When Cleo’s husband got into a car wreck, he suddenly claimed he didn’t remember her and asked for a divorce. But she noticed a weird detail that made her suspicious. She ended up hiding a camera and busted him keeping an awful secret he thought she’d never uncover.
The moment my phone rang, I was just hanging out in the kitchen holding a dish towel, staring at the clock and trying to figure out why Vance was running late yet again.
My hubby was totally the type of guy who would shoot me a text if a traffic jam held him up for even five minutes.
Or at least, that is how he used to act.
These days, he got super tough to figure out. He stayed way quieter and kept his walls up. He barely even cracked a smile coming inside the house, and every now and then I caught him just glaring at me like he was trying to figure out if I was some kind of issue he needed to fix.
Even so, when the clinic called me up to say Vance got into a car crash, none of that other stuff mattered at all.
I literally just tossed the towel right on the floor and bolted out the door.
By the time I made it to the clinic, my chest was totally aching from sobbing so much. A medical worker walked me down this super bright corridor that smelled exactly like strong cleaning spray and stale coffee, and every single step felt like total torture.
I just kept seeing Vance’s face, his hands, and hearing his voice in my head. I kept dwelling on the last totally dumb thing I told him that morning before he left.
“Make sure you grab some almond milk.”
That was literally it. Not “I love you so much.” Not “be careful on the road.”
Just plain old almond milk.
The second I stepped right into my hubby’s clinic room after his big crash, I practically sprinted right up to his bed, bawling my eyes out.
“Thank goodness you are alright…”
Vance was sitting up on the mattress with some gauze taped near his head. His dark hair was totally messed up, and his skin looked super washed out under those bright clinic bulbs. For a quick second, I really thought he was gonna reach his arms out for me. I truly thought he would drag me in for a hug, mumble my name, and totally wash away that awful heavy feeling crushing my chest.
But instead of wrapping his arms around me, he just looked totally lost.
His eyes scanned all over my face like he was desperately looking for a clue and coming up completely empty.
“Who exactly are you?” he asked me.
I slammed on the brakes so hard I nearly fell right over my own shoes.
At first, I honestly figured he was just messing around. It was a pretty mean thing to think, but Vance was never ever mean to me. Not in that kind of way. But then I really looked at his face. Totally blank. Super guarded. Just completely empty.
I spun around to look at the medical worker, my voice totally cracking.
“What on earth is he talking about?”
That was the exact second the medical guys let me know he came down with memory loss. They explained how a huge shock can do really weird stuff to how you remember things. They claimed the brain sometimes builds a wall to keep itself safe in ways science can’t totally figure out. They talked to me super softly, exactly the way folks do when they are trying super hard to stop you from having a total meltdown.
But the crazy weird part was that his head scans turned out looking almost totally perfectly fine.
This one medical guy, a super exhausted-looking dude with really sweet eyes, dragged me off to the side right by the door after looking over Vance’s medical papers one more time.
He dropped his voice super low so my hubby couldn’t catch a word.
“Something is just not making any sense here,” he mumbled super quietly.
I totally hung onto those exact words for days on end.
The next couple of weeks were pure torture. I dragged in tons of pictures from our big day, our fun trips, and our whole life as a couple, but he just stared at me like I was some random lady off the street.
I shoved a photo right in his face of us slicing our party cake, his hand resting right on top of mine, both of us cracking up because I almost let the big knife slip right out of my grip.
He just stared blankly at it, and then passed it right back to me.
“I apologize,” he said with zero emotion. “I totally don’t recall this.”
I handed over a shot from our getaway out to Oregon, where he totally pushed us to walk up a trail in the pouring rain and then whined about it the entire trip back down. Absolutely nothing.
I hit play on a bunch of old clips. His actual voice bounced around the room, totally making fun of me while I struggled to put together a wooden shelf.
Still totally blank.
Every single time he did that, I felt a tiny chunk of my heart just shrivel right up.
I was thirty years old, and I literally burned six whole years being totally in love with Vance. I knew exactly how he liked his morning brew, the little tune he mumbled whenever he felt jumpy, and the tiny mark on his thumb from cutting up an avocado during our very first month sharing a place.
But he just glared at me like I was some crazy chick who accidentally strolled into the completely wrong room.
Then out of nowhere one morning, he finally blurted out, “I honestly can’t fake feelings that just aren’t there. You are a total nobody to me. I want to split up.”
Those harsh words smacked me way harder than his actual car wreck ever could have.
A couple of days down the line, I found out he already grabbed himself a legal guy. Super conveniently, his crazy “memory issue” could totally help him dodge splitting up the bulk of our cash and stuff.
That is exactly when I started getting this gut feeling that he was totally faking the whole entire mess.
So I cooked up a little scheme.
I sneakily set up a super small camera down in our bottom floor, pointing it right at the lockbox where we stashed our backup cash. Later that exact afternoon, I made totally sure he caught me heading down the steps before walking right back up holding a garbage bag that looked super stuffed.
“What exactly were you messing around with down there?” he demanded right away.
I totally faked like I was freaking out.
“Nothing much… literally just tidying up.”
And then I just strolled right off.
But just a few seconds after that, I caught him sneaking super quietly right toward the bottom floor steps.
And right at that moment, I totally knew my little trick actually paid off.
I kept my eyes right on Vance through the hall glass as he slid down the bottom steps, moving with the exact kind of clear direction a guy definitely wouldn’t have if he totally forgot where all his stuff was sitting.
My fingers were shaking like crazy, but I made myself freeze completely in place.
For weeks on end, he magically forgot our big dance song, our very first rental place, and the cute pet name he hooked me up with back when we were going out. But somehow, the exact second he figured I messed with his backup cash, he totally remembered the bottom floor. He remembered the lockbox. He remembered the exact spot he needed to walk to.
I pulled up the live video feed right on my cell.
The display showed Vance stepping right into the bottom room. He shot a quick look back at the steps, then rushed over to the rusty metal rack where we threw all our paint buckets and festive junk. Right behind all that stuff sat the lockbox.
He shoved the buckets out of the way without even stopping to think.
My throat got super tight.
“Come on, Vance,” I mumbled out loud, even though I had absolutely no clue if I wanted him to quit or just keep on digging.
He dropped to his knees, smashed in the secret numbers, and popped the lockbox open on his very first shot.
The secret numbers were actually my exact birth date.
For a quick second, he completely froze up.
Then he stuck his hand right in and started flipping through the paper money. Not super slow either. Not at all like some lost dude trying to figure out what he just stumbled on. He flipped through it exactly like a guy making sure nobody messed with his sneaky little stash.
I hit save on the video clip with totally shaky hands.
Then I dialed up his legal guy.
The very next morning, Vance parked himself right across from me in our lounge area with his legal guy sitting right next to him. His face sported that exact same blank stare he had been putting on since the clinic. It used to totally crush me.
Now it honestly just made me feel super bummed out.
His legal guy did a loud cough to clear his throat. “Cleo, considering Vance’s crazy health issue, it would be super great for everybody if we just wrap this up nice and easy.”
Vance just stared a hole into the little lounge table. “I seriously don’t want to cause you any pain. I just totally don’t know who you are.”
I came this close to cracking up, but it definitely would have sounded more like me bawling my eyes out.
“You seriously don’t know me?” I asked him super quietly.
He lifted his head. “Nope.”
“You totally forgot our big day?”
“Nope.”
“Our fun trip out to Oregon?”
“Nope.”
“And what is the deal with the lockbox down on the bottom floor?”
His jaw locked up so crazy fast that pretty much anybody else would have totally missed it.
I dropped my cell right onto the table and smacked the play button.
The whole room echoed with the soft noise of feet on the bottom stairs, paint buckets scratching against rusty racks, and Vance punching my exact birth date right into the lockbox. His legal guy leaned way in. All the color completely vanished from Vance’s face.
I just sat there watching the guy stare at a video of his own self.
“You popped it open on your very first shot,” I threw at him. “You shoved those paint buckets out of the way without even glancing down. You knew the exact spot that lockbox was hiding.”
Vance took a really hard gulp. “That honestly doesn’t prove a single thing.”
“Oh really?” I asked him, my voice totally vibrating now. “Then go ahead and spit out the secret numbers.”
He kept his mouth totally shut.
His legal guy turned to face him super slowly. “Vance?”
Vance’s fake act totally shattered. For the absolute first time in weeks, I caught a glimpse of the actual dude I tied the knot with. Not the nice guy I missed like crazy, but the real jerk hiding out right underneath all that quiet act.
“I felt totally stuck,” he mumbled out loud.
Those harsh words smacked me way worse than his giant lie ever did.
I leaned my back against the chair. “Inside our own relationship?”
He dragged both his hands all over his face.
“Inside every single thing. The property. The totally crazy bills. All the heavy expectations. You were constantly bringing up what comes next, and I literally could not even catch a breath.”
“You totally could have just clued me in,” I told him.
He snapped his head right up. “And do what? Sit around and watch you bawl? Watch you beg me to stay? I completely knew you would never just let me walk.”
I stood right up then because sitting face to face with the guy just felt totally impossible to handle.
“I totally would have cried my eyes out,” I owned up to it. “I might have even begged you to make it make sense. But I totally would have lived through the real truth. The stunt you pulled was just pure evil.”
His legal guy flipped his folder shut and spoke up in this super quiet tone.
“I totally need to chat with my guy in private now.”
But there was absolutely no fixing that mess. The video clip went straight over to my own legal guy. The medical dude who mumbled earlier about things looking sketchy totally agreed to write down all his red flags. Vance’s sneaky move to play the memory card and run off with the bulk of our cash crashed and burned almost instantly.
A couple of months down the road, the whole split got wrapped up totally fair and square.
On the exact day I put my name on the final pile of papers, Vance bumped into me right outside the legal building.
He looked way smaller than I actually remembered him being.
“Cleo, I am seriously so sorry.”
I took a hard look at the dude I gave my heart to for six whole years and felt this giant knot inside my gut finally let go.
“I totally know you are,” I threw back at him. “But I am completely done being the only person who actually means what they say.”
And then I just strolled right off.
I bawled my eyes out in my ride for almost twenty straight minutes, absolutely not because I wanted the guy back, but just because I was mourning the awesome dude I totally thought he was.
Right after that, I cruised back to my place, swapped out all the door locks, and cracked open every single glass window in the joint.
For the absolute first time in weeks, the breeze finally felt totally like my own.