He Came Back Alive ,But I Buried Everything We HadChapter 1

My sophomore year, my boyfriend threw himself in front of me during a mudslide. The current swept him away. They never found a body.

I cried until I collapsed and ended up hospitalized. The diagnosis was severe depression.

His elderly mother lived alone out in the countryside with no one to look after her, so I dropped out of school and took care of her for three full years.

My classmates all said I was a fool, that I'd thrown away my youth for a dead man.

But I could never forget the look in his eyes the moment he pushed me out of the way. Desperate. And so full of love.

The fourth year, I moved back to the city where we'd first met. I was trying to start over.

That day I'd picked up a delivery gig, dropping off prenatal supplements to a penthouse duplex.

The door was slightly ajar. I was about to knock when a voice drifted out from the inner room. A man's voice. So familiar it shook something loose in my bones.

"Babe, take your supplements later, okay? Don't be upset."

My head snapped up. Through the crack in the door, I saw his face.

"Os… Oswald Delgado?"

The door swung all the way open.