Chapter 3
While I was finding my way across America, Preston was losing his in the home we once shared.
At least that's what Ashley told me during our first phone call, three months after I'd disappeared through that bedroom window. I'd finally worked up the courage to call her from a gas station payphone in Nevada, my hands trembling as I fed quarters into the slot.
"Jess? Oh my God, is that really you?" Her voice broke on the other end of the line. "Where are you? Are you okay? Everyone's been worried sick!"
"I'm okay," I said, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. "I just... I needed to get away."
"Preston's gone absolutely crazy looking for you," Ashley said, lowering her voice. "He hired private investigators, he's been calling hospitals, police stations—he even showed up at my apartment at three in the morning demanding to know if I was hiding you."
I closed my eyes, leaning against the grimy wall of the phone booth. "And Bella?"
"He kicked her out that same night. Apparently, there was a huge scene after you left. He completely lost it, smashed a bunch of stuff. Neighbors called the police."
The news should have given me some satisfaction, but I felt nothing. Just a hollow emptiness where my heart used to be.
"Jess," Ashley's voice grew serious. "Are you ever coming back?"
I watched a family pull up to the gas pump—a mother, father, and two small children laughing in the backseat. Once, I thought that would be my future with Preston. Now I couldn't imagine it anymore.
"I don't know," I answered honestly. "Not yet."
* * *
Six months after leaving my old life behind, I found myself in a small mountain town in Colorado. The air was thin and crisp, the mountains standing sentinel against the vast blue sky. I'd taken a job at a local café called The Ponderosa, serving coffee and homemade pies to hikers and locals.
My tiny rented cabin sat at the edge of town, just large enough for a bed, a small kitchen, and a porch where I could watch the sunset paint the mountains gold each evening. For the first time since that night, I felt like I could breathe again.
"You're reading Austen again," remarked Ellie, the café owner, as she wiped down the counter next to where I sat during my break. "You must have read that book three times since you got here."
I smiled, running my fingers over the worn cover of Pride and Prejudice. I'd found it in a secondhand bookshop in town, and something about Elizabeth Bennet's spirit had called to me. I'd stopped reading during my last year with Preston—he'd always considered it a waste of time. Now, rediscovering these old friends felt like finding pieces of myself I'd lost along the way.
"I used to read all the time," I admitted. "I'd forgotten how much I loved it."
"Well, honey, seems to me you're remembering all sorts of things about yourself these days."
She wasn't wrong. In this small town where nobody knew me as Preston Taylor's fiancée, I was discovering who Jessica Miller actually was. I'd started hiking on my days off, feeling my body grow stronger with each trail I conquered. I'd joined a local pottery class, enjoying the feel of clay taking shape beneath my hands. Small things, perhaps, but they were mine.
That evening, as I sat on my porch watching the alpenglow on the distant peaks, my disposable phone rang. Only Ashley had this number.
"He's looking for you in all the wrong places," she said without preamble. "The investigators are focusing on the East Coast. They think you might have gone back to your hometown."
"How's his business doing?" I asked, not sure why I cared.
"That's the strange thing. Taylor Enterprises is booming. He's closed three major deals in the last month alone. But people say he looks terrible—doesn't sleep, barely eats. He's throwing himself into work like a man possessed."
I pictured Preston in his office, tie loosened, eyes bloodshot as he pored over contracts late into the night. Once, I would have brought him coffee, massaged his shoulders, coaxed him to bed. Now, someone else would have to pick up those pieces—if there was anyone left who cared enough to try.
"Let him look," I said softly, watching as the first stars appeared above the mountains. "I'm not ready to be found."
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