4) What The Archives Still Remembered

I wasn’t searching for proof; I was searching for understanding. Old local papers, public records, a mention from the early ’90s: a teenage girl had gone missing for weeks in Northern California and later returned. No name released. The description—age, hair, eyes—matched Claire at seventeen with the precision of memory.

My heart broke a little at the edges. Not because I doubted her—because I realized how much she’d had to carry alone.

5) The Truth She Hid To Survive