No return address. No last name. Just Georgia.
From LA. Works at a record label.
That was it.
I told myself I’d find her when I got home.
I told myself I had time.
Then my jet malfunctioned on what should’ve been a routine surveillance flight, and everything went sideways.
I ejected.
The parachute deployed later than it should have.
The impact was brutal enough to knock the world out of me in pieces—bone, muscle, skin, certainty. I woke up in a hospital with tubes in my arms and fire in my veins and a doctor telling me I was lucky to be alive.
Lucky?
They medically retired me a few months later for severe injuries. The damage is permanent. I now carry scars that I can’t hide and a limp that reminds me every step of what I lost. They took my wings with apologies wrapped in legal language. Thirty-five years old and the career I dedicated my entire life to was taken away just like that.
For most of the year that followed, I was too broken to do anything but survive. Pain blurred the days. Rehab filled the weeks. Anger clouded everything. The negligence settlement dragged on, and I felt like my entire life was on hold, suspended in the space between who I was and whatever the hell I was supposed to be now.
Through all of it, I had one constant.
Her letter.
I kept it with me everywhere. Hospital. Rehab. Temporary housing. I read it when the nights were unbearable. When the pain meds wore off too fast. When the silence felt like it might swallow me whole.
I fell in love with a woman I’d never met. That should’ve scared me, but it didn’t.
Now I’m back in LA, standing on cracked pavement with traffic roaring past, and suddenly everything feels real in a way it hasn’t before.
I found her.
It took time. Too much time. Record labels are everywhere in this city, assistants even more so. But I’m patient. Military training taught me that. I followed threads. Eliminated options. Watched buildings. Learned routines.
And now I’m here.
I pull my hat lower and adjust my sunglasses. I’m not worried about anyone recognizing me but I have grown conscious of the scars near my eye and cheek that my beard doesn’t quite cover. They’re not grotesque. Just…noticeable. Permanent reminders of the man I am now.
I tell myself I’m only here to see her.
To confirm she’s real.
To make sure the woman in the letter exists outside my head.
I’m not sure I believe that.
The doors of the building slide open, and she steps outside.
My breath leaves me in a rush.
She’s smaller than I imagined. Petite, but not fragile. Golden hair pulled back neatly, sunlight catching in it like liquid fire. She moves with quiet confidence, purposeful without being rushed. A bag hangs from her shoulder. She pauses to adjust it, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
And just like that, the woman from the letter has a body.
A face.
