prelude

Seven years together, and my architect fiancé had postponed our wedding thirty-three times. The first time, his assistant lost a set of blueprints at a construction site; he abandoned me at the boarding gate for our flight to Paris and ran back to the studio. The second time, en route to City Hall to collect our marriage license, he heard his assistant was being cornered by a contractor and immediately turned the car around to "rescue" her, leaving me on the roadside, drenched in rain. From then on, every time we attempted to set a date, she would inevitably encounter some "force majeure." Finally, my heart turned to ash, and I decided to bow out. Yet, the moment I left Seattle, he began scouring the world for me like a madman.