7
Maria had gone home for the holidays. Sarah
was supposed to be here, but she wasn’t.
Where else would she go?
The office group chat was blowing up, asking
him to send out the holiday bonuses. He was
annoyed.
く
After doing that, his admin sent over a leave
request. Mark was annoyed. Then, he saw the
resignation letter.
The name on the signature: Sarah Davis.
Mark stared at it in shock. When had he signed
off on her resignation? And how dare she just
quit?
He was furious. He tried calling her, but she’d
blocked him.
A break up from nowhere?
He thought about it, realizing that Sarah was
probably mad about the marriage thing.
She’s just throwing a tantrum, he told himself. It
meant she cared.
He calmed down. Fine. When she came back,
he wouldn’t complain if she ate her stinky
12:10
he wouldn’t complain if she ate her stinky
noodles in the house.
Oh, and she had a secret stash of her mom’s sauerkraut in the basement. He’d been a jerk
about it before, but now he would try to pretend it didn’t stink.
He started to smile, but the smile faded when
he opened the closet.
Half of it was empty.
He started to look around for her stuff. All of it
was gone.
Tom found him in a bar a week later, “Why are
you sitting here crying instead of looking for
her?”
“You’re pathetic!”
Mark was drunk, but still stubborn. “No, I’m not
on hand to hav Which 15 After all
く
going to go back to her. Why should I? After all
these years, she quits and ghosts me? Fine!
Good riddance!
“Good exes are like they’re dead! Sarah can
stay out there!”
Tom shook his head. “You’re a mess. I’m done
with you.”
That night, Mark started looking through
Sarah’s Twitter feed, a habit he didn’t have
before. He had started losing sleep, staying up
until dawn.
There was nothing new. Just old stuff. A photo
of him covered in flour. One of him wearing the
emerald ring. Lots of photos of him sleeping.
The comments were from people he didn’t
know.
[She really loves him.]
[Look at the way he looks at her.]
[It’s all about love.]
He never knew he was that way in her eyes. He
thought she didn’t care, since she never said
those things.
Fine. He told himself. If she didn’t give him a
way back, he’d make one for himself.
But, fate had other plans. Just when he was
about to look for her, a local news story came
out. They’d found a woman’s body in the river.
In peaceful times, this news went viral fast. He
heard people talking about it at work.
He clicked on the article. He was about to
leave, but then he saw the coat.
Sarah always prepared her clothes for the next
day. The night before the party, he had seen
く
that coat.
Mark had to sit down. He knew that he couldn’t
drive. He called Tom, who drove them to the
morgue.
There were cops and other people who were
there to identify the bodies.
He saw the coat, dirty and smelly, and his heart
constricted. He could not move.
They said the body was badly damaged. A DNA
test was the only way to identify the body.
Tom got someone to get a hair sample from
Sarah’s place.
Mark didn’t leave the morgue. He waited for the
results.
The sun rose the next day, Tom noticed that his
friend had gone gray.
<
“Dude, you went gray.”
Mark looked up at him, took out a cigarette,
and stepped on it. He said, “What were the
results?”
He almost passed out. Tom caught him, and got
him to sit down.
A person came out and said, “The DNA results
for Sarah Davis are ready. Where are the
relatives?”
Mark grabbed the chair with both hands.
