Local model left stranded in South Dakota after being ghosted by long-distance flame

A local model thought she was in a five-year relationship with someone special, but when she flew out to move in with him, she found herself ghosted and footing a big tab to get herself back home.

River Blake, a 23-year-old native of Lafayette, Louisiana, was first contacted by the man when he slid into her DM’s in 2019, telling her he had seen some of her modeling photos and thought she was “beautiful.”

Finding they had quite a bit in common, the pair spent the last five years speaking almost daily. Almost.

“We FaceTimed every night, but our relationship was kind of weird. Like, wishy-washy,” Blake told the New York Post . “Sometimes he’d disappear for a bit, then reappear like nothing had ever happened.”

And yet, on February 9, 2024, he told Blake he wanted her to move in with him and paid for one-way arrangements to fly her out to South Dakota when she said yes.

Blake left on February 17 from Lafayette and, after three connecting flights, arrived in Rapid City, S.D. She said he “created this dream life that he knew I’d be interested in and built everything up to the point of me going.”

However, once she was sitting in the airport, he didn’t materialize to pick her up.

“Airport security kept checking to see if I was OK,” she said. “And I wanted to stay, just in case he actually showed up. He sent me a picture, saying he was definitely on the way.”

But that’s when she first suspected something was amiss.

“I noticed the road signs showing he was heading west, but I was in the east,” she said. “I knew he had to be heading in the opposite direction,  and I messaged saying, ‘I don’t think you’re actually going to pick me up.’”

After she sent that message, she never heard from him again.

Blake ended up footing a $290 bill to spend the night at the local Hilton, but she tried to make the best of her evening, meeting up with a friend of a friend who showed her around the city and took her out for ice cream.

“I’m still in touch with Tucker to this day,” she said of her impromptu tour guide. “He showed me some good places.”

Blake returned to the airport in the morning, and another $1,000 later she was back home in Lafayette.

“I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason,” she said. “This just wasn’t my time – and he wasn’t my person, after all. I’m just focusing on my career now, and spending as much time travelling as I can.”