Lately, he’d noticed she seemed distracted, her attention drifting more often, her smiles a little thinner. He chalked it up to her workload, fatigue, and general stress. They were solid, he told himself. Every couple had patches like that. It didn’t mean anything serious.
Now, standing alone in their apartment with her phone unreachable and the hidden passport inexplicably missing, the joke no longer felt funny. His heart thudded harder, an uncomfortable rhythm. He replayed the morning in his mind, trying to figure out when exactly everything had started to feel wrong.