The Note Under the Door

The note was handwritten, one plain white sheet. She’d slipped it under my door — but when I opened it, the hallway was empty.

“Meet me where it all started, or you’ll never see me tomorrow.”

Ford knew it could only be one person: his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Was she trying to start over? The thought nagged at him. She was the one who left, the one who filed for divorce. Maybe she wanted to meet at the old spot — not to end things tomorrow, but to begin again.

Ford sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the note like it might explain itself if he looked long enough. The clock on his nightstand blinked 10:47 p.m. Too late for this kind of drama. Too late for her.

He slipped on his boots anyway.

The rain had started again, soft at first, then steady. The kind of rain that blurred streetlights and made the world feel smaller. “Where it all started.” He knew exactly what she meant. The park with her favorite flowers. The place they’d spent their first afternoon together, laughing like the world wasn’t out to get them.

The drive was quiet, except for the wipers and the echo of questions he didn’t want to answer. What if she’d changed her mind? What if she wanted him back? What if it was just one more cruel game before the divorce became official?

He parked by the empty playground, headlights cutting through the mist. The place looked the same, even after all these years. Same cracked path. Same iron bench under the oak tree. Only one thing was different—someone was already standing near the flower beds.

Even in the dark, Ford could see her — dark hair falling past her shoulders, pale skin catching the faint glow from the streetlights. Then came her voice. Soft, familiar.

“Ford… over here.”

He froze. That voice… it wasn’t possible. She had been gone six months. A week after their wedding, a “jogger” attacked them in this very park. She didn’t survive.

And yet here she was. Or… here he was.

The note. The letters. The desperate messages he had been sending himself. All the longing, all the grief… it had been his own mind trying to hold on, trying to keep her alive. And now, standing in the dark, he realized the truth: he had been meeting himself at the park, writing words of love and loss, chasing shadows that no longer existed.