Then came her sixteenth birthday.
We went to a movie with a group of friends, as always, but something shifted that night. She just looked different to me,and when I complimented her, she blushed, and one of our friends said, ‘It’s about time. ’
Apparently, she’d harbored a crush, and I was slow to recognize it.
We started dating soon after. Took it slow at first with late-night calls, hand-holding, the kind of easy love you think will last forever.
By senior year, we were inseparable.
We had a plan.
I’d play hockey at the University of Minnesota. She’d go to art school a few miles away. We’d get married after graduation, build a life together. I’d use all four years of eligibility, then go for the draft. Wherever hockey took me, we’d go together.
She’d paint. I’d play. We’d make it work.
That was the plan.
We had everything mapped out.
And then she just… left.
She was supposed to help me move into my dorm.
It was a big deal—my first step out of a house that never felt like home. I was excited to leave, to start fresh, and she was supposed to be part of that new beginning.
I went to pick her up that morning. Her mom answered the door, confused. Said she thought Emma had spent the night withme.
She hadn’t.
I called her cell. Straight to voicemail. Tried again and again—same thing.
Her mom called the police, but they wouldn’t file a missing person’s report until forty-eight hours had passed.
We called her sister, Talia, who was in nursing school in California. She said Emma wasn’t with her, but that she was fine. “Not missing,” she said. “Just… not interested in talking.”
That didn’t make sense. None of it did.
I was eighteen, in love, and sure there had to be some kind of explanation. She couldn’t just vanish.
She wouldn’t.
I kept thinking she’d call, that she’d show up and tell me it was a mistake, that she was sorry.
But she never did.
So I went through the motions. Moved into my dorm. Went to class. Went to practice.
Ate, slept, existed.
But every quiet second was her name echoing in the back of my mind.
After a while, Talia stopped answering my calls. Her parents stopped taking my messages. Eventually, the only thing anyone told me was to ‘move on.’
And I did.
Sort of.
I played two years of college hockey before entering the draft. Got picked up by Chicago.
