I asked where he’d last seen it. He said the bedroom, then went quiet, like he regretted answering. Suddenly he wanted to drive back himself, insisting he could handle it, even though there was no way he’d make it in time.

The Forgotten Passport

I couldn’t understand his hesitation. “Why are you being so weird? It’s just a passport,” I said. He shrugged and relented, telling me to do whatever I thought was best.

I called my mother, who lives ten minutes from our house, and asked her to check Dereck’s bedside drawer and bring the passport to the airport. While I was on the phone, Dereck kept shifting beside me, visibly uncomfortable, insisting he was just stressed about the flight.

A Mother’s Warning

About twenty minutes later, my phone rang. I asked if she’d found it, but her first question caught me off guard: she wanted to know exactly where Dereck was sitting, and whether he could hear her.

He was watching me now instead of his phone. I told her no, he couldn’t hear, and my stomach twisted as her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Honey, he set you up! Come home now!” she said. I asked what she meant, but she only begged me to trust her and not get on that plane.

An Unseen Photo

Before I could press her further, Dereck reached for my hand and asked if she’d found his passport. I forced a smile.

Then my mother’s whisper cut through again: hang up right now, and don’t let him see what she was about to send. A second later, a photo appeared on my phone.

I opened it and froze.