The Sting of Memory
The moment my fingertip brushed the location bubble, it was like touching a searing brand. I flinched away. Last month. A night just like this. Mark’s voice had crackled over the phone, laced with intentional weariness and a subtle urgency: "Big client dropped in unexpectedly. Gotta entertain them. Probably crashing here tonight." Soon after, his location sharing request popped up. What was I doing then?
Probably soothing our child to sleep in a dimly lit room. Seeing his pin, I’d naively, lovingly replied, "Got it. Don't drink too much. Call a cab if it ends early. Be safe." Now, I stared at Jessica's pin—marking a "Hot Spot"—the exact same blue dot. My fingers zoomed in compulsively. The street names, the building outlines… the latitude and longitude were a perfect match. Overlapping flawlessly with the pin Mark shared that night.
The Beer in the Fridge
The kitchen was eerily silent, save for the fridge's low drone. Pulling open the door, cold air washed over my face. It was crammed. Leftovers. My daughter’s strawberry yogurt. Bathed in the cold, white light on the top shelf: several cans of German dark ale. Mark’s favorite. The gold letters on the label glared. I stared at the cans. The icy aluminum seemed to leach into my fingertips. Had he opened one? Last night? The night before? I couldn’t recall. He always seemed to drink elsewhere. At home, he was mostly silent, glued to his phone or the endless drone of televised sports.
"With Clients"
Buzz. My phone lit up. A new text hovered at the top—Mark’s name. Sent five minutes ago. "Sorry babe, sudden meeting with an important VIP. Don't wait for dinner, gonna be super late."
My fingers tapped the message open, closed, closed, opened. A familiar, sickening blend of suspicion and humiliation surged into my throat. Clients. Always clients.These ubiquitous, faceless "VIPs" haunted our lives, effortlessly stealing moments meant for family, always with unquestioned entitlement. I could even recall the faint, foreign perfume clinging to his collar the last time he mentioned "clients." My finger rested on the cold glass, desperately searching the curt, emotionless words for a scrap of hidden truth, or even a hint of remorse.
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