Chapter 2: The Phone Face Down
The door didn't open. It was the ice maker dropping cubes into the freezer bin, loud in the quiet. Neither of us laughed. He kept looking at me and I kept looking at the phone he'd just pushed toward me like an invitation and a dare at the same time.
I didn't pick it up right away. My arms were still crossed and the tote strap cut into my shoulder. The marble was cool under the kitchen light and I could see a faint ring where the water bottle had been before. He exhaled through his nose and said nothing for three seconds that felt longer. The living room behind me stayed still, the couch pillows exactly where we'd left them, the flag art straight on the wall.
"You can look," he said. "If that's what you need."
I uncrossed my arms. My pendant swung once and settled. I reached for the phone with my right hand and turned it over. The screen was dark, no notifications showing, the black glass smudged at the edge where his palm had been. I pressed the side button. It lit up and asked for the passcode. I knew his passcode. He knew I knew. That was the point of the push.
The second scene was at the sink. I set the phone down without unlocking it yet and ran water over my hands even though they weren't dirty. The window over the sink looked out onto the driveway where his car sat, still ticking as the engine cooled. I watched a neighbor walk a dog past the sidewalk and tried to breathe normally. He stayed at the island, hands now in fists lightly on the counter.
"You're really going to do this right now?" he said.
I dried my hands on the towel that had been folded beside the bottle. It smelled like laundry detergent. "You slid it to me," I said.
He nodded once. "I did."
Back at the island I picked up the phone again. I typed the code, 0-8-1-4, our anniversary. The home screen opened to a photo of us at the lake last summer. I went to his recent locations first, not messages, because messages felt too much like reading his thoughts and locations felt like facts. The screen showed yesterday, the day before, a line of dots. This morning showed one ping near our apartment at 7:12 and then nothing for two hours, then a ping back at 9:03 on our street.
"You said you went to the gym," I said without looking up. "The gym check-in app would show it."
He shifted his weight. "It should."
The last scene that morning stretched. I opened the gym app on his phone. It asked for Face ID and failed, then offered passcode. I didn't know that one. I looked up at him. The daylight made the gray of his shirt look paler. His micro-expression was tight at the corner of his mouth, a small pull that could have been irritation or fear.
"What's the code?" I asked.
He stared at the water bottle for a long pause before speaking. "I don't remember it offhand. I use my thumb."
I set the phone back face-up on the marble, screen still on, and left my hand resting beside it. The bottle, the towel, the phone formed a small line between us. I realized I'd been holding my breath again and let it out slow. He reached not for the phone but for the bottle, unscrewed the gray lid, and didn't drink.
May you like
"We can go there together," he said. "After you put your bag down."
I finally slipped the tote off my shoulder and set it on the floor by my feet. The weight leaving my shoulder made my arms feel strange and empty. I didn't yet know that going there would give me the first real gap in his story, and that the gap would be timestamped.
