The Masquerade Episode 3: The Missing Year

You said you were living west that year, working late and keeping to yourself. You told me who you knew back then, what happened first, what happened next. I never thought to question any of it, not until the stories started crossing. One date leaned into another, and suddenly the edges didn’t fit. So I wrote it down. Month by month. Name by name. Just to see where the story changed. There’s a year that doesn’t belong to the life you gave me. A place you said you left before somebody else saw you there. A job that ended after you said you’d already gone. Everything fits until I get to the missing year. I found an address you once mentioned, but your name was never tied to it. I found a photograph from spring, and someone swore you weren’t in that city yet. Then an old page gave me another date, and that one landed where it shouldn’t. You were standing in a life you never told me you were living. So I saved the proof. Kept it quiet. Let the pieces sit beside each other. There’s a year that doesn’t belong to the life you gave me. A place you said you left before somebody else saw you there. A job that ended after you said you’d already gone. Everything fits until I get to the missing year. Maybe there’s an explanation. Maybe I’m missing something obvious. Maybe every wrong date has an easy reason behind it. But the more I check, the less your story moves like memory. It moves like something you learned to tell. There’s a year that doesn’t belong to the life you gave me. Too many dates, too many places, too many versions standing side by side. I don’t know what happened there. I only know you worked very hard to make sure I never looked. And now I have. One year. No clean answer. Just your name where it shouldn’t be.