Until The Last Day (Claire and Lorenzo) novel Chapter 21

Lorenzo’s POV 

On twenty-six sheets of paper lay twenty-six printed records of text messages. 

Black-and-white photographs, mingled with long passages of text, flooded my vision all at once. 

I spread them across the desk with shaking hands. The faces, angles, street corners, coffee cups, so many were familiar it hurt. I knew these images. The originals were still in my phone, the one I had buried under a pile of clothes and refused to turn on since the funeral. 

A sharp tingle ran up my spine and snapped me fully awake. 

Í gathered every page into an uneven stack and stumbled out of the study. In the bedroom, the curtains were half drawn, the room gray with afternoon. I crouched by the closet, reached behind a shoebox, and pulled out the old phone. It was cold, dusty, heavier than I remembered. 

I pressed the button. The screen glowed to life. 

The lock screen was a photo of Claire from two summers ago: hair caught by wind, eyes half closed, a smile that looked like a secret only we shared. My thumb hesitated, then moved on instinct. 

Her birthday.Four numbers. The lock clicked open. 

For a moment, I just held the phone and listened to it breathe, old notifications, old ghosts, old lives rising in the glass. 

Then I opened the Photos app. 

The grid loaded slowly, then all at once. Thumbnails bloomed across the screen. Meals, street corners, the living room in soft light, Claire reading, Claire laughing, Claire pretending to be annoyed and failing. The dates stacked month by month. 

The last picture of us together had been in September. 

Because my attention had been drawn to someone else, and my phone’s camera would only point at that person. 

I exited the main album and typed in the hidden folder code. Four numbers again. Aria’s birthday. 

I swiped right, right, right. The pit in my stomach widened. 

Then I lifted one of the printed photos from the stack on the bed and held it beside the screen. I compared. The scarf. The earrings. The chipped blue mug. The park bench with the crooked metal arm. The same day, same outfit, same light, only the one on paper was smudged and foggy while the one in my hand was bright, high-definition, unforgiving. 

Match. 

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