A Shelter in Complacency

Like any good story, this one starts with a funeral.

Chris's girlfriend, Mindy Forino, went missing six years ago.

Well, maybe "went missing" isn't the best way of phrasing it. She ran away. Just as her relationship with Chris was finally getting to blossom in the way they'd both always wanted it to. After an unexpected and ugly tragedy, Mindy left a letter that very vaguely explained that she "had to leave," and that was that. No one knew where she was, or if she was even alive, for six years. There were rumors as to why she left, mostly having to do with the fact that her last boyfriend before Chris had wound up dead in a ditch, but Chris knew Mindy, and knew that there had to be some other reason as to why she'd left. He just wished that she could have told him, and that he could have helped her.

So imagine Chris's surprise when, after all those years of being bitter at Mindy's disappearance, she shows up back in town for her father's funeral - and she isn't alone, walking into the funeral with a little girl at her side. Now it would seem that Mindy would be back in town permanently, taking over the bookstore her father had run when he was alive. It doesn't take long for Chris to remember just how in love with her he was when she disappeared, and he soon makes it his mission to find out why she'd left, why she was still being so secretive, and if the two of them would ever be able to find love with each other again.