My Blind Date Mystery

Photo by Vaibhav Joshi on Unsplash

I don’t usually do blind dates, but when the stranger mentioned my sister’s nickname from childhood, I froze.

We were seated near the window of a downtown restaurant. The kind of place with candles and cloth napkins. He said his name was Mark. Well-dressed. Confident. A little too confident.

We were halfway through the appetizer when he said, “So… do people still call her Cricket?”

Cricket. My sister’s nickname. No one outside our family used it. Not even her friends. And she died five years ago.

I stared at him. “What did you say?”

He leaned back, smiled like it was a harmless joke. “Cricket. That’s what you called her, right?”

My stomach turned. I hadn’t put my sister’s name or nickname anywhere on my dating profile. I don’t even talk about her anymore. Not since she vanished. The official report said accidental drowning. I never believed it.

“Where did you hear that name?”

He shrugged. “Must’ve been on your social media.”

It wasn’t. I’d scrubbed everything years ago. Photos, posts, comments. Gone.

I pulled out my phone under the table and started recording.

“Did you know her?” I asked.