It had been three years since Lucy’s divorce, and she hadn’t been on a single meaningful date. What is wrong with me? she wondered. She was thirty-five; the years were slipping away, and happiness seemed like a ghost she couldn’t catch. She looked out the window at the passing traffic, thinking about how a woman’s “shelf life” felt so cruelly short. She wasn’t the girl she used to be. Fine lines were etching themselves around her eyes, and her waistline had softened. Lucy had never been thin, but now, given her petite height, she had settled into a soft, round curves.
Maybe it was time to listen to her friend Katie and try her luck on a dating app. Their town was small—barely eighty thousand people. Once you filtered out the seniors, the kids, and the women, there wasn’t much left. Subtract the married men, the drunks, and the deadbeats, and the pool was more of a puddle. But the internet? That was the whole country. Maybe my soulmate is a thousand miles away, and an app is the only way we’ll ever meet, Lucy thought.
She didn’t want to overthink it, so she pulled up her laptop and signed up.
The registration was simple. She picked her most flattering photo and hit search. Almost immediately, the notifications started rolling in, as if a crowd had been standing by just waiting for her profile to go live.
But as Lucy scrolled through the messages, her heart sank. It was a deluge of creeps, weirdos, and guys looking for nothing more than a one-night stand. She fired off a few angry replies, slammed the laptop shut, and went to bed fuming.
The next day at the hair salon where she worked, Lucy told Katie that her advice was useless and that the apps were nothing but a digital gutter.
— Just give it a few days, Kate said, snipping away at a customer’s hair. — The bottom-feeders will clear out, and maybe someone decent will reach out.
— I don’t know, Kate. I’m just not buying it, Lucy sighed.
That evening, Lucy reluctantly opened the app again. There were more junk messages, but one caught her eye.
The profile picture showed a handsome man. She clicked. His name was Ryan, he was thirty—five years younger than her, sure, but that wasn’t a dealbreaker. She started mentally listing couples she knew where the wife was older. She counted two. They make it work, she thought. It’s not a big deal.
He had written:
“Hey, I saw your profile and I felt like I had to reach out. I’m just as lonely as you look in your bio, and I’ve been searching for the right woman to start a life with. It seems like everyone just wants something casual these days, but I’m looking for the real deal—once and for all. Your photo really struck me. You’re beautiful, and I’d love to get to know you better. I’ll be anxious until I hear back. Hope to talk soon.”
Maybe this is it, Lucy thought. With a surge of hope, she began to type.
The messages became a daily ritual. Ryan told her he was working a long-term rotation on an oil rig in a remote part of North Dakota. He wouldn’t be able to meet her in person for another three months until his shift ended. He told her how much he was looking forward to finally holding her.
Lucy was on cloud titles. She lived for his calls and texts, floating through her days on a high of digital romance. Every night before sleep, she re-read his messages, a smile fixed on her face as she drifted off.
A month passed. Then, suddenly, the silence fell. No calls, no texts. Lucy tried calling, but his phone was disconnected. She messaged him on the app; she could see he had read them, but there was no reply.
She spiraled into a panic. How could he just vanish? They had shared so many dreams, planned out years of their lives together. Why would he throw it all away? He had told her his work site was strictly men—even the cook was a guy—so it couldn’t be another woman. She was lost in a maze of “what ifs.”
Five days later, a long message finally popped up on her screen.
“Lucy, my love. I didn’t want to write to you again, but I couldn’t stop myself. I love you. I see you in my dreams every night. I can’t breathe without our connection; just hearing your voice is the only thing that keeps me going. But before you read further, you have to decide if you can ever forgive me. I lied to you. I’m not on an oil rig. I’m in the state penitentiary. I have three years left on my sentence, and I didn’t want to ruin your life by making you wait. Forgive me for the lies and the broken dreams. Why would you want an inmate, even one who was set up by a friend? I love you. Goodbye.”
Lucy read the message and sobbed. Her heart broke for him. She didn’t want to live without him, and three years didn’t seem so long—she had already been alone for three. She could do another three if it meant having him at the end of it.
She wrote back immediately, promising to wait. She told him she wouldn’t abandon him no matter what.
The communication resumed. It turned out Ryan was in a facility only a few hours away. They could have short visits, and he asked if she could bring a few “essentials” that were hard to come by inside.
A month later, Lucy was at the bus station with heavy bags, heading for their first face-to-face. She had spent nearly her entire paycheck on things he needed, but she didn’t regret a cent.
The visit went well. Ryan was tender and charming. He told her she was even more beautiful in person and lamented the fact that he couldn’t reach across the partition to hold her.
When Lucy returned home late that night, she was glowing from the meeting but aching from the goodbye.
Not long after, Ryan proposed. He pointed out that if they were married, they could qualify for extended family visits, and it would look better for his parole board. Lucy didn’t hesitate. They already had their plans; why wait? Six months later, after a mountain of paperwork, they were married in the prison chapel.
It was a “real” wedding in its own way. She wore a white dress and they had a cake. Instead of champagne, they had ginger ale; instead of family and friends, they had two corrections officers as witnesses.
For the next two and a half years, Lucy lived for those trips to the prison. Then, finally, Ryan was granted parole.
Lucy sat in a taxi, her eyes glued to the prison gates. Any moment now, Ryan would walk through, she would throw herself into his arms, and they would never have to say goodbye again.
The gates buzzed and opened. Ryan stepped out. Lucy sprinted toward him and hugged him tight, but as he put his arms around her, she felt a chill. His embrace felt stiff, almost cold. She felt a pang of hurt, but quickly brushed it off as nerves and the exhaustion of the day.
They went back to Lucy’s apartment. She had spent two days preparing—buying the best groceries, researching gourmet recipes. She wanted to spoil him after years of cafeteria food.
They sat down to dinner, but Ryan was silent, a shadow of the man he had been during their visits. Back then, he was passionate and animated. Now, he barely spoke. No matter how much she tried to engage him, he gave her nothing.
— What’s wrong, Ryan? she asked.
— Nothing. I’m fine, he snapped, waving her off.
The buzzer rang. A teenage boy was at the door asking for “Ray.” Lucy let him in, and the kid handed Ryan a cheap, prepaid flip phone and hurried away.
The rest of the evening passed in near silence. The night wasn’t the passionate reunion Lucy had dreamed of. Ryan seemed preoccupied, his mind elsewhere. The new phone rang periodically, and he would go into the other room to talk in low tones.
The next day, Ryan asked Lucy to buy him some clothes. He promised he’d pay her back with his first paycheck. Lucy, of course, bought him a tracksuit, sneakers, and several shirts. His wardrobe was non-existent—just the dated, worn-out clothes he’d been arrested in. She even gave him her spare smartphone. He can’t walk around with that plastic brick, she thought.
The following morning, Lucy had to go to work. Her gut was twisting with unease, but she couldn’t get a shift lead to cover for her. She had no choice.
When she returned home that evening, the apartment was quiet. Ryan was gone. His new clothes were gone. Lucy’s heart hammered as she checked the small wooden box where she kept her emergency cash. Exactly five hundred dollars was missing.
On the kitchen table sat a note.
“Lucy, I’m grateful for everything you did, and I won’t forget it. Forgive me, but a man does what he has to do to survive. I took some cash, just what I need to get started. I’ll pay it back. I have a different life, Lucy. I can’t be who you want me to be. You need a family; I need my freedom. Thanks for everything. Goodbye.”
Lucy sank to the floor and cried. She didn’t even know what she was crying for anymore—for the man who had used her so perfectly, for the love that never existed, or for the three years of her life she had spent waiting for a dream that was never meant to come true.
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