio cornfields flashing by, I said softly, "Gavin, I have a lot of flaws, but I’m good at cutting off feelings quickly."

He stood in the hallway shadows when we got home, his face unreadable in the dark. After that, Jenna Young disappeared from our conversations, our phones, our lives.

Until now.