For two years, my roommate and I lived together in a little, bright house on a quiet street—the kind of house where nothing really noteworthy is ever expected to happen. She was the type of person who, simply by existing, warmed the world. Bright. lively. One of the few people who didn’t simply enter a room but instead filled it with their presence, like light through stained glass or laughing in the air.
Then she disappeared one day.
Not a word. No farewell. Not a warning. Her keys were still in the bowl by the entrance, her phone was on the kitchen counter, and the room was vacant when I got home from work. With the exception of her absence, everything was strangely typical.
It was very quickly followed by the cops. Every phone call and vigil was filled with sadness as her family fell into anarchy. We searched the city for weeks, put posters on streetlights, contacted news stations, and looked in parks, on the roads, at train stations, and wherever else she might have gone. Hope was the only thing that kept any of us going for a long. However, everything began to become hazy as the weeks became months and the months became a year.
No leads were found. No indication of difficulty. No confirmed sightings, no financial activity. Nothing. Like so many cases, the case ultimately became cold.
Her parents, who had before been unrelenting in their search for her, started to mourn as if she had already passed away. Seeing their determination erode beneath the weight of quiet was the toughest part. An unending quiet.
Years went by. Life went on, as inexorably and ruthlessly as it usually does. Partly due to inertia and in part because leaving felt like erasing her entirely, I stayed in the house longer than I had intended. But I ultimately made the decision to sell five years after she vanished. I had to attempt, or at least shut that chapter.
Since the day she disappeared, her bedroom had not been touched. It was impossible for me to make any changes. She left the bed made the same manner. On the windowsill, her books remained piled high. The tea in a mug that was resting on the bedside had long since disappeared. It resembled a museum of memory—fragile, waiting, frozen.
It felt strange to clean the room, like trespassing on a ghost. I packed up her belongings, dusted, and tried not to cry too much. Then, I discovered a hole in the wall behind her old wooden dresser when I was moving it—something I hadn’t done in years. It’s small, rough around the edges, and utterly concealed until you know where to look.
Curious, I reached inside. My fingers brushed against something dry and crinkled. Paper. Several pages, folded and stuffed deep into the wall cavity. I pulled them out with shaking hands. They were handwritten notes—some barely legible, all clearly frantic, desperate.
The first one made my heart stop.
If I ever disappear, you need to urgently look for me at Jake’s cabin in the mountains.
Jake. Her boyfriend.
He was attractive, magnetic, and the type of guy who could talk his way into or out of anything, as I vividly recalled. But there had always been more than just the charm. A tendency toward possessiveness. Mood fluctuations. Even in those days, subtle manipulations caused my stomach to tighten. She had mentioned to me how controlling and intense he could be. However, love has a tendency of obscuring warning signs into something more gentle and forgiveable.
She wasn’t taken seriously enough by me. She wasn’t pressed by me. I didn’t inquire.
That same night, with my hands freezing with adrenaline and remorse and my voice shaking, I contacted the police. The lead arrived five years too late, but they promptly revived the case. Shortly after her disappearance, Jake had relocated abroad. There is no forwarding address.
He had owned a secluded cabin in the mountains during their relationship, according to a follow-up investigation. Since then, it had been gutted, sold, renovated, and then sold again. Time and layers of plasterboard buried whatever mysteries it previously contained.
Not a single person. No responses. No resolution.
I still ponder about that note today. There are moments when I picture discovering it sooner—perhaps even a week or a month after she vanished. Would it have changed anything? Would I have been able to save her? Would law enforcement have arrived in time?
That question haunts me every day.
The stillness isn’t the hardest part. It’s the ignorance. She used to hum in the kitchen while making coffee, and I can still hear the incessant echo of “what if?” that follows me into grocery shops, into sleep, and into every peaceful Sunday morning.
The house was sold by me. I was forced to. However, I retained the notes. I know they’re there, but they’re locked away in a drawer that I hardly ever open.
I still harbor the hope that something will be revealed eventually. An admission. A hint. A corpse. Something.
If it doesn’t, though, I’ll continue to wonder what transpired in that mountain cottage and if I can ever find solace in a story that has no resolution.