Todos los capítulos de Where Were You When the Storm Came?: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 9

Ryan's POV"Where are you?" I asked."On the way to my place. Mel said it wasn't safe for me to go home alone," came the reply. "Oh, and she said she texted you half an hour ago telling you to grab a cab home on your own. Ryan, you're probably home by now, right?"The wind howled outside the window. My chest went cold, inch by inch.For three years, Melanie had poured every ounce of care she had into this coworker of hers. And now, the last scrap of feeling I had left for her had burned out completely."Yeah," I said. "I'm home."A home that would never have her in it again.The man on the phone sounded relieved. "Good, you're home. We'll be there soon too."The hurricane's about to make landfall, though. Mel wanted me to let you know she'll probably be staying over at my place tonight."I gave a flat, noncommittal "hm."A woman's voice came through from somewhere in the background, distant but unmistakably tender. "Are you cold? Should I turn up the heat?"Ted Rooney laughe

By the time I got to the office, workers were already repairing the window. My coworkers were still shaken."God, thank goodness we left early yesterday. Can you imagine if we'd still been here?"One of them spotted me and gave a little wave. "Ryan, your girlfriend came to pick you up yesterday, right?"I smiled. "Nope. She was busy driving a coworker home."The office went quiet.Someone asked carefully, "So you took a cab home by yourself?""I spent the night in the break room."Everyone seemed to hold their breath. After a long moment, a coworker patted my shoulder, comforting. "Ryan, you're so strong."I didn't see why I shouldn't just say it plainly. After all, I wasn't the one who'd done anything wrong.Near the end of the workday, a message came in from Melanie.[I'm outside your building.]I paused. It had been nearly a year since she'd last come to pick me up after work. Even the times she promised to, she'd usually end up bailing because of something to do with Ted

My mom and dad were seated in the private room, along with a young woman she didn't recognize. The young woman sat next to me. When Melanie walked in, the woman had just been serving me food.My mom sat across from us, smiling as she said to my dad, "Soph's just as thoughtful as ever. I only mentioned once that Ryan can't handle rich, heavy food, and look, she's already picked around every piece of cheese."My dad chuckled and nodded along.Whatever Melanie had been carrying hit the floor with a thud. Her mouth opened, and she actually stammered. "Mr. and Mrs. Jonas, Ryan, what... what's going on here?"That was the first time anyone in the room seemed to register she'd arrived. My mom's smile faded slightly, and she said nothing. My dad glanced at her, his expression cool.It wasn't hard to understand why my parents didn't like her. Two years earlier, they'd asked to meet Melanie for the first time. By then we'd already been together for over four years. She'd agreed readily en

Third-Person POVMelanie sat at her desk, staring blankly at her silent phone screen. It had been two days since Ryan warned her not to text him anymore.She'd assumed he was just still upset, that once he calmed down, he'd reach out to her first. That was how it had always gone before. Even when he was angry, within two days he'd be back to joking around with her like nothing happened.But this time, she felt a panic unlike anything she'd known before.That day in the private room, the look Ryan had given her had been so cold. No trace of a smile, not even resentment or blame in his eyes. He'd looked at her like she was a stranger who meant nothing to him.He used to sulk. He used to pick fights and ask her, over and over, whether she'd stopped loving him. It used to annoy her a little, but deep down it had also given her a small thrill. It meant Ryan was crazy about her. It meant Ryan would never leave her.So she'd leaned on that love and stopped thinking things through. Whene

The coworker rolled his eyes. "How should I know? Ask him yourself. All I know is he waited all excited for his girlfriend to pick him up after work, and she never showed, so he ended up stuck at the office all night. The window in our building shattered, and he hid out alone in the break room and toughed it out without even eating dinner. So what exactly were you doing that whole time?"Melanie shook her head. "That's not possible... why would he have been stuck at the office? I texted him..."Her hands trembling, she pulled up her phone and scrolled back through the chat log until she found the message she'd sent.[Ryan, something came up last minute. Grab a cab home on your own, and stay safe on the road.]Right beneath it sat a glaring red exclamation mark, warning her the message had failed to send.Her whole body swayed, the color draining from her face.The message had never gone through. Ryan never got it. He'd spent that whole night at the office waiting for her to come