CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN The Search Bar
Maya returned Jalen's things without seeing him.
She left the box with the receptionist at his studio, handed over the key, and walked out before her courage could become curiosity.
Jalen emailed that night.Subject: Please don't end it like this.Maya deleted it unread.He sent another two days later.Then flowers.Then a handwritten letter.Maya placed the envelope in a drawer without opening
it.For a week, she felt strong.Then loneliness arrived.Not loneliness for Jalen.For Andre.It began with a dream. Maya dreamed she was back in
the old townhouse kitchen, and Andre was making coffee. She walked toward him, but each step stretched the room farther away. He kept speaking, but she could not hear what he said. When she finally reached him, another woman stepped between them and took the mug from his hand.
Maya woke crying.At 4:18 a.m., she opened Instagram.She typed Andre Bennett into the search bar. Nothing.That seemed impossible.
Andre had never been active online, but he had maintained an account for years because his firm occasionally tagged him in projects.
She tried again.Andre B. Bennett.A Bennett architecture Seattle.Nothing.Maybe he blocked her.The possibility hurt, though Maya could not blame
him.She texted Tasha at a reasonable hour.Maya: Can you search Andre on Instagram?Tasha called instead."No.""Why not?""Because this is how spirals start.""I just want to know if he blocked me.""And then what?""Nothing."Tasha laughed softly. "You have never searched for
information in your life and then done nothing with it." Maya sighed. "Fine. I'll ask someone else.""Maya.""I have to go to work."She ended the call.At lunch, Maya borrowed her coworker Elena's phone
under the excuse of checking how a client post looked to another account.Then, when Elena stepped away, Maya searched Andre.Nothing.Facebook.
Nothing.TikTok. Nothing.LinkedIn produced an old cached mention of Andre in an architecture award article but no profile.Maya's pulse climbed.He had disappeared.Not just from her.From the internet.She searched the Seattle firm.
His photograph still appeared on the staff page in a screenshot from a trade publication, but when she searched the firm's current directory, his name was not listed.Had he changed jobs?
Moved again?Was he okay?Maya closed the browser when Elena returned.That night she searched again from her laptop.For two hours.Andre's brother Damon still had an account, private.
Maya hovered over the Follow button and did not press it.She tried Andre's mother's name.
His college. His architecture firm. Old project announcements.Nothing current.At midnight, Maya sat back from the computer.She realized she was doing to Andre what she had done to Jalen years earlier - searching for evidence that someone still existed in a place she could reach.The difference was Andre had never disappeared while they were together.He had only gone after Maya made staying too painful.Her phone buzzed.Jalen, from a new number.Jalen: Please talk to me once.
I deserve at least that.Maya stared at the message.Then at the open search page with Andre's name typed across the top.She blocked the number.But she did not close the search bar.