He remembered how, early in their marriage, Claire had laughed and said, “Finley, you’ve gotta memorize all my numbers, okay? My phone, my ID, everything.”
He’d brushed it off back then. “Why bother? I’ll never lose track of you.”
Now, she was gone.
Out of options, he started calling friends.
“What? You‘
You’re her husband. If you don’t know her number, how would we?”
“This has to be a joke. Claire’s your wife–how do you not know her number?”
“Why are you asking us? We’re your friends, not hers!”
Every call hit a dead end. That’s when it hit him–he didn’t even know who Claire’s friends were.
For years, her life had revolved entirely around him. She’d had no one else. She’d lost herself.
Desperate, he turned to social media, searching for her account. Nothing. She was gone from there too.
+20 Bonus
What he didn’t know was that the night he’d gone to see Renee, Claire had taken his phone.
She’d scrolled through his contacts, and at the top of the list was Renee–pinned, front and center.
And her? She’d been buried, somewhere far down the list. It had taken forever to even find their chat.
When she opened it, the messages were painfully one–sided–her long texts filling the screen, answered only by clipped replies.
In that moment, she’d realized just how little she mattered to him.
silence or cold,
Without a word, she’d removed herself from his social media and deleted her number from his phone. Then, she’d placed it back.
exactly where she found it.
The days that followed? He never noticed. Not once.
Now, Finley’s voice cracked as he whispered, “Claire, do you hate me that much?”
With no other choice, he called Kevin, his assistant. “I need you to find Claire’s number. Now.”
Kevin didn’t take long. The number came through, and Finley dialed it.
After several tries, the line finally connected.
