Chapter 1 - The Ghost of Seventeen
I never imagined I would become a bride at my age. Let alone wearing a wedding band while planning a funeral in the same breath. But life is rarely the neat, predictable journey we plan in our youth. Thomas had been my first love when we were both seventeen. We were kids, full of fire, believing the world ended at the borders of our small town. Back then, I had earned a place at a prestigious college in another city. It was my ticket out, a chance to become more than just a factory worker’s daughter. Thomas, however, planned to remain in our hometown and help run his father’s sprawling manufacturing business. I still remember the smell of diesel and rain at the bus station that morning. He stood in front of me, his hands shaking as he held my suitcase. He begged me not to leave. He promised we could build a beautiful life right there, together. But I had worked too hard, studied too many sleepless nights, to give up my future. When I refused to stay, Thomas’s eyes turned cold and distant. He told me I had broken his heart, and he turned his back on me before my bus even pulled away. After that day, we never saw each other again. More than five decades passed in a blur of long shifts, failed relationships, and solitary quiet. I became a skilled nurse, dedicating my life to strangers because I had no family of my own. But the economy is cruel to the elderly. A few months ago, I realized my pension was no longer enough to cover my rising rent and basic expenses. Defeated, I packed my meager belongings and returned to my hometown. It was cheaper here, though the streets felt like a graveyard of ghosts. At seventy-three, I was forced to accept a nursing position at the local hospital. It was the same exhausting, demanding work I had done before I supposedly retired. My bones ached, my spirit was tired, and I felt entirely alone in the world. Life, however, has a strange, sometimes cruel way of bringing people back together. I thought I had come home just to survive my final years in obscurity. I had no idea that returning to this town was the first step into a meticulously set snare.
