My fiancée loved playing hide-and-seek. Every time we went on a date, she liked to hide and make me find her.
And every time I found her, she'd kiss me softly on the lips and say the same thing.
"Baby, you're the best."
I thought it was our little game, something just between us.
Until our wedding day, when my wedding car and its whole procession waited and waited, and the bride never came.
Then a message from Christine Gilbert came through:"Baby, I'm hidden away. Come find me, hurry. We can only get married once you find me."
I checked her location on my phone. She was at the airport.
At that same moment, Jasper Sanders, her first love, posted something new on his feed.
"I asked her just one question. Come away with me? And she took my hand without a second thought. A love like that, you only need it once in a lifetime."
The photo was a pair of hands, fingers tightly laced.
And all at once, it just felt pointless.
Seven years of playing hide-and-seek with Christine.
This time, I wasn't going to look for her.
1
Beside me, my best friend and best man, Simon Head, glanced at my phone and caught the message.
He went off instantly.
"Is Christine out of her mind? Today's your wedding day. If you miss the ceremony hour, then what? Does she think this is some game?"
"Call her right now. Tell her to cut this nonsense and get here to finish the wedding procession!"
His voice seemed to drift farther and farther away as I sank into memory.
Christine loved playing hide-and-seek.
In the seven years we were together, every time we went out, she'd hide and make me find her.
Sometimes she just tucked herself behind a tree. Sometimes she'd slip into some little shop.
I could always find her fast.
Sometimes she'd jump out at me and make me flinch.
But later she started hiding deeper, and often I couldn't find her at all.
Only after I got frantic and called her, asking where she was, would she finally show up, taking her sweet time.
I couldn't help asking her:"You just show up late, don't you, and then pretend you were hiding so I run around like a headless chicken looking for you."
She laughed and said:"Baby, I'm just playing hide-and-seek with you. You used to be able to find me. Now you can't, so you must be getting slow."
Then one time, I couldn't find her again.
She wouldn't pick up her phone either. I waited in the same spot for two hours and she never showed.
I was sick with worry, sure something had happened to her, and I ran straight to the police station to report it.
In the end the police reached her and found her at home, watching movies with a friend.
That friend was Jasper.
I rushed over to her place and confronted her, crying.
"Why didn't you come to our date, and why didn't you tell me? You didn't answer your phone either! Do you have any idea how worried I was? I thought something happened to you!"
I couldn't stop the tears from falling. Christine only smiled.
"Baby, sorry, I didn't hear it. I was watching movies with Jasper today and lost track of time. I thought it was only three o'clock."
I looked at Jasper, sitting next to her in pajamas, and my mind went blank.
"He's living with you?"
"Jasper's family sold their place back here, so he's staying a while when he comes home to visit. He'll go back after a bit."
Jasper was Christine's childhood sweetheart, and her first love.
The year Christine turned eighteen, Jasper's whole family emigrated abroad, and after that they could only keep in touch by phone.
Christine always kept a photo in her wallet, one of Jasper in his high school uniform.
I stumbled onto it once by accident, and I made a fuss about it for a long time, but she wouldn't take it out.
She said:
"I'm already all yours. Why are you fighting with a photo?"
