Just a week after Jacob moved in, I stood frozen outside my home, staring at his message: “We need to talk.” The same words. The same timing. Another man slipping away.

But this time, I was done wondering why—they always left exactly seven days in.

I stood by the front steps, my boots tapping the concrete like a nervous heartbeat. It was Saturday, but it didn’t feel like one.

The sky hung low and heavy, a dull Iowa gray that pressed down like a wet blanket.

The air smelled like dirt and cold metal.

My fingers wrapped around a coffee cup, though the coffee had long gone cold. I wasn’t drinking it anymore.

My hands shook, and I couldn’t stop them.

Cindy stood beside me, close like she always was when things felt like they were about to fall apart. Her hand rested on my shoulder, warm and steady.

“You’re shakin’ like a tree in a windstorm,” she said, her voice soft, almost like a song.

“It’s just Jacob.

He loves you.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. My throat felt tight, like it had closed up and tossed away the key.

I was breathing, but barely.

Like my lungs didn’t want to make a scene.

Then, finally, his car pulled into the driveway. The tires crunched the gravel like they had a job to do.

Jacob stepped out, tall and full of light, smiling like a man who’d just won something worth keeping.

He waved, and it looked like something out of a Hallmark movie. Him, me, the little white house behind us—it could’ve been perfect.

I waved back, stiff and awkward. Like I wasn’t sure I deserved the moment.

My hands were clasped together, knuckles white, hiding the tremble I couldn’t control.

“Hey, babe,” Jacob said as he came up the steps, arms wide. “We did it! Moving in—finally.”

“I know,” I replied, trying to smile, though my face felt frozen.

“Sorry I’m a little… off.”

He pulled me into a hug. It was warm. Safe.

“You’re fine. We’re fine.” He kissed my temple gently and went straight for the boxes like this was the most natural thing in the world.

But I wasn’t fine. Not one bit.

Jacob wasn’t the first man to cross this threshold.

Two others had come before. They’d moved in, smiled, unpacked.

And then, exactly one week later, they were gone.

No fights. No warnings. Just gone like wind through cornfields.