I love puzzles. Five hundred pieces to a million, I’ll sit at the kitchen table for hours and obsess over the curves of the similar pieces and try to find it’s opposite. Opposites in puzzles seem to fit. If one piece curves out, the other piece will curve in and they’ll fit. That’s what I love about them. The way the opposites attract.

But lately puzzles have just depressed me. Mainly because I think about him. I think about him and the way his hands held mine. How his fingers fit so perfectly between mine. His hands were large, tan and rough from working with tools. Mine were small, pale and smooth. They were opposites but together they fit.

He would wrap his arms around me and I would lean my head against his chest and feel the thump of his heart against my cheek. I know it may not make sense, but when he held me, I fit. I fit into his every curve and his arms seemed to be in place around my waist. He was my puzzle piece.

Now I have no puzzle piece. I’m searching for the opposite of me that won’t splinter and be lost from the puzzle box. I am the six billionth puzzle piece, looking for the one.