Exhausted from work and acting as a therapist for my distraught sister, I randomly bought a plane ticket just to breathe again. Mexico promised escape—until I boarded the plane… and ran into the one man I never wanted to see again: her ex-husband.
After the longest shift of my week, I dragged myself home like I was carrying bricks on my back. Every step was like walking through thick mud.
My eyes were burning from staring at a screen all day, and my lower back felt like it was going to break.
The dark circles under the eyes looked more like bruises than signs of fatigue.
I didn’t even bother turning on the lights. I took off my shoes at the door, left my purse on the hall table, and slowly headed to the bathroom.
I leaned over the sink and looked at myself in the mirror.
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What was looking at me wasn’t me—it was someone else. Someone older, someone beaten down by life.
My skin looked pale and lifeless. My hair, tied back in a loose bun, had clumps sticking out like angry wires.
My eyes looked like someone who hadn’t slept in weeks.
“A withered flower,” I whispered to my reflection.
I turned on the tap, splashed cold water on my face, and took a deep breath. Then another breath.
I forced the corners of my lips into a smile. The smile didn’t reach my eyes.
There was no time for weakness. Not now. Not with her here.
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“I’m home,” I said, loud enough to be heard down the hall.
I heard it from the bedroom—the sound I’d grown accustomed to. Snorting. Soft, staccato. Like a balloon letting out its last bit of air.
Jolene appeared in the hallway, wrapped in my old flannel robe, her eyes red and puffy.
He was holding a crumpled tissue. His face looked tired. Not tired like mine, from work and stress. He had the tiredness of a broken heart.
“Hello,” I said softly.
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He nodded and blew his nose. His voice had been gone for days, swallowed up by sadness.
He’d moved in a month ago. A whole month living in my guest room.
A whole month since Dean abandoned her, without warning or a halfway decent excuse. Just a note on the kitchen counter and his key next to it. Coward.
Since then, she had barely eaten, barely slept. I had done everything I could—nightly chats, herbal teas, holding her when she collapsed. I had heard the same questions over and over again:
Why me? What did I do wrong? Did he ever love me? I never got answers.
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But at some point, I stopped wondering if I had anything left to give. I was running out of things. Who would take care of the one who took care of everything?
That night, after making us dinner and watching her push peas around on her plate, I did the dishes while she curled up on the couch, another silent storm brewing behind her eyes.
Something inside me broke. Or maybe it didn’t break—it just bent, hard. It bent until I didn’t know which way to go.
In the morning, I knew what I had to do. I packed my bag, called a taxi, and walked into the airport with no plan other than to disappear.
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I walked up to the counter and said, “Give me the first bill that comes out of here.”
“Cancun, Mexico,” the woman said.
Perfect.
I smiled for the first time in weeks. Not a forced smile. A real one.
Until I got on the plane.
And there he was.
Dean.
My stomach tightened like someone wringing out a wet towel.
Of all the people on Earth, why him?
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The air in Cancun was thick with salt and sun, as if the ocean itself had risen to the sky and hung there, heavy and hot.
Sweat stuck to my neck as soon as I walked out the airport doors.
The light was too bright, bouncing off the car windows and the white pavement. I squinted and yanked my backpack back, trying to pretend I had a plan.
But I didn’t. I had no idea where I was going. I just knew I didn’t want to be in Iowa, and for a few sweet hours, that had been enough.
People rushed by, speaking Spanish so fast it sounded like a song I couldn’t keep up with. I stared at the signs, the palm trees, the lines of taxis I wasn’t sure were real taxis.
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It was then that a man in his thirties approached, with a friendly smile and a loose shirt soaked with sweat.
He said something I didn’t understand and pointed to a dusty blue car parked nearby.
I let out a nervous laugh, took out my phone, and opened the translator app.
“I need a hotel,” I wrote.
He leaned toward me, read it, and nodded quickly. “Yes, yes,” he said, pointing again at the car and then at my suitcase.
“Wow. Full service,” I muttered, handing it to him.
He picked her up like she weighed nothing, opened the trunk, put her inside, and gave me another big smile.
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But before he could reach the door, the engine roared.
“Wait!” I shouted, reaching out.
Too late.
He hit the accelerator and sped off, my suitcase bouncing in the trunk as a final insult.
I stood there. Frozen. Mouth open. Mind blank.
He stole it. He really stole it. My purse. My passport. My wallet. My clothes. All of it.
Missing.
My fingers clutched the phone I was still holding. The only thing I had left. No service. No SIM card that worked in Mexico. No way to call for help.
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The panic came fast, like a wave passing through me.
I sat down hard on the airport steps, my knees shaking. My chest heaved.
And then the tears came. They weren’t soft, polite tears. I cried the kind of tears you don’t want anyone to see. The kind that shatters your shoulders and makes you gasp for air.
“Susan?”
I looked up. My vision was blurred by tears and the sun.
Of course. Dean.
He stood a few feet away, holding a small black bag, his eyebrows raised in concern.
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“Are you okay?” he asked, moving closer.
“I’ve just been robbed,” I shouted, wiping my wet face with both hands. “He took everything—my suitcase, my passport, my money—everything!”
Dean blinked. “What? Who?”
“I thought he was a taxi driver. I asked him about a hotel. He smiled and then – he took off.”
He didn’t say anything right away. He just looked at me for a long second and then sighed.
“Okay,” he said. “Come on. Let’s report it. We’ll fix it.”
I stared at him.
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I wanted to scream at him. Tell him to get lost. But what good would that do?
He was the only person I knew in the whole country.
And I was too tired, too lost, and too alone to refuse.
The police station was small and smelled of hot dust and strong coffee. A fan in one corner whirred lazily, barely stirring the heavy air.
I sat in a plastic chair against the wall, clutching my phone like it was the only thing keeping me grounded.
Dean was standing by the counter, talking to the clerk behind the glass. And he wasn’t just talking—he was really talking .
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His Spanish was fluent, clear, and confident. There were no pauses, no fumbling, no awkward mistakes.
I watched him list all the details: the make and model of the car, the man’s hair, his shirt, even the small scratch on the bumper.
He remembered things I hadn’t even noticed. He even helped me reconstruct the license plate number from memory.
I blinked, stunned.
I’d always seen Dean as a man who left messes for others to clean up. But here he was, calm, focused, taking charge as if it were second nature.
When he finally came back to me, he had a tired smile on his face.
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“They say they’ll find the guy tomorrow,” he said, lowering his voice. “They’ve seen this scam before. Someone like that doesn’t get far.”
I could only nod. I opened my mouth, but said nothing. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have to be the one to fix everything.
Someone else was intervening. Carrying the weight I always carried alone.
Dean looked at me for a second before clearing his throat. “Listen… you can stay in my hotel room tonight.”
I blinked. “Really?”
“There are two beds,” he said quickly. “And you don’t have a passport or any money. It’s late. You need a place to sleep.”
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I crossed my arms. “Okay. But no weird stuff.”
“I’m not weird, Susan.”
We left the station and traveled in silence. The hotel wasn’t far away, a simple beige building with a neon sign.
Her room smelled faintly of clean sheets and coconut soap. I sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, unsure of where to put my hands or my thoughts.
Dean sat on the other bed and stared at the floor. Silence stretched between us like a tightrope.
Finally he spoke.
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“Why are you so mad at me?”
I let out a dry laugh. “Are you really asking that?”
“Yes. I want to understand it.”
“You dumped Jolene,” I snapped. “She’s been sleeping in my guest room, crying into her pillow every night. You’ve destroyed her.”
He lifted his head and looked at me with softer eyes. “I didn’t leave without saying anything to him. I told him the truth.”
I frowned. “What truth?”
Dean leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.
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“That we were drifting apart. That we were holding on just because we used to love each other. But that wasn’t enough anymore. It hadn’t been enough for a long time.”
I crossed my arms. “So you got bored. You decided to chase someone new.”
“No,” he said softly. “I fell in love with someone else.”
That stopped me in my tracks. My chest tightened.
“Who?” I whispered.
He didn’t look away.
“You,” he said.
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And suddenly, the air in the room stilled.
The air between us was thick, as if pressing against my shoulders, daring me to speak.
“You’re kidding,” I said, my voice high-pitched, as if trying to cut through the weight floating in the room.
“No,” Dean replied quietly. “It wasn’t planned. I didn’t mean for it to happen. But every time I saw you… it was different. I felt seen. I could breathe around you.”
I stood up so quickly the bed creaked. “So what, Dean? You ruined your marriage and now you’re confessing all this to me like it’s the end of a romantic comedy?”
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He shook his head. “I didn’t tell you this expecting anything. I told you this because I needed to be honest. For once in my life, I wanted to tell the truth.”
I turned around and stared at the beige wall of the hotel. The silence fell upon me again, thick and uncomfortable.
But inside I was trembling. Not just from rage. From fear. From knowing that a part of me wanted to believe him.
Because the truth is, there had always been something. Little sparks I never dared to nurture.
Little glimpses when we talked too much at family dinners, or when our eyes met for just a second too long.
I hated him. And I hated myself for not hating him enough.
“I need to sleep,” I said softly. “We’ll deal with this tomorrow.”
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But sleep never came. There was only the ceiling and the hum of the air conditioner. My heart pounded in my chest like a drum.
In the morning the police called. They had my things. I packed my suitcases without speaking to Dean.
I couldn’t look at him – not without wanting something I wasn’t ready to want.
Not yet. Not with Jolene still crying on my couch.
At home, the air seemed colder. Quieter. Jolene was still at my house. She didn’t ask anything, just offered me a cup of tea and a nod when I arrived.
Later, I opened my phone and scrolled to Dean’s contact.
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I stared at it for a long moment. Then, against everything I thought I knew, I typed:
“How about we have a coffee sometime?”
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was selfish.
But maybe she was sincere.
And right now, sincerity was the only thing that didn’t seem like a lie.
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If you enjoyed this story, check out this one: Thirty years ago, she disappeared without a word. No goodbyes. No answers. Just a chipped cup and silence. When I received the invitation to her funeral, I didn’t go to cry. I went to finally understand why the woman I loved left, and what I’d been missing all this time. Read the full story here .
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