I’d driven the winding mountain road from my home in Frederick, Maryland, upstate to Cumberland hundreds of times but never with such a burden on my heart. On that frosty January morning three years ago, even the familiar landscape seemed foreboding. I caught my breath as the opening guitar riffs of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” blasted from the car stereo. Matt’s playlist. We’d danced to that song at the service camp where we’d met, and I’d written in my journal how I’d felt butterflies in my stomach that night. Now my stomach dropped again, this time not with the giddiness of a 16-year-old’s crush but with the heaviness of a 37-year-old’s grief.
Three days before, out of the blue, Matt’s sister Chrissy had messaged me on Facebook. I didn’t know her well, and Matt and I hadn’t been a couple since I’d turned down his proposal when I was 29. I had asked him not to contact me after that because he had a longstandingemotionally. It had been the hardest thing I had ever done because I still loved him.
