With Ethan.
My boyfriend.
And his former fiancée.
Suddenly, I remembered something I had worked hard to forget.
A photograph.
Part of a woman’s face.
And a tiny mole beneath one eye.
Lauren had a mole in almost exactly the same spot.
No.
That was absurd.
It had to be a coincidence.
At least, that was what I wanted to believe.
But this time, I wasn’t prepared to dismiss the feeling.
To explain why, I need to go back six months.
I met Ethan in the parking lot of a hardware store.
I was struggling to load a large box fan into my trunk when a man behind me began honking angrily and shouting for me to hurry.
My hands started shaking.
Before I could say anything, a calm voice came from beside me.
“She’s almost finished. Give her a second.”
The man nearby didn’t shout back.
He didn’t make any threats.
He simply stayed there until the impatient driver eventually gave up and drove away.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I told him.
“I know.”
That was Ethan.
We began talking.
When he asked for my number, I gave it to him before I had the chance to overthink it.
After my divorce, that was unusual for me.
I questioned everything.
Every choice.
Every person.
But there was something about Ethan that felt safe.
We started seeing each other once or twice a week.
Mostly quiet dinners.
Sometimes evenings at his apartment.
I didn’t tell my family right away.
My divorce had turned into public entertainment for everyone around me.
Too many opinions.
Too many questions.
Too many relatives taking sides.
This time, I wanted my relationship to remain mine for a little while.
Ethan became my private happiness.
Still, every now and then, that old doubt returned.
How well did I really know him?
One evening, while we were drinking wine in his kitchen, I asked him to tell me something personal.
He grew quiet.
Then he said,
“I was engaged once.”
“What happened?”
His expression hardened.
“She was terrible.”
He hesitated.
“About two months before the wedding, she asked me for five thousand dollars.”
My attention immediately sharpened.
“For what?”
“She said she owed an old debt. Then the explanation kept changing.”
He shook his head.
“I don’t like talking about her.”
I didn’t push him.
Later that night, Ethan went to shower.
While I waited, I noticed an old manila folder on his desk.
A photograph was sticking halfway out.
I could see only part of a woman’s face.
Dark hair.
