He Gave Me Fake Bags and a Fake Future Chapter 05
Dr. Whitmore sighed. “Claire, at the time, we received a written response from Mr. Sterling on your behalf. He said you were emotionally unstable and wanted to stay in New York to recover. He also said… you’d accepted what happened and didn’t want to put yourself through more treatment.”
I closed my eyes.
So every word of it was true.
“What if I want to go now?”
I opened my eyes. “Is it too late?”
Dr. Whitmore pulled a folder from her desk and handed it to me. “I’ll reach out to them.”
“Claire, you have too much talent to let this be the end. If there’s even the slightest chance, you shouldn’t
give up.”
I held the folder tight against my chest and left her office.
When the elevator reached the lobby, the doors slid open on two people waiting outside.
Sloane spotted me and smiled brightly. “Claire? What are you doing here?”
“Claire? Why are you here?”
Adrian looked up and frowned.
“Don’t tell me you followed me here. Can’t you come up with a new move?”
I said nothing.
Sloane edged a little closer to his side.
“Claire, I’m pregnant.”
For one beat, the hallway went silent.
Adrian didn’t deny it. He only watched me, waiting for me to fall apart, to cry and make a scene, to demand
answers with red-rimmed eyes the way I had so many times before.
I just looked at them.
The corner of my mouth lifted. My voice came out almost weightless.
“Congratulations.”
“You deserve each other.”
Adrian clearly hadn’t expected that. For the first time, his expression cracked.
“Claire, yuu…”
He took an instinctive step toward me.
But I’d already turned and brushed past him.
“Adrian,” I said without looking back. “We’re done.”
My phone buzzed when I got to the airport.
A message from Adrian lit up the screen.
[Clary, I didn’t forget your birthday. I made dinner reservations for tonight. We need to talk.]
How long had it been since he’d used that name?
In the past, whenever we fought, all he had to do was call me Clary and I’d soften. I’d turn back.
He knew exactly what that nickname did to me. Even now, he was still trying to use it.
I powered off my phone, shoved it to the bottom of my bag, and walked through security.
From then on, I’d spend every birthday on my own.
It was late by the time Adrian got home. A few soft words from Sloane had been enough to make him blow
off his plans with Claire.
As he opened the door, he was still deciding what he’d say to her.
Claire made a fuss when she was angry, but she’d always been easy to soothe afterward.
Eight years. Hadn’t it always gone this way?
Whenever she got upset, all he had to do was stroke her hair. Little by little, she’d calm down, lean against
his shoulder, and whisper, “Don’t do that again.”
He opened the door to an empty living room.,
A strange unease settled over him. He checked room after room and found that every trace of Claire was
gone.
All at once, the condo felt enormous.
It had always been the same size. Before, though, he’d had to step around her yoga mat, avoid the medical charts spread over the coffee table, and watch where he walked so he didn’t crush the fuzzy slippers she’d kicked beside the couch.
He went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. It was packed with meals she’d cooked and portioned out.
The newest container was three days old, with a sticky note on the side.
“Made this one mild. Yonk stomach’s been bothering you lately.”
A woman who still remembered to cook for him in the middle of a fight couldn’t possibly stay angry for
long.
A faint smirk tugged at his mouth as he called one of his friends.
“Claire’s throwing another fit. She’s holding out longer this time, though. Almost three days.”
His friend laughed. “What, did Claire finally beat her record?”
“Leave her alone. She’ll come back in a couple of days.”
“True. Doesn’t she always?”
After that, Adrian went on as usual, working, attending business dinners, and bringing Sloane along to
events.
At one dinner, someone teased, “Adrian, Sloane takes pretty damn good care of you. When are you two finally making it official?”
He lifted his glass, took a sip, and said nothing.
Halfway through the meal, everything on the table suddenly tasted wrong to him.
The Cajun salmon was too greasy. The buffalo chicken was too hot. The glazed short ribs were too sweet.
He stubbed out his cigarette and stood. “I’m done. I’m heading home.”
It was nearly midnight when he got home.
He’d had too much to drink, and his stomach was churning. He opened a delivery app and ordered
five-alarm chili, asking for extra oil and extra heat.
Claire never let him order food like that. She’d always say, “Your stomach’s already a mess. Eat that and
don’t come crying to me when you’re doubled over at two in the morning.”
He refused to believe he could be this thrown off by Claire’s absence.
He forced down two bites before his stomach cramped hard.
Then it hit him: in three years, not one meal Claire had cooked for him had been spicy.
He’d assumed he simply didn’t like hot food anymore. Only now did he remember that years of overwork had
slowly wrecked his stomach.
She’d eased him into milder food little by little, until he’d forgotten he used to put hot sauce on almost
everything.
He lay on the couch for half an hour before reaching for his phone and opening his chat with Claire.
The last message was still the one he’d sent three days earlier: We need to talk. She hadn’t answered.
He scrolled up.
Almost every message was from her.
