Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcome to cheating all the time. Glad you
Speaker 1: are here. Let's get into this next crazy sheet. Everything
Speaker 1: changed to night. I saw that little red heart on
Speaker 1: Alex's phone. It was a Tuesday, one of those dark,
Speaker 1: quiet evenings that seemed to fold the two of us together.
Speaker 1: We were culled up on the gray couch, half watching
Speaker 1: a cooking competition on TV, the kind of show where
Speaker 1: we pretended to bid on Hu'd get shop first, even
Speaker 1: though neither of us could make us a fly to
Speaker 1: save our lives. The lamp next to me threw a
Speaker 1: warm circle across at Alex's profile, the sharp line of
Speaker 1: his jaw on the way his lips pulled upward when
Speaker 1: something on the screen made him laugh. His phone baused
Speaker 1: not the standard three short beats of a work email,
Speaker 1: but the lawn chair patrolled that meant a message, one
Speaker 1: he hadn't the signed to me. Instinctively, I glanced over,
Speaker 1: catching a blur of movement as he snatched up his
Speaker 1: phone with the negst likeness had never seen in his
Speaker 1: hands before. He held it just below the cushion, turning
Speaker 1: ever so slightly away from me. I spotted the flash
Speaker 1: of a lock screen notification floating above the background portrait
Speaker 1: of us from last summer and under the sendo's name
Speaker 1: A red heart mode. I pretended to watch the TV
Speaker 1: as his thumb down SA flick a tapped the string
Speaker 1: of digital bubbles that meant someone couldn't wait for his reply.
Speaker 1: Alex stucked his head and mumbled something a left over
Speaker 1: chuckle trailing from a joke that was mine to hear.
Speaker 1: His lips copped into a grin so soft amid the
Speaker 1: hair on my arms prickle? Was I invisible? Was I
Speaker 1: being childish? Curiosity was a thin thread winding tighter around
Speaker 1: my chest. Before I could speak, he glanced over, quick calculating, Then,
Speaker 1: in one fluid motion, like he'd done as a hundred times,
Speaker 1: he dropped the phone on to the coffee table, face down,
Speaker 1: and dripped his arm around my shoulders. I gathered myself,
Speaker 1: kept my voice light. Who's got you laughing? Over there?
Speaker 1: He shrugged. I saw the mass drop over his face,
Speaker 1: the same blank, steady calm he used at work when
Speaker 1: people asked if he'd finished to presentation. He'd barely started.
Speaker 1: Just work stuff, babe. He knew how stressed the team
Speaker 1: is these days, he said, flicking his eyes back to
Speaker 1: the TV, as if the question didn't matter. Someone's in
Speaker 1: a good mood. I pressed just a little more insistent
Speaker 1: late email from Jeff. The beginnings of a frown ghosted
Speaker 1: are his mouth, but it vanished before I could pin
Speaker 1: it down. Honestly, it's nothing boring stuff. You want pop
Speaker 1: corn or something. He kissed my cheek a practiced gesture,
Speaker 1: and changed the subject. I tried to follow. I really did. Later,
Speaker 1: I lay awake while Alex lay beside me, bathed in
Speaker 1: that blue glow of his phone. He thought I was asleep.
Speaker 1: I heard the faint tap, tap tap as he typed.
Speaker 1: His shoulders were hunched green, hidden beneath the covers, the
Speaker 1: brightest turn so low it was almost invisible to any
Speaker 1: one not searching for secret. A delicate Lafissande used to
Speaker 1: think belonged only to me escaped him, and he paused,
Speaker 1: no doubt, making sure I hadn't stirred That night. I
Speaker 1: started counting the number on the clock, the length of
Speaker 1: the messages, the heart beat in my throat. Something had shifted.
Speaker 1: I used to joke that Alex was the person who
Speaker 1: always left his phone, wallet unkey scattered across the apartment
Speaker 1: in accidental open book. The irony tasted sire in my mouth,
Speaker 1: lying there, listening to him giggle at words that won't mine.
Speaker 1: But before suspicion had its claws in me, before rules
Speaker 1: and pattens and coat words, we were just Alex and Emily.
Speaker 1: Four years is a long time to cozy up to
Speaker 1: another person. The day we met was a colchet crowded
Speaker 1: birthday party in a friend's postage stamp apartment. I noticed
Speaker 1: a smile before I even learned his name. It took
Speaker 1: three months of clumsy flirting and coffee dates before we
Speaker 1: were official cheering Now first, I love you, OVERTAKEO sushi,
Speaker 1: because neither of us could cook a decent meal. After
Speaker 1: two years, we signed our names on a shared lease,
Speaker 1: a loading boxes into sunlit apartment with squeaky floorboards and
Speaker 1: a view of the coffee shop where we'd first held hands.
Speaker 1: We spent weekends at their shop, reading the paper and
Speaker 1: sipping lattes, making grand plans for far off trips to Italy,
Speaker 1: even naming the imaginary dog we'd someday. Rescue. Dinners were
Speaker 1: a ritual, not a chore. He chopped onions while I
Speaker 1: stirred sauce, laughing when he tossed soggy noodles at the ceiling.
Speaker 1: We invented our own language of inside jokes and soft insults,
Speaker 1: competing over who could binge the most episodes of some
Speaker 1: ridiculous show before passing out at a heap. His laugh
Speaker 1: was the soundtrack to my favorite memories. Truss wasn't even
Speaker 1: a question. There was a time when our phones were
Speaker 1: open on the counter propside recipe apps or shopping lists.
Speaker 1: When a message pays, it was normal to hand mine
Speaker 1: over can you text my mom back that I'll call later.
Speaker 1: He knew my childed secret, the nightmarees I got after
Speaker 1: seeing scary movie, the passwords to my streaming and social accounts.
Speaker 1: He worked late sometimes, but not in a way that
Speaker 1: ever worried me. If a last minute deadline kept him
Speaker 1: at the office, I'd get a snapshot of his desk
Speaker 1: or a quick phone call from the block It let lobby,
Speaker 1: don't wait up, babe, He'd say, I'll grab you a sandwich.
Speaker 1: There were flowers on anniversaries, game nights with friends, first
Speaker 1: holiday dinners with both our families squeezed into a two
Speaker 1: small dining room. I remembered the warmth when Alex would
Speaker 1: toss his phone carelessly on to the table, no pass code,
Speaker 1: no hesitation, a small implicit assurance that there was nothing
Speaker 1: in needed to hie. He told stupid jokes to my dad,
Speaker 1: braided my hair one drunken night, and held my hand
Speaker 1: in his sleep. If you'd ask me three months ago,
Speaker 1: betrayal wouldn't have entered my mind. But love stores are
Speaker 1: built to be blind, at least until the scenes start
Speaker 1: to frey. It began as a slow trickle. Alex's phone
Speaker 1: became glued to him in a way it never had
Speaker 1: been before. At first, I brushed it office dress. He
Speaker 1: just started working with a new team, a big project
Speaker 1: with tight deadlines, a handful of late nights and cancel
Speaker 1: plans that he always apologized for. Just a rough patch
Speaker 1: at the office, he promised, brushing hair from my eyes
Speaker 1: with a tire gentleness. Things will settle after the launch.
Speaker 1: But the calls started happening out of earshot. He'd offer
Speaker 1: a strained smile as his ring to and plate, then
Speaker 1: slip away into the hallway, shutting the door behind him.
Speaker 1: On his way to the balcony o the stairwell, he
Speaker 1: talked quietly, his words indistinct laughter, muffled behind a palm.
Speaker 1: One evening, I reached for his phone to look up
Speaker 1: a garlic bread recipe. The device slipped almost imperceptibly from
Speaker 1: my fingers as he intercepted me, a flash of urgency
Speaker 1: crossing his face. Let me get it for you, he said,
Speaker 1: that's split second too quick. Battery is about to die.
Speaker 1: Here you see yours? O K, I said, too slow,
Speaker 1: reading the tension in his jaw. Something in his eyes flickered.
Speaker 1: He smiled, as if to say I was being silly.
Speaker 1: The little habits became patterns. Late at night, I'd wake
Speaker 1: and see the canopy of bush light under the covers.
Speaker 1: His fingers curved around his phone, his lips tilted in
Speaker 1: a private smile. If I shifted or rolled over, the
Speaker 1: clow would vanish in silence, would fill the room, as
Speaker 1: if nothing had happened. Our conversations about work grew vague.
Speaker 1: How is your day, I'd ask, and I'd get a
Speaker 1: distracted shrug. I was fixed on his green of the window.
Speaker 1: Ay Eno, boring, lots of meetings, nothing new, he'd say.
Speaker 1: The store is about his coworkers, though strange, intricate off
Speaker 1: his politics stopped coming home with him, he started deleting
Speaker 1: notifications before I saw them. Once, as I crossed the
Speaker 1: living room, he bolted upright in the arm chair, fun
Speaker 1: pressed tight to his chest. Hey, don't sneak upon me,
Speaker 1: he joked, but the nerves in his voice son did new.
Speaker 1: Another night, after a particularly restless sleep, I glimpsed him
Speaker 1: scowling at a line of texts thum hovering over the screen.
Speaker 1: When Es stretching pretended not to notice. He smiled into
Speaker 1: his phone and slipped it beneath his pillow, before shutting
Speaker 1: his eyes a moment later. Then there were the expenses.
Speaker 1: An odd charge popped up on our joint credit card,
Speaker 1: the name of a fancy restaurant downtown Alex and I
Speaker 1: had talked about but never visited. I started the details,
Speaker 1: found a dinner for two with his card used. When
Speaker 1: I asked about it, Alex waved his hand and said, oh,
Speaker 1: that was with the guise from work after the deadline.
Speaker 1: But the story sounded like an afterthought. I remembered how
Speaker 1: carefully he'd counted every penny for my birthday dinner a
Speaker 1: month ago. And there was one night a Friday when
Speaker 1: he'd rushed to meet to the team for drinks. I
Speaker 1: caught the faintest whiff of a new clone I hadn't
Speaker 1: given him when he slipped out. He checked his reflection
Speaker 1: twice in the Howay mirror and snuck a comb through
Speaker 1: his hair before shutting the door. I wanted to shape myself.
Speaker 1: Maybe I was paranoid. Maybe I was seeing ghosts. But
Speaker 1: ghosts don't change your passwords and closed doors that once
Speaker 1: stood open. I started keeping track. It's strange how suspicion
Speaker 1: grows a slow moss on the stone of your heart.
Speaker 1: At first I tried to dismiss it. Maybe Alex was
Speaker 1: just tired, overworked, caught in the fog of office politics
Speaker 1: and endless late nights. Except the contradictions multiplied. The first
Speaker 1: time was a Thursday, two weeks after the restaurant charge.
Speaker 1: Alex came home late, waving off my questions with a
Speaker 1: distracted We were behind in the Becker report, so I
Speaker 1: stayed to help Jenny run numbers. He kicked off his
Speaker 1: shoes and collapse on the couch, barely looking at me.
Speaker 1: He didn't eat without me, did you? The next day
Speaker 1: I found his workbag dumped on the kitchen table, a
Speaker 1: stop of a bus ticket peeped out of a pocket
Speaker 1: tin stamp for an hour or before. He said he
Speaker 1: left the office last night. I checked our wall clock,
Speaker 1: running the numbers. He told me he came home straight
Speaker 1: from work, but he'd been elsewhere for at least an hour.
Speaker 1: Was it innocent? Had he stopped by friends? The only
Speaker 1: answer was in the slight tremor I heard in his
Speaker 1: voice when I asked how the Becker report went. Oh,
Speaker 1: it was fine, he said, too quickly, just paperwork. Jenny's
Speaker 1: a machine. Later I called his office just to ask
Speaker 1: for a document Alex had mentioned leaving behind. The receptionist
Speaker 1: Carrie answered in her sunny way and said, oh, Alex,
Speaker 1: he left early to day, had a headache, I think,
Speaker 1: want me to get a message to him tomorrow. She
Speaker 1: had no way of knowing I'd expected him home late.
Speaker 1: I mumble to thank you in hum n up Pond's
Speaker 1: wet mind spinning through possibilities I didn't want to name.
Speaker 1: I replayed our old Ritchel's searching for cracks. I'd messed
Speaker 1: Alex had soart it to pull away from me with
Speaker 1: the slow subtlety of shifting seasons. I'd lean him for
Speaker 1: a kiss, and his lept would catch against my cheek,
Speaker 1: not quite lingering, not quite absent, but distracted. At bedtime,
Speaker 1: he sat on the edge of the mattress, waiting until
Speaker 1: I'd rolled over before joining me. On the anniversary of
Speaker 1: our first date, he forgot to text, forgot to bring
Speaker 1: home the sun followers I loved. When I asked if
Speaker 1: we could go out for dinner, he muttered something about
Speaker 1: Warp being crazy and spent the night scrolling through his phone.
Speaker 1: Our laughter faded to polite exchanges. His hand, once always
Speaker 1: ready to squeeze mine, were treated to pocket o lap
Speaker 1: or phone. When I reached for his arm in public,
Speaker 1: he reclaimed it seconds later, adjusting his watch or folding
Speaker 1: it across his chest as though holding himself together. The
Speaker 1: devices became fortresses. One afternoon, I watch Alex hunched over
Speaker 1: his phone, tapping furiously. As I slipped into the room,
Speaker 1: he swiped up and the screen went dark, his face
Speaker 1: closing in tandem. I noticed now for the first time,
Speaker 1: that message previews were gone. Where once the glass lit
Speaker 1: up with ourcheve plans and family group tex, now there
Speaker 1: was only a bland wall of notification bubbles with no content.
Speaker 1: He set a new pascord without warning. One I couldn't guess,
Speaker 1: digits I didn't recognize. Was once communal was now private.
Speaker 1: When I asked why he changed his coat, he shrugged
Speaker 1: and mumbled something about having work stuff on there, company policy,
Speaker 1: he said, his eyes darting somewhere past my shoulder. The
Speaker 1: air between us felt sunly colder. One night, I walked
Speaker 1: in to find him bent over his laptop. I was
Speaker 1: darting across the screen. As soon as he saw me,
Speaker 1: he slammed it shut too hard, as if surprised by
Speaker 1: his own instinct. He didn't mean to startle you, I said,
Speaker 1: my voice light. He just rubbed his forehead and said
Speaker 1: he was working nothing more. My stomach burned with questions.
Speaker 1: I started searching for answers and corners where none should
Speaker 1: have lurked. One afternoon, an unfamiliar name caught my attention.
Speaker 1: Sophia liked your photo. My phone pinged, and I found
Speaker 1: the post Alex's we can hike up state. When I
Speaker 1: bailed on for a work shift, Sophie had left a
Speaker 1: string of emoji's hearts and winks beneath the shot of
Speaker 1: Alex on a trail. Who Sophie, I asked that night,
Speaker 1: feigning nonchalance, he flinched, Seriously, are you stalking my socials now?
Speaker 1: He tossed his phone on the bed with a huff,
Speaker 1: folding his arms. She's a friend from work. She likes
Speaker 1: everybody's stuff. Why are you acting weird? His accusation knocked
Speaker 1: the wind out of me. I'm just asking. She seems invested.
Speaker 1: Alex scowled, this is crazy, em. I can't even have
Speaker 1: colleagues without you grilling me. You're getting paranoid, And just
Speaker 1: like that, the conversation shriveled. The more I pressed, the
Speaker 1: sharper his defenses. He parried everygreshion with just enough irritation
Speaker 1: to make me wonder if it really was all in
Speaker 1: my head. But the evidence kept stacking up. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to become a detective in my own relationship, but
Speaker 1: I felt like I was losing the plot every one
Speaker 1: else could see. One late Friday afternoon, I finished work, ellied,
Speaker 1: and swum by Alex's office, thinking i'd surprise him with coffee.
Speaker 1: As I rounded the block, I saw him on the
Speaker 1: sidewalk with a woman, tall, dark hair, laughing, her hand
Speaker 1: brushing his sleeve. They stood inches apart, head bent close.
Speaker 1: He smiled in a way I recognized the kind of
Speaker 1: smile he deduced on me when we started dating. He
Speaker 1: prickled in my cheeks as I ducked behind a lamp post,
Speaker 1: suddenly hating myself for sneaking. When Alex got home, he
Speaker 1: was full of stores about a traffic jam and how
Speaker 1: exhausted he was by the guy's banter. He avoided my
Speaker 1: eyes when I asked if he'd seen any of his
Speaker 1: team outside each champ. Not. Everyone was wiped, he said,
Speaker 1: changing the subject to our grocery list. It was subtle,
Speaker 1: but the lie was visible. I told myself I was
Speaker 1: imagining it. But then another thing, a box on our
Speaker 1: kitchen counter, sealed with a pretty blue ribbon and a
Speaker 1: note attached for all our late nightses. Inside was a
Speaker 1: bottle of wine, expensive and unfamiliar. I turned the note
Speaker 1: over in my hand, hophounding. The S was looped in
Speaker 1: a careful script I had never seen before. Who's s?
Speaker 1: I asked? Alex barely glanced up from the fridge. Though
Speaker 1: that's from Sophie. She was thanking the whole team. We
Speaker 1: did a bunch of late meetings. I think she gave
Speaker 1: everyone a bottle. He said, too fast, Let's save it
Speaker 1: for your birthday. I held a bottle, turning it over
Speaker 1: as if a cochared light on the growing darkness in
Speaker 1: our home. One Sunday, when Alex was at the store,
Speaker 1: at my curiosity and dread went out. I opened his laptop,
Speaker 1: searching for the folder where we kept joined files and photos. Instead,
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the desktop, tucked away beneath tax
Speaker 1: documents was a folder labeled personal, the name so Bland
Speaker 1: that drew my eye instantly. My hands shook as I
Speaker 1: clicked it open. Dozens of photos, all neatly sorted. Some
Speaker 1: were ordinary receipts, screenshots of means, but a handful stopped
Speaker 1: my breath. A selfie of Alex a dimly lit bar,
Speaker 1: grinning glass rays, dress shirt and buttoned to a degree.
Speaker 1: He never showed me. The metadata was recent dated the
Speaker 1: night he'd worn heapen. Stuck at work helping Jenny, I
Speaker 1: scold further, much chest tightening. A screen shot of a
Speaker 1: Newbertrip receipt. My stomach flipped as I've read the pick
Speaker 1: up at our apartment address frought Palford and familiar brants.
Speaker 1: Soon half way across the city, that ride had been
Speaker 1: on another guy's night, one Alex claimed ended early due
Speaker 1: to rain. Unable to stop, I copied the dress into
Speaker 1: social media and began searching tags. After a few minutes,
Speaker 1: I found a public instagram posed Alex, unmistakable in his
Speaker 1: check shirt, armed thrown casually but intimately around a woman
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize. Her hair tumbled across her face, and
Speaker 1: she was caught mid laugh as she leaned into him.
Speaker 1: The caption Rey best roofed up knight. Ever, my vision narrowed.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was watching a stranger for a spyglass.
Speaker 1: That night, I waited for him to come home. He
Speaker 1: was sixty minutes late, wreaking his stores about wrapping up
Speaker 1: early because the gas flaked. I waited for the right moment,
Speaker 1: for a chance to confirm what I began to fear. Later,
Speaker 1: lying in bed, I heard Alex pad out on to
Speaker 1: the balcony, phone in hand. I crept to the partially
Speaker 1: opened door, holding my breath. His voice was low, soft
Speaker 1: to register i'd only ever heard when he whispered good
Speaker 1: night to me. I miss you too, he murmured words
Speaker 1: slicing through me. He laughed quietly, Yeah, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see you again. Honestly. Soon there was a pause
Speaker 1: so full of sweetness and longing it made my heart ache. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good night, it's soft. I staggered back to bed, hands
Speaker 1: clenched into fists. When Alex returned, he was humming tunelessly
Speaker 1: under his breath. The next morning, while folding laundry, I
Speaker 1: checked the pockets of his jacket and found a smolest
Speaker 1: note written in eat script. Yesterday was perfect. Can't believe
Speaker 1: how lucky I am s My face flamed as I
Speaker 1: read it, Fingers numb, my world wobbled on its axis.
Speaker 1: The certainty of routine, the safety of alive together crumbled.
Speaker 1: But as much as I felt the ground drop away,
Speaker 1: I knew I needed more than suspicion. I needed the
Speaker 1: kind of truth he can't argue against. At work the
Speaker 1: next day, I couldn't focus. I replayed everything, the late
Speaker 1: night's secret smiles but away. Alex's ice darted away. When
Speaker 1: I brought up Sophie, the carefully warded team gifts. My
Speaker 1: hand shook as I clicked open a new inc of
Speaker 1: Neito tab on my desktop. I made a fake profile,
Speaker 1: a plausible woman, distant enough to avoid suspicion, but with
Speaker 1: enough mutuals to make friendings Sophie easy. It was disturbingly
Speaker 1: simple to find her. Her page was colorful, bubbling with
Speaker 1: photos of happy hours and office rooft up parties. Tucked
Speaker 1: in among the post office group shots were candid images
Speaker 1: Sophie with friends and unmistakably Alex, arm curled tightly around her.
Speaker 1: His face was turned toward her, a private glance that
Speaker 1: made my stomach twist. I sent the friend request within
Speaker 1: an eye or Sophie accepted, and her profile opened up.
Speaker 1: I scrolled Their comments on each other's posts were playful
Speaker 1: and familiar, laced with emojis and private jokes late night
Speaker 1: self is in side references as don't tell anyone about
Speaker 1: our researched sessions of the words wrapped around the snap
Speaker 1: of Alex at a bar, dim lights flickering behind him
Speaker 1: in the direct message section I forced myself to tap through.
Speaker 1: The thread between them was relentless, stretching Batman's flirtatious banter,
Speaker 1: private jokes at explicit hints about secret meetings and how
Speaker 1: she missed his face on weekends. Reading it felt like
Speaker 1: tearing off his gab piece by piece. My certainty disintegrated,
Speaker 1: desperate for something undeniable, I decided to trap him in
Speaker 1: a lie he couldn't entangle. That Friday, Alex announced he'd
Speaker 1: be out late to Guy's Night again, probably beers and
Speaker 1: Mario Kart. My heart pounded as I played alarm. I
Speaker 1: texted one of his friends, feel, ostensibly to remind Alex
Speaker 1: to bring home our crock pot. Phill's reply came slower
Speaker 1: than expected. Yeah, I think he's busy tonight. Have you
Speaker 1: tried texting him? I press, isn't it Guy's night at
Speaker 1: your place? Phil's response was a clipped nope, not to night. Sorry,
Speaker 1: m shaking. I called Alex's other close friend, Carter. He stalled,
Speaker 1: his voice tense, not sure, EM. Maybe he's just running late.
Speaker 1: I gotta go client, Sorry, Then he hung up. I
Speaker 1: sat in the dark for IROs, the seconds ticking loudly
Speaker 1: in the silence. I texted Alex twice asking him to
Speaker 1: bring home milk. No reply. He finally came home me midnight,
Speaker 1: smelling nothing like whisky or beer a late night takeout.
Speaker 1: His hair was disheveled, shirt buttoned, unevenly, face flushed with
Speaker 1: something that wasn't the night air. He smiled crookedly, trying
Speaker 1: to act casual. Hey, you're up late. I sat straighter,
Speaker 1: arms folded, voice carefully controlled. Did you have fun with
Speaker 1: the guys? He hesitated just for a heartbeat, then nodded quickly. YEA,
Speaker 1: you know, same old, same old. We ended early. I smiled,
Speaker 1: not trusting myself to speak. I waited up because I
Speaker 1: missed you. He slid past me, brushing a kiss to
Speaker 1: my hair, then disappeared into the shower. My breath came
Speaker 1: short and fast as the water ran. I crept into
Speaker 1: the hallway and snatched up his phone from the night stand.
Speaker 1: My hand shook. I'd watched him enter the new coat
Speaker 1: only days before, burning the digits into my brain twelve
Speaker 1: o nine, his mother's birthday, not mine. I tapped through
Speaker 1: hard pal un, scrolling quickly past the home screen. There
Speaker 1: in the messaging app was a chap marked with a
Speaker 1: red heart, miss you already next weekend that read the
Speaker 1: words floating above a digital conversation so aching in its intimacy,
Speaker 1: I felt physically ill. The thread above was a series
Speaker 1: of selfis, location pinson and familiar neighborhoods, sweet nothings and
Speaker 1: plans and loarning. I snapped photos of every screen, just
Speaker 1: in case my hands clammy and cold. I set the
Speaker 1: phone back in its place, just as Alex cut the
Speaker 1: water and I scrambled beneath the covers, pretending to sleep.
Speaker 1: My heart beat against the mattress with a force I
Speaker 1: couldn't contain. I had what I needed, but now holding
Speaker 1: the proof, I didn't know if I even wanted the truth.
Speaker 1: That night, as Alex slid into bed beside me, he
Speaker 1: said nothing, just exhaled a single, tired sigh and rolled
Speaker 1: to face the wall. I lay rigid and straight, unable
Speaker 1: to soften my limbs, even as I heard his breath
Speaker 1: fall into the rhythm of feign sleep. My mind rattled
Speaker 1: for every moment, like a tape that couldn't be around,
Speaker 1: each frame, a pixel sharpening into a picture I could
Speaker 1: no longer blare. The next morning, sunlight streamed across the floor,
Speaker 1: and everything looked so ordinary that I almost fold myself
Speaker 1: into believing I had imagined it. The sounds of his
Speaker 1: mourning routine, shoved running footsteps and the tile amuck clinking
Speaker 1: in the kitchen were all familiar, but now they grated.
Speaker 1: I stared at the ceiling, avoiding the urge to leap
Speaker 1: out of bed and shake hansers out of him on
Speaker 1: the spot. Instead, I got up, slowly, carefully, because I
Speaker 1: felt like I was slipping through cracked ice. What would
Speaker 1: happen if I shouted or accused or wept right there?
Speaker 1: Part of me craved the drama, the easy clardy of confrontation,
Speaker 1: but most of me ragate, exhausted that just wanted to
Speaker 1: make breakfast and see if we could make it to
Speaker 1: noon without falling apart. I found Alex at the dining table,
Speaker 1: hunt over his laptop, pretending to read emails. His hair
Speaker 1: was still wet, a small cowak sticking up at the back.
Speaker 1: He wore the same faded college sweatshot I used to
Speaker 1: steal on cold nights. But I felt no urge to
Speaker 1: touch him as I used to. When he looked up,
Speaker 1: the pell shadow of wariness flickered behind his eyes before
Speaker 1: he conjured his effortless every day smile. Morning coffee he offered,
Speaker 1: rising as if nothing in our universe was broken. Sure,
Speaker 1: I forced a yawn. My voice sounded normal, miraculous, given
Speaker 1: that my throat was tied as a drum. As he
Speaker 1: poured coffee, I watched him carefully. Did he move differently,
Speaker 1: hold his muk with guilt? How could a person's body
Speaker 1: lie so well when their words falward? He set the
Speaker 1: mug in front of me and brushed my shoulder, just
Speaker 1: a whisper of touch. I flinched so slightly. He probably
Speaker 1: missed it, or maybe he noticed and catalogged it. One
Speaker 1: more thing to fall under problems. Emily is having big
Speaker 1: plans for to day. He sat, stretching his arms above
Speaker 1: his head. I matched his easy tone. Not really, I
Speaker 1: might meet Rachel for brunch, Might just read you. He
Speaker 1: didn't look up from the laptop. Might have to hop
Speaker 1: on a call with the team at eleven Lots of
Speaker 1: loose ends. After last night, the word team was wearing thin, stretched,
Speaker 1: translucent after so many uses. I took a long sip,
Speaker 1: letting the bitterness coat my mouth. I pictured the messages
Speaker 1: I'd photographed last night, the pretty red heart blooming beside
Speaker 1: Sofa's name, that chat like an artery, linking Alex's secret
Speaker 1: life to mine. Alex finished his coffee in silence, then
Speaker 1: busied himself clearing plates. I waited just to be too
Speaker 1: long before speaking, Hey, I said, half committed. I was
Speaker 1: thinking we could try it up pizza place to night,
Speaker 1: you know, the one by the park. He looked over
Speaker 1: his shoulder, hedging and scratched the back of his neck. Ah,
Speaker 1: I might be working late. Why don't you go with Rachel.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want you stuck here. Maybe my voice cracked
Speaker 1: a little. It's been a while since weighed out together.
Speaker 1: He fidgeted, turning the mug in his hands. This project's
Speaker 1: not going to last forever. M Ye know how it gets,
Speaker 1: he smiled, But it was a brittle thing. The edges cut.
Speaker 1: I retreated into the bedroom and that the routine of
Speaker 1: getting dress yelled me for a moment. In the closet,
Speaker 1: Alex's suits hung neatly, too many now, for how rarely
Speaker 1: he mentioned formal meetings. I remembered the perfume on his shirt,
Speaker 1: the buttons misligned the night before, picking out a sweater,
Speaker 1: My fingers brushed over the hem of one of his
Speaker 1: dress jacket, and I hesitated. Inside the left pocket, tucked
Speaker 1: almost out of sight, was a movie stub dated two
Speaker 1: weeks ago, on a night Alex had insisted he was
Speaker 1: working late at the office. The movie is some romantic
Speaker 1: comedy we jerked about but never made plans to see.
Speaker 1: Swallowing my pulse, I slipped the stub into my back pocket.
Speaker 1: My hands jam so badly I dropped my phone when
Speaker 1: I tried to check the time. It was almost laughable,
Speaker 1: the way I now gathered evidence, like I was assembling
Speaker 1: a case file. Bit bust low, relentless, bit, no longer
Speaker 1: girl friend, but a numbling sweet stuck in a story
Speaker 1: that was writing itself. At noon, I went for a walk.
Speaker 1: For the first five minutes, I barely registered the cold
Speaker 1: air biting my cheeks. My mind flickered between memories and evidence,
Speaker 1: swinging from disbelief to rage and back to the hollow,
Speaker 1: sucking grief that hovered behind my ribs. Was this vigilant
Speaker 1: watching what loving someone did to you? Monstrous cracked? Would
Speaker 1: I ever feel easy again? Rachel met me at the
Speaker 1: corner bickery, her dark eyes sharp as she hugged me tight,
Speaker 1: taking an extra second to squeeze. I knew she felt
Speaker 1: me trembling. You look like else, she said, gently, taking
Speaker 1: a loose hair behind my ear. Sorry, but you do
Speaker 1: didn't sleep. I shook my head, not trusting myself to
Speaker 1: speak yet. We sat at small table. I sturvo sunlight.
Speaker 1: I'd intended to keep everything inside, but something about Rachel's
Speaker 1: colmpractical kindness broke me. He's lying, I said, dropping my
Speaker 1: eyes to my lap, I uproof everything is proof. She
Speaker 1: reached out, covering my hand with hers, em what happened?
Speaker 1: So I told her everything, the late nights of the secrecy,
Speaker 1: the small lies about Sophy, the private messages, the note
Speaker 1: in his jacket, the perfum, the movie ticket. The words
Speaker 1: tumbled out in fits and starts. Even as I said them.
Speaker 1: I wondered if I sounded crazy, if maybe I'd woven
Speaker 1: a web out of innocuous moments. Rachel listened, her lips
Speaker 1: press in a tight sympathetic line. She didn't say are
Speaker 1: you sure or I'm sure it's nothing. She didn't try
Speaker 1: to make it better. She squeezed my hand and said,
Speaker 1: only what are you going to do? I shook my
Speaker 1: head helpless. I want to scream at him, and I
Speaker 1: want to throw every proof in his face. I want
Speaker 1: to go back to last year, when the worst thing
Speaker 1: we worried about was under cook lass Onnia in Netflix's Choices.
Speaker 1: Rachel smiled sadly. If you need somewhere to stay, the
Speaker 1: offer hung between us, like a safety net. Back at
Speaker 1: our apartment, Alex had gone, his laptop, missing, his sneakers,
Speaker 1: gone from the door. I wandered through the hush, feeling
Speaker 1: the shape of his absence like a wind, uncertain if
Speaker 1: I missed him or was just scared of being alone
Speaker 1: with my own anger. The rest of the afternoon dripped
Speaker 1: by heavy and slow. I tried reading a book, but
Speaker 1: my eyes caught on every passage about love, faith, or
Speaker 1: heart break. I have cleaned the kitchen, stacking dishes with
Speaker 1: unnecessary force. I jumped at every cop pulling up outside,
Speaker 1: feeling vaguely hunted in my own home. I glanced at
Speaker 1: his laptop spot on the table every ten minutes, now
Speaker 1: as fred row as I combed through the previous night's
Speaker 1: messages in my mind, the phone, the dubs, the receipts
Speaker 1: of the irrefutable pattern rising. I called my mom, but
Speaker 1: the moment I heard her voice, I felt myself choke up,
Speaker 1: unable to string together a sentence that wouldn't make her
Speaker 1: voice fill with worry. Alex texted at six, running late,
Speaker 1: don't wait up, teamed dinner, Sorry, last minute, love you.
Speaker 1: The words made my jaw clench. I wanted to believe
Speaker 1: the text was innocent, but the love you hung in
Speaker 1: the air with a strange hollowness like he knew it
Speaker 1: was a magic trick to keep me from asking questions,
Speaker 1: a sleight of hand designed for distraction. I didn't reply. Instead,
Speaker 1: I sat at the window with a cup of teak
Speaker 1: on cold nies hugged to my chest. CAUs trickled by
Speaker 1: I pictured Alex across the city, laughing at a joke
Speaker 1: that was funny, touching a hand that wasn't mine. Unburdened
Speaker 1: by the weight growing in my chest, I found myself
Speaker 1: scrolling through our old foot's trips to the lake, where
Speaker 1: at this silly's oflfice in the bathroom mirror the early years,
Speaker 1: his arms gripping me tight, I sparkling only for me.
Speaker 1: How far I wondered, had he drifted from those days?
Speaker 1: Or had I simply failed to notice the distance until
Speaker 1: it was too wide to cross. Later that night, I
Speaker 1: got up, suddenly, needing fresh air. My mind was with
Speaker 1: a single insisting question. I could no longer quiet. When
Speaker 1: had he last been honest with me? I left the apartment,
Speaker 1: walking briskly through our neighborhood until I reached the small
Speaker 1: square outside Alex's office. The windows were mostly dark and empty,
Speaker 1: Friday night void. But as I passed under a street lamp,
Speaker 1: I spotted a park car. I recognized a white Sedan,
Speaker 1: Sophie's from her Instagram photos. She sat in the driver's seat,
Speaker 1: fiddling with her phone, hair tucked behind one ear. My
Speaker 1: stomach dropped a six certain tea swelling in my chest.
Speaker 1: I dupped behind a bush and waited, shame and adrenaline swirling.
Speaker 1: Moments late, at Alex emerged from the side door, looking
Speaker 1: back over his shoulder. He walked a sof his car,
Speaker 1: leaning against the wind. They chatted how after ringing through
Speaker 1: the chill air, she reached across squeeze his hand. It
Speaker 1: was all there, the easy joy, the kind that used
Speaker 1: to belong to us. I washed as he bent down,
Speaker 1: pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, then lean inside
Speaker 1: the car, talking low and close. There was no hurry,
Speaker 1: no fear of being seen. It was their world, not ires.
Speaker 1: I waited until he disappeared down the block. Then I
Speaker 1: let myself come apart. The street light hummed overhead, merciless
Speaker 1: and white cheers scalded my cheeks. I felt exposed, like
Speaker 1: mine's sides were out where anyone could see. When I
Speaker 1: finally made it home, Alex was already there, showering for
Speaker 1: a second time that night. His bag was slung carelessly
Speaker 1: by the door, his foe left, charging on the night scent.
Speaker 1: The ordinary choreography of the evening felt scene twisted by
Speaker 1: everything I now knew. I moved through our routines as
Speaker 1: if in a trance, barely registering away my vision blowed
Speaker 1: around the edges. What was left now but the reckoning
Speaker 1: I'd been pushing off in bed. He grolt toward me,
Speaker 1: one hand on my hip. I waited until his breathing
Speaker 1: slowed before I shifted away, hot pounding hard enough I
Speaker 1: thought it might bruise my roops. The next morning, Saturday,
Speaker 1: I went before dawn, too anxious to be still, too
Speaker 1: restless to pretend any longer. I may coffee, let the
Speaker 1: bitterness wake me. Then called Rachael. I need to talk
Speaker 1: to him, I whispered, Even hearing the words out loud
Speaker 1: made me tremble, as if pronouncing the threat gave it way.
Speaker 1: I have to know all of it, even if it
Speaker 1: kills me. Rachel sounded steady, and faces always I'll come
Speaker 1: by just in case you kneed back up. I nodded,
Speaker 1: alone in the kitchen, as if she could see me.
Speaker 1: Not yet. If I need to get out, I'll text.
Speaker 1: My courage pulled slowly. I tried to tell myself I
Speaker 1: was shaking. I went over my evidence, every file, every screenshot,
Speaker 1: every memory in my hands. The morning was still, our apartment,
Speaker 1: thick with the scent of toast and dark rose, the
Speaker 1: sun inching over the floorboards like a time lapse. Alex
Speaker 1: wandered in, scratching his head, wearing that rumpldonnasty that once
Speaker 1: seemed a daring. He pecked me on the cheek and
Speaker 1: I almost recoiled. Hey, what's for breakfast? He asked, humming
Speaker 1: under his breath. I watched him for a long moment,
Speaker 1: the words pressing up behind my teeth like a dam
Speaker 1: about to split alkes. My voice was low, calm, to steady,
Speaker 1: forward a care He turned, surprised. Yeah, I steadied myself,
Speaker 1: staring at his hands, hands that had held mine, comforted me,
Speaker 1: built this life side by side. I thought of where
Speaker 1: else they had been, whose hay hair they had tucked
Speaker 1: behind another ear. We need to talk, My voice didn't
Speaker 1: fall to this time, he froze. The air in the kitchen, crystallized,
Speaker 1: everything going glassy and drop immocante. Wait. I running late,
Speaker 1: thought I'd sneak in a workout. E no. I took
Speaker 1: a deep breath, lighting the anger, curl and must bin
Speaker 1: and steel and hot. I want to talk now, He
Speaker 1: sowed the seriousness in my face, the evidence of sleepless
Speaker 1: nights and secrets clawing across my skin. He nodded, almost mechanically,
Speaker 1: sitting down across from me at the table. OK. His
Speaker 1: voice was small. For the first time, I saw something
Speaker 1: I couldn't read in his eyes, fear maybe, or the
Speaker 1: relief of giving up. I pulled out my phone, set
Speaker 1: it on the table between us. I pulled up the screenshots,
Speaker 1: the messages, the photos, the receipts, the eber rides, the
Speaker 1: notes from Sophie. I let them speak, laying them out
Speaker 1: one by one. He opened his mouth to protest, but
Speaker 1: the last start half way out. For a moment, time thickened,
Speaker 1: held his breath. I waited for denial, or rage or justification,
Speaker 1: but what came first was silence, heavy and bottomless. We
Speaker 1: sat across the vastness of the kitchen table a lifetime
Speaker 1: between us and waited for the truth to crawl into
Speaker 1: the light. He didn't touch his coffee. He barely looked
Speaker 1: at me. There was no familiar sparkle, teasing edge in
Speaker 1: his voice, now only silence and the brittle postures someone
Speaker 1: who knows there are no save figs its left. I
Speaker 1: pushed my phone a little closer. He kept his gaze
Speaker 1: train in the wood grain of the table. Do you
Speaker 1: want to explain it? Or should I read them out loud?
Speaker 1: My hands trembled less than I expected. I felt hollowed
Speaker 1: out exhaustion and dread, making my voice sound calm, even clinical.
Speaker 1: A part of me stood outside myself, observing the scene
Speaker 1: as if it belonged to some one else. Alex's lips
Speaker 1: parted as if to protest, but his breath stolled. I
Speaker 1: watched the mix of defiance and pass fight across his features,
Speaker 1: the old to move mask he wore, and office meetings,
Speaker 1: now stripped and desperate. A thousand words flickered through his eyes.
Speaker 1: Behind the careful armor, heat curve around himself. With each lie,
Speaker 1: he let out a ragged sigh. I, Emily, I can explain.
Speaker 1: I cut him off. Stop, don't tell me, it's nothing.
Speaker 1: I heard you on the balcony with her. I've seen
Speaker 1: the pictures, the wine, the notes, the messages, the uberades,
Speaker 1: the common thread I know about Sophie. He clenched his
Speaker 1: jaw so tight. I heard his molar's creak. She's a friend,
Speaker 1: he said at last, but his voice barely held up
Speaker 1: the lie. It's just we've been working together a lot
Speaker 1: and did no. I shook my head, feeling my face
Speaker 1: twists with hurt and anger. No, Alex, don't insult me.
Speaker 1: You've been deleting messages, you go out with her after work,
Speaker 1: you stay at her place. He lied to me. Every
Speaker 1: time you said it was guy's night or project running,
Speaker 1: lay you kiss her in front of her office last night.
Speaker 1: My chest ached as I pressed each accusation forward for
Speaker 1: as thickening as the reality war through all pretenses. He
Speaker 1: lifted his head then and finally looked at me for real.
Speaker 1: The old mask shattered, his eyes rimmed with red, and
Speaker 1: Btna's gathering at the corners. Emily listened. I never wanted
Speaker 1: this to happen, though, wasn't trying to hurt you. It
Speaker 1: just got complicated, I laughed, bitter and broken. Complicated, is
Speaker 1: that what this is complicated is a lost reservation, or
Speaker 1: a flat tire, or forgetting a birthday, not this. I
Speaker 1: tried to keep my voice steady, but my hands bowled
Speaker 1: into fists. What did ye think I'd never find out?
Speaker 1: Did you think he were so careful, so clever, that
Speaker 1: I just keep believing every story? He dropped his gaze again,
Speaker 1: for it's almost a whisper. No, No, I hope you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to know I was going to end it.
Speaker 1: I felt something break inside me when Alex. My voice sharpened.
Speaker 1: When were you going to end it? After she sent
Speaker 1: you love notes, after you spend the night at her place,
Speaker 1: after you ruin us and called a mistake? He flinched,
Speaker 1: panic giving way to a trembling honesty. I thought it
Speaker 1: was harmless at first, floating late nights drinks with the team,
Speaker 1: aturned into something else I never meant to do. He
Speaker 1: bit his lip, as if physically swallowing any more excuses.
Speaker 1: It just happened. I was lonely, work was hale. You
Speaker 1: were busy with your own things. She listened. She made
Speaker 1: me feel again. Hot tears burned behind my eyes, but
Speaker 1: I refused to let them fall yet. I made you
Speaker 1: feel seen, I barked, a laugh full of disbelief. I
Speaker 1: was here every night, every morning, I made space, I
Speaker 1: asked questions. I told you I loved you until you
Speaker 1: rolled your eyes, and I still kept saying it. Don't
Speaker 1: you dare blame me for you needn't feel seen. My
Speaker 1: words cracked, shamewise in that I was even tempted to
Speaker 1: accept his twisted logic. He shook his head desperately. I'm
Speaker 1: not blaming you, and that's not what I meant. I
Speaker 1: just so, I don't know how I let it it
Speaker 1: so far. It was supposed to be just a comfort,
Speaker 1: some one to talk to her, but stuff I couldn't
Speaker 1: say here. Then I woke up and realized I'd gone
Speaker 1: too far, and I didn't know how to stop the rhonescent.
Speaker 1: His voice almost reached a part of me that still
Speaker 1: wanted to protect him, to soothe him. But a wall
Speaker 1: had come up between us that felt older, thicker than
Speaker 1: just the past few months. So you're telling me you
Speaker 1: never slept with her, I demanded, needing dreading the answer,
Speaker 1: he hesitated, and the world's gidded sideways. For a long,
Speaker 1: shuddering moment, there was only the sound of my pulse
Speaker 1: studding in my ears. Alex's eyes dropped. I did, he said, finally,
Speaker 1: the words like shads. It only happened a few times
Speaker 1: after work, when things were really rough with Renas I
Speaker 1: told myself I was going to stop. I just I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. There it was, I felt the
Speaker 1: floor drop away, both completely in surprised and simultaneously devastated.
Speaker 1: Beyond language. The heart pulled deep and ache that throbbed
Speaker 1: in time with each word he'd said, each half truth,
Speaker 1: each sickening revelation. I wiped a tear away with the
Speaker 1: heel of my hand, forcing composure back into my breathing,
Speaker 1: not giving him the satisfaction of a full breakdown. And
Speaker 1: what about the texts the missy already the next weekend?
Speaker 1: Is she just a friend and knows messages too? My
Speaker 1: throat burned. He shook his head. We were seeing each other.
Speaker 1: It was more than friendship. She thinks her. He paused, shame,
Speaker 1: coloring his cheeks a deep scarlet. She thought I had
Speaker 1: broken up with you. I told her things weren't working
Speaker 1: and that I needed time to sort things out. I
Speaker 1: tried to keep both sides separate. But he choked out
Speaker 1: a soft, pathetic laugh. He can't keep a secret for alarm,
Speaker 1: not one that big. I sat back, breathing through the
Speaker 1: urge to scream. My voice dropped to a whisper. Did
Speaker 1: you ever love me, Alex? Did you ever mean any
Speaker 1: of it? Or was all this discomfort for you? Was
Speaker 1: I just what you needed until something better came along?
Speaker 1: He looked away, his hands trembling in his lap. I
Speaker 1: did love you, I do. I think I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I just loved what we were, not what we become.
Speaker 1: The words were both in the admission and an excuse, and
Speaker 1: with them a certain flatness settled over the apartment, the
Speaker 1: shot edge of adrenaline giving way to the suffocating fog
Speaker 1: of grief. I couldn't look at him any more. Get out,
Speaker 1: I whispered, barely above breath. He hesitated, forehead creasing and
Speaker 1: pleading confusion. Emily, get out, please. My voice was deadly calm,
Speaker 1: my chest burning cold. When he didn't move, I stood
Speaker 1: with trembling knees and walked to the bedroom, Grabbing the
Speaker 1: duffel bag from under the bed, I moved on auto pilot,
Speaker 1: filling it with jeans, sweaters, enough underwear for a week,
Speaker 1: whatever I could grob without breaking apart in front of him,
Speaker 1: my old hoodie, some toilet is my book, my charger.
Speaker 1: I pulled my running shoes from the closet and stuffed
Speaker 1: them in. Every sound in the apartment suddenly echoed, as
Speaker 1: if amplified each supper and drawer, a violent punctuation. Alex
Speaker 1: hovered in the whole way, face stricken, his lips moving
Speaker 1: as if he wanted to say something but couldn't find
Speaker 1: the words. When I brushed pasted him toward the door,
Speaker 1: he reached for my arm, then stopped himself short. I
Speaker 1: watched his hand fall, the small, defeated movement more honest
Speaker 1: than anything he said all morning. As I stepped out,
Speaker 1: I heard him call my name, voice raw and trembling.
Speaker 1: I didn't look back outside. The sun was blinding. It
Speaker 1: was a perfect morning, the birds, oblivious, people walking dogs
Speaker 1: and buying coffee. As if my world hadn't just dissolved,
Speaker 1: I inhaled shakerley. They are too bright, too clean. The
Speaker 1: streets I love felt un familiar at the saneness of
Speaker 1: them mocking me. I pressed Rachel's contact on my phone,
Speaker 1: my thumb shaking you coming, She said, already waiting at
Speaker 1: the curb, even though I hadn't texted. Relief and hearty collided.
Speaker 1: I nearly dropped my bag at her feet. She took
Speaker 1: it without a word, looping an armor round my shoulder.
Speaker 1: For a minute, I let myself lean, taking warmth in
Speaker 1: her steady presents. Rachel's guest room was messy, but mercifully impersonal,
Speaker 1: the soft haven of them smashed sheets, and the humming
Speaker 1: of her cat hopping on and off the bed. We
Speaker 1: didn't talk about Alec's much, at least not right away.
Speaker 1: She handed me her spare house key and ordered lunch,
Speaker 1: making terrible jokes about crime documentaries and the weirdness of adulthood,
Speaker 1: keeping space from my silence. Only when night felt did
Speaker 1: I let myself a marvelfully. My sobs came in spasms,
Speaker 1: the kind that stole my breath and left my chest sore.
Speaker 1: I cutched a pillow, my fum face down beside me.
Speaker 1: Each notification made my heart lodge and stupid. How for fear,
Speaker 1: even though it was always spam, a work, or a
Speaker 1: random map I'd forgotten to delete. By midnight, the reality
Speaker 1: set in my relationship, my future, my person was gone.
Speaker 1: No perilude, no second chances, just a string of messages
Speaker 1: and lies, now looped to the sick rhythm of my
Speaker 1: replays and regrets. In the morning, I texted my mom
Speaker 1: Alex and I broke up, was all I managed. She
Speaker 1: called immediately, voice thick with worry, but all I could
Speaker 1: do was assure her I was okay, busy processing. She
Speaker 1: offered to come visit, but I shook my head, even
Speaker 1: though she couldn't see me. I wasn't ready to explain
Speaker 1: this to any one new. In a gray days that followed,
Speaker 1: I cycled through every emotion, white hot, anger at disbelief,
Speaker 1: withering shame, and sometimes none so deep it felt like
Speaker 1: drifting on her black. I deleted photos from my phone,
Speaker 1: scrolled through old messages, just to torture myself with evidence
Speaker 1: of better days. I changed my relationship status duo single,
Speaker 1: each click a small violence against my past self. Friends
Speaker 1: called and texted, some expressing shock, others a little too quickly,
Speaker 1: admitting that they always had a feeling something was off.
Speaker 1: Oh that Alex just seemed the type, hearing that only
Speaker 1: deep in my hurt had everyone else seen what I
Speaker 1: tried so hard not to. Others urged gentleness told me
Speaker 1: to consider forgiveness. Whispered stores of couples who survived rough patches.
Speaker 1: I wanted to believe them. At night, stirring at the
Speaker 1: blushed ceiling in Rachel's bed room, I replayed every conversation,
Speaker 1: every sign I might have missed. Every time, I let
Speaker 1: myself ignore the sting of Alex's new pass code or
Speaker 1: his sudden medicines about work, rewriting history in a desperate
Speaker 1: search for a different ending. For days, I was haunted
Speaker 1: by everything as sent on the sleeve of my jacket,
Speaker 1: his mug and rachel sink, the echo of his laughter.
Speaker 1: In a random TV ad, I looked for evidence of
Speaker 1: Sophie everywhere, obsessively scrolling their profiles, finding her face and crowds,
Speaker 1: even when she wasn't there. I wondered if she felt
Speaker 1: as hollow as I did, if she knewhould be used to.
Speaker 1: Alex texted and called daily, sometimes begging forgiveness, sometimes lashing out.
Speaker 1: Can't we just talk? It wasn't all fake? Please, m
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry you're being dramatic. Then I made a mistake.
Speaker 1: I'll never forgive myself. Minutes later, you never trusted me
Speaker 1: anywhere you always assumed the worst. Maybe if you'd listened
Speaker 1: to the cycle wore me down. I blocked him, unlocked him,
Speaker 1: blocked him again. Some days the thought of never talking
Speaker 1: to him was a relief. Others there was a fresh wound.
Speaker 1: Both our families got drawn, and Alex's mother called me
Speaker 1: in stifled tears, apologizing without ever really saying what for.
Speaker 1: My parents brimmed with sympathy and subtle anger, offering to
Speaker 1: send food, championing my strength and ways that the only
Speaker 1: highlighted how weak I felt. Rachel feelded a visit from Alex,
Speaker 1: sending him away before I had to see his face.
Speaker 1: I started therapy at Rachel's urging. My first appointment was
Speaker 1: a hazer, crying self recrimination, and the therapist's patient nodding.
Speaker 1: She told me shame was normal, heartbreak, natural, trust not
Speaker 1: easily rebuilt. You're grieving not just him, but your belief
Speaker 1: that he would never do this, she said, quietly, her
Speaker 1: eyes offt that illusion is very hard to let go of.
Speaker 1: But there were days I still sat up waiting for
Speaker 1: his text Net's. My hand twitched toward the phone, wanting
Speaker 1: to ask white or how, or whether he even missed me. Anymore,
Speaker 1: or had he already replaced me with someone easier, lighter,
Speaker 1: less Wounded by his duplicity. The smallest things gutted me.
Speaker 1: The half eaten cotton of my favorite ice cream left
Speaker 1: in the freezer. When I went by the apartment for
Speaker 1: more clothes, his shoes still lined up at the door,
Speaker 1: and no tape to the mirror that just said be
Speaker 1: back soon. The life we built felt like a set
Speaker 1: abandon made performance, waiting factors he'd never return. On a
Speaker 1: particularly hard night two weeks later, Rachel asked me outright,
Speaker 1: what are you going to do em? Will you ever
Speaker 1: be able to forgive him or yourself? I stared at
Speaker 1: the wall, twisting my ring finger out of old habit.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Sometimes I almost want to forgive him,
Speaker 1: just so this pain has somewhere to go. Others I
Speaker 1: wish I could hate him more easily. I don't know
Speaker 1: how you decide something like that. She nodded, You don't
Speaker 1: have to decide yet. Just keep breathing. One day the
Speaker 1: answer won't feel so impossible. I tried to believe her,
Speaker 1: grateful for the steadiness of her wisdom. Still every night
Speaker 1: I questioned myself, second guessing every word and gesture from
Speaker 1: the months before. Was it all inevitable from the beginning?
Speaker 1: Did some people cheat because the opportunity arose or because
Speaker 1: something fundamental was missing? What did any of it say
Speaker 1: about me? About my worth, my judgment, my capacity to
Speaker 1: choose some one who valued honesty over temptation. Alex's last voice,
Speaker 1: smel before I blocked him for good, was a rambling,
Speaker 1: teary ply I'm sorry, I am You're the only person
Speaker 1: who ever really saw me and I was stupid and selfish.
Speaker 1: Please what we had, don't let it die like this.
Speaker 1: I need you, Please let me explain. I can't live
Speaker 1: with myself. The words echoed for days, keeping me up
Speaker 1: at night. I hated the part of me that still
Speaker 1: wanted hto hurt, to beg to make it right. After
Speaker 1: a few rough meetings with his parents to exchange stuff,
Speaker 1: a box of my books, a favorite mark, keys, and charges,
Speaker 1: I cut contact completely. They cried and offered sympathy, but
Speaker 1: I could see relief in their faces too, The drama
Speaker 1: out of their hands, the mess exposed nothing left but
Speaker 1: sadness to be swallowed privately. I steered through the weeks
Speaker 1: like a shell. I worked, I ate, I slept. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I met with my therapist, I met with Rachel after ward,
Speaker 1: pretending it all out less with each passing day, but
Speaker 1: sometimes it didn't. Sometimes painted its own time table, showing
Speaker 1: up at the worse moments in its song on the radio,
Speaker 1: and a couple's loft, a drifting from a park bench
Speaker 1: in a recipe I found that was still saved under
Speaker 1: Alex's name in my phone. After a month, the anger
Speaker 1: dull to a heavy buzzing ache, and the raw edges
Speaker 1: softened a little. Rachel's sheet stopped smelling strange. I spent
Speaker 1: longer periods without obsessively checking their profiles. Even the urge
Speaker 1: to come through old text faded salm, replaced by a slower,
Speaker 1: more thoughtful ache. I went to the apartment one last
Speaker 1: time alone. Alex was gone, having moved out a week prior.
Speaker 1: The place was hollow and silent, smelling of stale coffee.
Speaker 1: Our old candle on the kitchen town to burn all
Speaker 1: the way down. I boxed up the last of my things,
Speaker 1: handshaking more from sadness than rage. On the shelf in
Speaker 1: his closet, I found a box I didn't recognize, a
Speaker 1: plain gray shoe boox battered and taped. Inside were a
Speaker 1: jumble of old photos and ticket stubs, a silly drawn
Speaker 1: I had made on Valentine's years ago, a Bertha Cat
Speaker 1: had signed with and I love you more hopeful than
Speaker 1: I remembered feeling, and near the bottom a folded slip
Speaker 1: of paper. I recognized Alex's handwriting even before I opened it.
Speaker 1: The letter was brief written on hotel stationary in a
Speaker 1: her messy scroll. It was addressed to me directly, just
Speaker 1: a date and a string of sentences, angry and full
Speaker 1: of guilt. I want to fix it, but I can't.
Speaker 1: I hate what I'm doing. I don't know how to choose.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Am, I'm sorry, Sophie. They don't think I
Speaker 1: know what real of us any more. The date was
Speaker 1: from a week before, the night I saw the herd
Speaker 1: mergy on his phone. The apology never sent, a confession
Speaker 1: torn up and hid him from both of us, the
Speaker 1: ultimate proof that this brokenness had started before I ever
Speaker 1: called up to it. I pressed the paper to my chest,
Speaker 1: lighting the reality of it sinking. I cried, but it
Speaker 1: was a quiet thing, the kind of morning you do winnows.
Speaker 1: No one left to blame. I realized, really for the
Speaker 1: first time, that the affair hadn't started. It. All our
Speaker 1: marveling i'd begun long before, went into the daily routines
Speaker 1: i'd clung to us, proof that we were okay. Sitting
Speaker 1: in that empty living room, I understood what I missed
Speaker 1: was Alex, not really, not the man who lied, or
Speaker 1: the boy who couldn't say what he wanted, or even
Speaker 1: the person who once drifted into my life so soft
Speaker 1: and sure. What I missed was the illusion, the comfort
Speaker 1: of trust, the memory of certainty that now felt impossible.
Speaker 1: I finished packing and left, locking the door with something
Speaker 1: like finality. I texted Rachel Hart Moji a real one
Speaker 1: for once. She texted back, come home home. The idea
Speaker 1: of it made me ach incide, not for Alex or
Speaker 1: even the apartment, but for the space I'd make for
Speaker 1: myself going forward. Smaller maybe, but honest in a way
Speaker 1: i'd never demanded before. Several weeks later, as whenter flickered
Speaker 1: on the edges of town, I sat at the same
Speaker 1: coffee shop where Alex and I had our first date,
Speaker 1: all on, this time, wrapped in a scarff, watching people
Speaker 1: swirl past the windows. There was nothing romantic about solisue,
Speaker 1: but there was a different kind of peace, and its
Speaker 1: steadiness a quiet resolve not to rush through the process
Speaker 1: of healing. I scrolled through my phone till leading as
Speaker 1: I went, letting go of chat histories, all saved numbers,
Speaker 1: contact photos. I hadn't realized I still carry. I have
Speaker 1: heard over Alex's name for a long time before finally
Speaker 1: pressing delete. The sense of finality warned me the first
Speaker 1: real breath I had taken in weeks. I let myself remember
Speaker 1: it all, not to win myself again, but to check
Speaker 1: the seams to understan down where things had truly begun
Speaker 1: to rot. I could see now, with an awful kind
Speaker 1: of clarity, that the relationship had drifted from mons needo,
Speaker 1: one of us saying what we were feeling arriving at Lavoni,
Speaker 1: in the negative spaces between work and sleep, groceries and Netflix,
Speaker 1: comfort and silence. The affair was a symptom, not the disease.
Speaker 1: As I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing in
Speaker 1: the steamy fragrance of my coffee, my phone buzz an
Speaker 1: unknown number. I almost ignored it. Spam probably were another
Speaker 1: family member with an awkward wish for healing. Then I
Speaker 1: knew text previewed on the screen, simple and unsigned. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for everything, truly, I didn't know he hadn't broken
Speaker 1: it off. If you ever want to talk, I'm so sorry, es.
Speaker 1: I froze reading it twice before realizing Sophie. A sharp
Speaker 1: chill crept through me, followed by a shuddering wave of
Speaker 1: relief and shame and vindication, all at once. The universe,
Speaker 1: I supposed had a sense of timing. I hesitated, thum hovering.
Speaker 1: Then I opened the thread. Sophie's full message unfolded. I
Speaker 1: only found out this week. He told me he was single,
Speaker 1: that you'd ended things months ago. I believed him. I
Speaker 1: should have known. I'm sorry for all of it. I
Speaker 1: did want to hurt you. If this helps, he lied
Speaker 1: to both of us. Something in me softened, not toward Alex,
Speaker 1: not towards Sophie exactly, but toward the simple, devastating truth
Speaker 1: of it all. I tied back after a long moment,
Speaker 1: it wasn't your fault. Thank you for telling me. At
Speaker 1: a press send, I felt the smallest glimmer of closure,
Speaker 1: like the book had shut gently at last, instead of
Speaker 1: slamming down in anger. The final lie exposed. Alex never
Speaker 1: really left either of us. He tried to keep two
Speaker 1: world spinning and lost everything anyway. I finished my coffee,
Speaker 1: letting the cold come in through the window, feeling for
Speaker 1: the first time that I could finally begin to build
Speaker 1: something new, Not as a woman who'd been betrayed, or
Speaker 1: the girlfriend who hadn't seen it coming, or even as
Speaker 1: the detective who piece together evidence in the silence of
Speaker 1: her own home, just as someone who survived, wiser, sadder,
Speaker 1: but somehow lighter for having faced it. As I stood
Speaker 1: to leave, the ache in my chest was joined by
Speaker 1: something else, a quite certainty that I would never ignore
Speaker 1: my instincts again, that I would demand honesty, first for
Speaker 1: myself and then from any one I dared to let clothes.
Speaker 1: Trust was a gift I would not play slightly. The past,
Speaker 1: I realized, would always be their fortres in a box,
Speaker 1: a line and a note, an echo in old laughter,
Speaker 1: but it would no longer defind my future. For the
Speaker 1: first time in months, I stepped into the cold and
Speaker 1: felt the weight start to lift, step by slow stead
Speaker 1: toward whatever came next. The wind bit at my cheeks
Speaker 1: as I stepped on to the sidewalk, but I barely
Speaker 1: felt it. My heart was drumming quietly, and my chest
Speaker 1: are not frantic, not anxious, just steady, like it was
Speaker 1: re learning what each beat meant without him. I tucked
Speaker 1: my phone away, my mind circling back to Sophie's message
Speaker 1: with a strange sense of gratitude. After weeks a spiral
Speaker 1: lane of blaming, of hating both of them a little,
Speaker 1: the full weight of the truth finally settled in me.
Speaker 1: It wasn't clean or easy, maybe it wouldn't never be,
Speaker 1: but at least the clouds were beginning to part. I
Speaker 1: wandered aimlessly for a while, letting my body carry me
Speaker 1: where it wanted. Every block was threaded with memories, Alex
Speaker 1: carrying a league, Illotte, my laughter, echoon laid on a
Speaker 1: Friday night, the two of us huddling from Madampoor beneath
Speaker 1: the stranger's awning. Now everything was both familiar in hollow,
Speaker 1: like returning to a childhood home that's been packed away,
Speaker 1: all the furniture shredded in sheets. I paused outside a
Speaker 1: Floris's shop, eyeing display of sun flowers and tulips, and
Speaker 1: I was hid by tin in a twisting ache. Sunflow
Speaker 1: was my favorite, which Alex always bought for our anniversaries
Speaker 1: or the times when I got on a promotion or
Speaker 1: felt blue for no reason at all. I almost stepped
Speaker 1: inside before catching myself, realizing I was buying for no
Speaker 1: one but me. Devilization snagged something, listened side me, and
Speaker 1: unexpectedly smiled. Why not did flowers need to be for
Speaker 1: love or apology or celebration? Couldn't they be for survival too?
Speaker 1: I left a few minutes later with a single sunflower,
Speaker 1: the bright yellow head, nodding in defiance of the gray day.
Speaker 1: I pressed the stem to my chest as I walked
Speaker 1: back to Rachel's, feeling like I was carrying a torch
Speaker 1: for myself, not for what I'd lost. Rachel was in
Speaker 1: the kitchen when I got in, humming tuneously over a
Speaker 1: mess of vegetables. She looked up, surprise flickering across her
Speaker 1: face when she saw the flower for me. She joked
Speaker 1: Tybrow's rays for the apartment, I said, grinning weakly, Foda
Speaker 1: could do something alive. She nodded, wiping her hands on
Speaker 1: a towel and coming to join me at the table.
Speaker 1: Has the coffee shop not haunt? I said, not any more?
Speaker 1: At least there was a pause, the unspoken weight of
Speaker 1: her concerns still hanging in the air. I heard from Sophy.
Speaker 1: Rachel's face stilled, her hand still sticky from chopping carrots,
Speaker 1: freezing the deare. Seriously, what did she want? Closure? I think,
Speaker 1: I hesitated, unfolding the conversation in careful pieces. She didn't
Speaker 1: know he told her he was single. She apologized, said
Speaker 1: she only just figured it out. Rachel sat down, crossing
Speaker 1: her arms, chewing it over. Does it make you feel better?
Speaker 1: I thought about it. Maybe not better, but clearer. She
Speaker 1: looked at me, steady and serious. You believe her, yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, surprising myself. I do. Rachel's gay softened good. Now,
Speaker 1: what about you? What do you want em? It can't
Speaker 1: be all detective work forever? That question lingered in my
Speaker 1: mind as I moved through the next days, made myself
Speaker 1: a real breakfast, bought groceries, picked up an old novel,
Speaker 1: and actually finished it. My body gradually relaxed, shoulders coming
Speaker 1: away from my ears, sleep coming easier. I started going
Speaker 1: for runs after work, music loud in my ears, watching
Speaker 1: the city blow by until I panted for breath. This
Speaker 1: all night on my face felt like forgiveness. Still, the
Speaker 1: pain wasn't an exile, just quite a companion. Now, therapy
Speaker 1: sharp in my understanding, teaching me to question the guilt
Speaker 1: I'd carried so long. My therapist, Marian would sometimes prompt,
Speaker 1: what would you say to a friend who told you
Speaker 1: this story? And I'd realize again how cruel I was
Speaker 1: to myself, how much blame I'd swallowed, bits of vwlcks intruded,
Speaker 1: sometimes a note in the returned laundry, a new email
Speaker 1: address popping up in my in books, even voicemail messages
Speaker 1: that somehow slipped through the filter. I didn't listen to them,
Speaker 1: but the presence was a dull ache, reminding me of
Speaker 1: the life that kept spinning without me, but less and less,
Speaker 1: these echoes her teeth, I let them pass through. One
Speaker 1: evening in late winter, Rachel found me sitting on the
Speaker 1: kitchen floor, lake stretched out, the sun flower, faded but
Speaker 1: still clinging to a half life in its face. Do
Speaker 1: you ever think he'll want to talk to him? She asked,
Speaker 1: standing at the counter at pointee. It was a question
Speaker 1: that caught me off guard. No, I said, after a
Speaker 1: long moment, I'm not sure I I know what to say?
Speaker 1: Any more. Rachel was quiet, then offered, sometimes I think
Speaker 1: about Nate. I still rehearse what I'd say if he
Speaker 1: showed up. You were a coward. You left me when
Speaker 1: I needed you. I never owed you my forgiveness just
Speaker 1: because he cried about it. She shrugged. In real life,
Speaker 1: I just deleted him, never even yelled. What if you could?
Speaker 1: I asked, what would you do? She grinned, stirring her
Speaker 1: mag probably dropped my tea in his lap. I laughed
Speaker 1: and was startled by the sound real easy, and touched
Speaker 1: by the weird tension I carried for months. Rachel flashed
Speaker 1: me a smile, and for a moment it was just
Speaker 1: us on that floor, two women who'd lost big learning
Speaker 1: to build some more joys. Later that week, a letter
Speaker 1: came in the meal tupped him on Peter coupons and bills.
Speaker 1: The handwriting on the envelope was unfamiliar, messy block letters.
Speaker 1: I nearly tossed it, thinking it was a generic ad,
Speaker 1: but the returnatress caught my eye. Sophie. I opened it
Speaker 1: at the table, Rachel peering over my shoulder. Dear Emily,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for reaching out, but how wanted to write,
Speaker 1: not just text females feel cheap for something that's important.
Speaker 1: I learned the truth too late, and I keep rereading
Speaker 1: our old messages thinking about red flags. I should have
Speaker 1: seen things he said that didn't make sense. I'm embarrassed
Speaker 1: and angry, and I imagine you are too. I don't
Speaker 1: blame you if you never want to speak to me again.
Speaker 1: Alex told me you were over it, that he was
Speaker 1: just waiting to move his stuff. He said he was
Speaker 1: stuck in limbo. He was so convincing it never even
Speaker 1: occurred to me he was lying. He always seemed sad, lonely,
Speaker 1: even I thought I thought I was helping some one. Heel.
Speaker 1: You didn't deserve any of this. I hope you're okay.
Speaker 1: I hope you know that I never wanted to hurt you.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for my parton this. Wishing you peace, Sophie.
Speaker 1: I close my eyes, releasing a breath I didn't know
Speaker 1: I was holding. The description of Alex sad, stuck, lost
Speaker 1: echoed everything I'd seen in him that final year, but
Speaker 1: in a way that made my own pain feel less unique.
Speaker 1: I'm weirdly less personal. Rachel patted my hand closure, I think,
Speaker 1: she said softly. I nodded, running my finger over Sophie's words.
Speaker 1: She believed in him the same way I did. I murmured,
Speaker 1: and I guess you lost something too. She'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: You both well, Rachel said, but you're not the same.
Speaker 1: The next week, I threw myself into new tradition, Sunday
Speaker 1: brunches at a different spot, solow movie nights with my
Speaker 1: own popcorn bowl, volunteering at the animal shelter every Tuesday,
Speaker 1: just to remind myself how easy it could be to
Speaker 1: love something simple and pure again. The old routines came
Speaker 1: back one by one, but they were mine, no longer
Speaker 1: haunted by we or us. I let myself look at
Speaker 1: the past, not with longing, but with something close to
Speaker 1: compassion for my old self. I understood now that love
Speaker 1: didn't blind us on purpose. It just gave us faith
Speaker 1: when doubt was easier. My therapist told me healing is
Speaker 1: ending a story in your mind that some one else
Speaker 1: refused to finish. I wrote that in my journal, under
Speaker 1: lining it twice. It was slow work. Sometimes I still
Speaker 1: woke from dreams where Alex was apologizing, or where we'd
Speaker 1: never met at all. I'd lie in the gray morning
Speaker 1: light and tangling the truth of what was broken and
Speaker 1: what was just human. I let myself grieve fully for
Speaker 1: the safety interests i'd given away so freely. One night,
Speaker 1: Rachel and I invited a few friends over for wine
Speaker 1: and board games. My old college friend Marris showed up
Speaker 1: her new girl friend in tow, and the four of
Speaker 1: us ended up sprawled on the ruck, laughing and terminate.
Speaker 1: The oldic was still there, like touching a sky you
Speaker 1: thought had faded, but I found I could set it
Speaker 1: aside long enough to lose a game of scrabble and
Speaker 1: still feel hall. After everyone left, Rachel stacked the glasses
Speaker 1: and turned to me. Her voice gentle, you look lighter,
Speaker 1: she said, I think you're finding your way back. I
Speaker 1: trace a finger over the edges of the game board, thoughtful.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I'm the same person, but maybe I
Speaker 1: don't want to be. She smiled good. Later in bed,
Speaker 1: I texted my mamas, simple message, I think I'm okay now.
Speaker 1: She wrote back, a string of hearts and encouragements, her
Speaker 1: faith in me steady as ever. That weekend, I made
Speaker 1: a new habit, walking through a different neighborhood each Saturday,
Speaker 1: letting myself get a little lost on purpose. One morning,
Speaker 1: snow started falling in the middle of my stroll, soft flakes,
Speaker 1: turning the streets into a new world. I stopped beneath
Speaker 1: a bead tree, breath fogging, and turned around in a
Speaker 1: slow circle, feeling a cold settle into my skin. It
Speaker 1: was there, surrounded by strangers in silence, that I finally
Speaker 1: let myself forgive, not Alex, not even Sophie, but my
Speaker 1: ef all the ways I'd stayed too long, asked too little,
Speaker 1: believed too much, doubted too quickly. I realized that forgiveness
Speaker 1: wasn't about accepting the betrayal, but letting go of the
Speaker 1: idea that if I'd only loved harder or watch closer,
Speaker 1: none of it would have happened. I let myself off
Speaker 1: the hook for being human. That night, I opened Sophie's
Speaker 1: letter again and wrote a reply on a plain note,
Speaker 1: car Sophie, thank you for telling me and for your honesty.
Speaker 1: I know now, Anon, if this was yours to fix
Speaker 1: or mine to carry forever, I wish you healing too,
Speaker 1: All the best, Emily. I melted the next morning, dropping
Speaker 1: it in the slot with a sense of ceremony. It
Speaker 1: felt like setting a paper boat afloat. Maybe it would
Speaker 1: never reach her, Maybe it didn't matter. The act was enough.
Speaker 1: Two days later, just as I was about to leave
Speaker 1: for a run, my phone vibrated a new number again,
Speaker 1: this one local out of habit I picked up, expecting
Speaker 1: nothing but Alex's voice, then, unhesitant, filled the line. Instantly,
Speaker 1: my pulse jumped. Am I it had been weeks since
Speaker 1: I'd heard his voice outside of gale trip voice mails.
Speaker 1: I almost hung up, but something held me there. I
Speaker 1: need to see it through, perhaps just one more time.
Speaker 1: I hope it's okay to call, he said cautiously. I
Speaker 1: just I needed to talk hear your voice once, not
Speaker 1: just in my head. I kept my tone cool, firm,
Speaker 1: but gentle. I don't think we have anything left to say, Alex.
Speaker 1: He made a sound half way between a laugh and
Speaker 1: a SOB. I know, I get that. I just I
Speaker 1: wanted to apologize again. I guess, not to fix things,
Speaker 1: just to give you that properly. I was a coward.
Speaker 1: I hurt you, and I ally to myself as much,
Speaker 1: just to you. I close my eyes breeding for strength.
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying it. I needed you to admit
Speaker 1: it for real, not just in a letter, to yourself
Speaker 1: in a shoe box. He was silent. Then YE found that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a pause. I wish I'd given it to you, or
Speaker 1: to her anything, But hiding doesn't matter any more. Alex.
Speaker 1: We done. I hope you figure your life out, but
Speaker 1: I need you to not contact me again, for real
Speaker 1: this time. Please. His breath stuttered in my ear. O K,
Speaker 1: I promise. I hope. I hope you find what you
Speaker 1: deserve me too, I said, gently, and goodbye, Alex. I
Speaker 1: ended the call, my hands steady. There was no relief,
Speaker 1: just a quiet finality, like setting a fragile, heavy thing
Speaker 1: down for the last time. Spring coiled quietly beneath the snow.
Speaker 1: That week, the day's crawling a few degrees warmer, the
Speaker 1: sky softening. Soon I'd move into my own apartment, a cheerful,
Speaker 1: sunlit studio with just enough space for me and a
Speaker 1: rescue tabby named Clementine. Rachel and I celebrated with tick
Speaker 1: out and wine poured into the smash cups. On the
Speaker 1: first Saturday in my new place, I stood a moving
Speaker 1: at the window for a long time, coffee warming my palms,
Speaker 1: watching Clementine try to po the light. The quiet didn't
Speaker 1: scare me. It comforted. For so long, I'd filled silence
Speaker 1: with hope of suspicion. Now I trusted myself to fill
Speaker 1: it with exactly what I needed. I still missed things,
Speaker 1: the shape of what I thought my life would look like,
Speaker 1: the comfort of share jokes, the certainty of being someone's
Speaker 1: most important thing. But none of that pain fell permanent
Speaker 1: any more. I let myself imagine new futures, unencumbered by
Speaker 1: someone else's moods or secrecy. A few days after my move,
Speaker 1: Rachel dropped by with sun floorers in a brown paper wrap.
Speaker 1: She grink andspiratorily, holding the mall figure you could use
Speaker 1: a housewarming. I planted them in a blue glass jaw,
Speaker 1: yellow bright enough to light the room. We sat on
Speaker 1: the floor, surrounded by half a pat boxes and the
Speaker 1: promise of something cleaner, something earned. When she left that evening,
Speaker 1: she squeezed my arm. Proud of you, em, even if
Speaker 1: it suck to get here. I am proud of me too,
Speaker 1: I admitted, surprising myself with the truth of it. As
Speaker 1: I turned off the lights, comment an curled in my lap.
Speaker 1: I realized I truly was no longer waiting for anything
Speaker 1: to be handed back or explained of forgiving. The ache
Speaker 1: of betrayal would come back, sometimes on the wind of
Speaker 1: an old memory or a sudden pan of nostalgia. But
Speaker 1: grief had taught me that survival is just the act
Speaker 1: of opening yourself up to something new, even when you
Speaker 1: are not sure what it will be. In bed, I
Speaker 1: reached for my phone one last time, pausing before sleep.
Speaker 1: I scrawled not to check Alex's profile or old messages,
Speaker 1: but for photos of places I might visit, new classes
Speaker 1: I might take books I wanted to read. I smiled,
Speaker 1: listening to the hush of my own breath, at peace
Speaker 1: with tomorrow, holding no secret codes, no locks, greens, no
Speaker 1: half true curled under a pillow, trust I knew now
Speaker 1: started with the small bravery of choosing yourself even when
Speaker 1: it heard. Maybe that was the truest answer, not whether
Speaker 1: I learned to forgive or to forget, but that I
Speaker 1: had learned to trust both my instincts and my heart
Speaker 1: in you. And with that knowledge in my chest, heavy
Speaker 1: at first, but growing lighter every day, I close my eyes,
Speaker 1: ready to drink dreams where I belong, tolly to myself,
Speaker 1: my life, finally my own, and that is the end.
Speaker 1: Thank you, for listening, and I will see you in
Speaker 1: the next one.