SHE SAID SHE WAS AT WORK BUT HER KEY FOB WAS STILL ON THE COUNTER
I picked up the cold metal key fob, the one from her car, sitting right there on the kitchen counter where she *always* leaves them before she walks out the door. She’d texted an hour ago saying she was pulling into the work parking garage, right on time for her meeting. The silence of the empty house suddenly felt too loud, heavy, like the air itself was holding its breath waiting for something awful.
My fingers tightened around the smooth plastic, the raised buttons biting into my palm as a sick feeling started in my gut. I hit her number, phone pressed against my ear, hearing only the rhythmic hum of the refrigerator behind me and the frantic thumping of my own heart drowning everything else out. When she finally answered, I tried to keep my voice steady, just asking, “Where are you, *really*?”
Her voice went tight, strained, completely different from her usual cheerful tone. “I told you,” she snapped, too quickly, too defensively, like I was stupid for asking. The lie was so thin I could almost see through it, feel it like a bad smell hanging heavy in the air around me. I walked slowly towards the living room window overlooking the driveway, my stomach clenching hard with a cold dread I couldn’t name.
I gripped the curtain fabric, my knuckles white against the patterned material, my breath catching in my throat. My gaze swept the street, searching desperately for the familiar silver sedan that should have been miles away downtown in the parking garage. My breath hitched as I spotted movement down the block, turning the corner onto our street.
Then I saw her car pull into the neighbor’s driveway across the street.
👇 *Full story continued in the comments…*My hand flew to my mouth, stifling a gasp that clawed its way up my throat. It *was* her car. The silver sedan, the one I knew better than my own reflection. And as the engine died, the driver’s side door opened, and out stepped… Sarah. Not in her work clothes, but in jeans and a t-shirt, carrying a large, flat box.
The phone was still pressed against my ear, but I hadn’t said anything for a good thirty seconds. On the other end, the silence from Sarah was deafening, a stark contrast to her earlier defensiveness. I finally managed to choke out her name, my voice trembling. “Sarah? I… I see you.”
Her response was a ragged sigh, all the snap gone from her tone. “Oh. You do.”
I dropped the curtain, letting it fall back into place, and stumbled towards the front door. I fumbled with the lock, my hands shaking, my eyes still glued to her across the street as she closed her car door. She looked up, spotted me on the porch, and her shoulders slumped.
I didn’t wait for her to come over. I walked across the lawn, the phone still clutched in my hand. She met me at the edge of the neighbor’s driveway, the mysterious flat box held awkwardly in front of her. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she wouldn’t quite look at me.
“Why?” I asked, the single word heavy with everything – the lie, the fear, the key fob on the counter. “Why did you lie? I thought… I thought something awful had happened.”
She finally raised her eyes, and the look in them was pure exhaustion and a kind of sheepish desperation. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her voice thick. “I had to pick this up. Mrs. Gable – the neighbor’s sister – she’s leaving town unexpectedly tonight, and she finished her painting. She’s been working on it for months, the one she promised us for the living room wall.”
She gestured down at the box. “She called this morning, frantic, said it was ready but she had to leave *today* and could someone please pick it up? I knew you had calls all morning and wouldn’t be able to get away, and her place is only a few blocks from here, not downtown. I just… I panicked. I didn’t want you to worry or try to figure out how I could get it. It was stupid. I just said I was going to work like normal.”
Tears were starting to well up in her eyes. “Then… then I forgot the key fob was still on the counter. I was halfway here before I realized I’d used the spare. And by then… I just kept driving, hoping I’d be back before you noticed. It was a stupid, stupid lie.”
The tension slowly drained out of my body, replaced by a weary mix of relief and confusion. A painting? That’s what all the panic and the lies were for?
“You… you scared me half to death,” I said, my voice still a little shaky. “I thought you were in trouble. With the fob there… I didn’t know what to think.”
She stepped forward, setting the box carefully on the grass, and wrapped her arms around me, burying her face in my shoulder. “I know,” she murmured, her voice muffled against my shirt. “I’m so, so sorry. It was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I just wanted to surprise you with the finished painting.”
We stood there for a moment, the weight of the fear lifting, replaced by the reality of a complicated, unnecessary lie. The painting sat between us on the grass, a silent, colourful witness to the morning’s anxiety. It wasn’t the disaster I’d imagined, but the lie still hung in the air, a reminder that even small deceptions could cast long, terrifying shadows. We had the painting, but we also had a conversation about trust, and fear, and forgetting key fobs, that was long overdue.