“MY WIFE DISAPPEARED RIGHT AFTER OUR WEDDING—10 YEARS LATER, SHE SHOWED UP AGAIN, BEGGING FOR HELP”
I still remember the way she looked that day—lace dress glowing in the afternoon sun, her laugh echoing across the reception hall like music. Melanie. My wife. My everything.
And then… gone.
No note. No call. Not even a text. Just… disappeared. The morning after our wedding, her side of the bed was empty. Her phone was off. Her belongings? Still there. It was like she’d evaporated.
I filed a missing person report. I searched. I called her family, friends, coworkers. No one had heard a thing. After a year, people stopped asking. After three, they stopped pitying me. After five… I stopped hoping.
Ten years passed.
And then—this past Saturday—I was sitting on my porch, sipping lukewarm coffee and watching the neighbor’s dog try to eat a plastic flamingo. Just another quiet day.
Until a dusty silver car pulled up and parked in my driveway.
I froze.
I knew that car. My breath caught.
The door opened… and out stepped Melanie.
Older. Thinner. Hair tied back in a messy braid. But it was her.
I stood up, heart hammering.
“YOU?! HERE?! WHAT DO YOU—”
She ran to me, eyes wide and wild.
“Jake… I need your help! I’m begging you!”
I stared at her, every muscle in my body locked in confusion and disbelief.
She looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks. There were bruises on her arm. Her hands shook as she gripped mine.
“Melanie… what the hell happened to you?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I didn’t leave you. I was taken.”
“What?”
She glanced around like someone might be watching. “That night… after the reception… I went outside to take a call. I never came back in.”
I shook my head, trying to process. “We thought… I thought you ran. Everyone thought—”
“I know. I tried. Jake, I tried to escape so many times. But he always found me. Until now.”
I stepped back. “He?”
Her voice cracked. “His name is Victor. He said he was an old friend of my dad’s. He drugged me. Kept me hidden. I don’t even know where I was half the time. And now… now he’s after me again. He knows I’m here.”
I wanted to scream. To cry. To hug her. To ask a million questions. But I saw the fear in her eyes. Real fear.
I opened the front door.
“Get inside.”
She collapsed into my arms.
And just like that, the past came crashing back—but so did something else.
A fight. For answers. For justice.
And maybe… for a second chance.