Speaker 1: Tuesday night. Rain still has a way of making the
Speaker 1: old skylights and I'll loft sound like a poor sharp
Speaker 1: when predictable, almost celebratory. But the night everything is just off.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting at our battered work table, scarp pine paint drips,
Speaker 1: the memory of each project as somewhere in its surface.
Speaker 1: Two mugs steam or did until one cooled, and then
Speaker 1: only mine's day warm. The playlist is looping through old
Speaker 1: tracks Modown, then Sufton Stephens, then some Icelandic piano thing
Speaker 1: Elie wore made her more productive, even though half our
Speaker 1: sketches from those sessions look half sleep. She's not here.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure when she left nine, maybe a little
Speaker 1: before she texted some quick line about going to the studio,
Speaker 1: might stay late, don't wait up. Not unusual, not really,
Speaker 1: but these last weeks, not unusual has started to mean actually,
Speaker 1: this keeps happening. I'm still not used to the rooms
Speaker 1: being so empty. The big sky whare has feel of
Speaker 1: our loftickoing with nothing but the buzz of the city
Speaker 1: a few floors below. The phone is in my hand.
Speaker 1: I scroll absently, not sure whether I'm reaching work stuff
Speaker 1: or waiting for a message from her. The oldest chats
Speaker 1: are the ones I love, the two of us trading
Speaker 1: terrible puns about clients, sending photos of our nuck and jodles,
Speaker 1: mocking the pretensions of our third designers, and hyping up
Speaker 1: our own dumbest ideas. This one self yellow scent, tongue out,
Speaker 1: middle finger up behind a mountain of Fabric's watches. This
Speaker 1: is my new collection. I call it Lost and Found
Speaker 1: at the Salvation Army. I still laugh now. I'm scanning
Speaker 1: the shells looking for something anything. I'm not sure what.
Speaker 1: My eyes land on. Something that doesn't belong. Next to
Speaker 1: the old polaroid of us at Burning Man, tucked in
Speaker 1: an uneven row of beer coasters and ceramic trinkets from friends,
Speaker 1: is a blue ball, pale terrecorse glaze, kind of lopsided ridges,
Speaker 1: pressed by what must be a beginner's hand, except that
Speaker 1: Ill has never liked this ship. She calls it a
Speaker 1: hipster nick ni klandeer. Every time we walk past one
Speaker 1: of those indie markets, says as she brings home one
Speaker 1: more crafty mug. I have her permission to accidentally drop it.
Speaker 1: But here's this ball. I reach out, turn it over.
Speaker 1: There are her initials, scratch and clumes in need a
Speaker 1: point on the bottom e D. But beside it half
Speaker 1: the sun is a mark I don't recognize. Hebby ink,
Speaker 1: a little spiriliclosed circle with a flourish at the end,
Speaker 1: like a signature or a symbol. I run my thumb
Speaker 1: over it, feeling the grooves. Clay dust brushes off. My
Speaker 1: eyes flicker to the mugs again. Hers is still there,
Speaker 1: half full. She left in a hurry. Across the table
Speaker 1: a pile of our lady's mock up sits ignored page
Speaker 1: is marked with bright yellow sticky notes. Her handwriting always
Speaker 1: capital letters show up and impatient punch up his color.
Speaker 1: The logo too cue to try again. Usually she jab
Speaker 1: with a finger, tease me about being the architect of beige.
Speaker 1: Any time I drift neutral. Tonight it's all quiet. The
Speaker 1: rain settles into more regular applause. I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: I'm lonely or nervous. When Ella comes home, it is
Speaker 1: pushing midnight. The elevator rattles. She steps in, flushed, damp,
Speaker 1: hair curling at the temples. She's holding something, another piece
Speaker 1: wrapped in a newspaper. She's been avoiding My gaze lately,
Speaker 1: but to night at least she tries. Hey, she says,
Speaker 1: voice soft, tired, sorry, lost truck of time. What are
Speaker 1: you still doing up? Couldn't sleep? They say, I saved
Speaker 1: you coffee. She sets the package down, giving the bowl
Speaker 1: on the shelf a quick glance, fast like one second
Speaker 1: too quick before I'm rapping another ceramic, This time is
Speaker 1: quap mub with a thick candle, deep green glaze. What
Speaker 1: do you think I didn't know you when full Earth
Speaker 1: Goddess on me a joke mosey to test the air,
Speaker 1: the woman who once scolded me for buying a woven
Speaker 1: basket at Oban Outfitters. She grins, but it doesn't quite retrise.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm growing up or regressing, depends who you ask.
Speaker 1: Want your mug, I offer, sliding her cup across the table.
Speaker 1: She wrinkles her nose, shakes her head. Thanks, but I
Speaker 1: kind of just want water. Too many Studio lott Is coffee.
Speaker 1: Maybe next week. She drops the new mug on to
Speaker 1: the shelf, not quite looking at me. Some things about
Speaker 1: being alone are kind of nice. You know. There's an echo,
Speaker 1: a smile there, wistful, tired, or just elsewhere, but no
Speaker 1: invitation to pick up the old joke, the old rhythm.
Speaker 1: The ring keeps up. I ask about her night, her project,
Speaker 1: what she glazed, but she shrid rugs it off. You
Speaker 1: know how it is grouped dynamics, A lot of chatter.
Speaker 1: I'm wiped. We move into silence, but the space between us,
Speaker 1: fear is full of some new critical ingredient. She changes,
Speaker 1: disappears into the bathroom. Her phone buzzes once she pulls
Speaker 1: it from her bag, glances at it, face carefully unreadable.
Speaker 1: When I shuffle our work table clutter into neat stacks,
Speaker 1: she doesn't help. Minutes later, her footsteps are already moving
Speaker 1: toward our bedroom, leaving me alone with Mug's, two new
Speaker 1: ceramics and a box of questions. For the first time
Speaker 1: in a long while, I wonder if I have any
Speaker 1: idea what's happening in my own marriage. I didn't always
Speaker 1: doubt her. In fact, most of the story, the one
Speaker 1: I tell myself at least, is built on the opposite.
Speaker 1: We were partners long before we called it marriage. Our
Speaker 1: first date was not opening. Neither of us took seriously.
Speaker 1: She wore thrifty Doc Martens, a men shirt covered in paints, platters,
Speaker 1: and somehow made it look iforless. I showed up, still
Speaker 1: high from an all night of trying to finish a
Speaker 1: freelance architectural model. We traded stories about nightmare clients and
Speaker 1: the best dramen in the city. When I forgot her
Speaker 1: number at the bar, she wrote it on my hand
Speaker 1: and SHARPI and added text me if you want to work,
Speaker 1: call me if you want to hang. We ended up
Speaker 1: making both happen. My technical scale, her instinct for color
Speaker 1: and provocation blend it better than either of us could
Speaker 1: have planned. We shared sketches in bed ruined good sheets
Speaker 1: with the krylic stains, debated how vedica vis hand dromfont
Speaker 1: for hours. It wasn't just that we attracted, it was
Speaker 1: that we'd built layered twice. We faced scrapes, dry months
Speaker 1: that almost broke the studio, competitors who poached our ideas,
Speaker 1: the bow, and deep anxiousness of watching savings dip below rent.
Speaker 1: We got through it by promising never to hide the
Speaker 1: ugly bits. She teased my avoidance. I brought her perfectionism,
Speaker 1: and then somehow we love ourselves out of the storm.
Speaker 1: All life followed no template. Living in a loft so
Speaker 1: open you could hear your partner sneezing from the shower,
Speaker 1: hosting warehouse parties with bursts of color and light, friends
Speaker 1: bringing food and riddles, and an endless stream of cheap wine.
Speaker 1: Illa always danced first, dragging me into the crowd, turning
Speaker 1: my routine self conscious shuffle into willingness to look dumb
Speaker 1: for her. Our chosen family expanded and shrank. College friends
Speaker 1: who moved, gallery curators, parade of freelanced widows who shared
Speaker 1: the work in the headaches. Sometimes I'd find Illa cult
Speaker 1: on the couch, the sketchric open, headphones, jammed in, humming,
Speaker 1: off key, and oblivious to my presence. Other Times she
Speaker 1: drugged me to some new pop up, needing me to
Speaker 1: check her typography on a late poster at two a m.
Speaker 1: She dismissed any trace of tren chasing. Their thing was authenticity,
Speaker 1: and if something became too popular, she joked that it
Speaker 1: was dead as disco. That irreverence, the sharp tone drew
Speaker 1: people to her. Naturally, did I ever feel lesser? Maybe
Speaker 1: her colors always seemed brighter metaphorically literally. Sometimes I was
Speaker 1: the structure building the frame she would set on fire.
Speaker 1: But we fit, and I never envied her for long.
Speaker 1: If anything, I felt ought to orbit her the subject
Speaker 1: of kids, a few jokes, nothing attraction. We came from
Speaker 1: out of state background suburbia for her, farm town for me.
Speaker 1: Neither of us wanted to rush down the same tracks,
Speaker 1: not when there was so much else to make. We
Speaker 1: had an understanding, chosen friends over distant family, spontaneous trips
Speaker 1: instead of holidays, and crowded houses, two places set for
Speaker 1: whoever dropped by first. The way the city works, you
Speaker 1: collect your own tribe. Hanaor's was weird and loyal, and
Speaker 1: for a while everything I trusted. So why now does
Speaker 1: a single blue bull stop my heart? I tried to
Speaker 1: ignore it? Reallyat I did. The impulse to check up
Speaker 1: on Ella, to label how new obsessions as avoidance or
Speaker 1: alarm felt underhanded. If anyone need a value of letting
Speaker 1: your partner breeze, explore, reinvent the way we both had
Speaker 1: to between gigs and stints of panic. It was us.
Speaker 1: But Thursday night came normally our sketch and stream sacred time,
Speaker 1: both of usdrawing tablets out cheap red wine. A bad
Speaker 1: movie playing in the background while we stream processed video
Speaker 1: is on her channel. Ella called at six, voiced tight,
Speaker 1: hey bade pottery studios open late. I kind of have
Speaker 1: to go to night the glay's kilns, running schedules nuts.
Speaker 1: You know. She barely waited for my answer. I said,
Speaker 1: katamud wait till tomorrow. She parrit did not unless she
Speaker 1: want me to blend clay distant to our lunch. I
Speaker 1: laugh tried another joke, offered to come by the studio
Speaker 1: and bring her a late dinner. She said, it's fine,
Speaker 1: I'll grab something with the group. Don't wait up. That
Speaker 1: last phrase, I realized was getting too familiar. The next morning,
Speaker 1: when I tried to be casual about my curiosity, she
Speaker 1: was already obning else where quick shower loud music had
Speaker 1: in her phone. She left in a hurry for a
Speaker 1: meeting that didn't exist on our shared calendar. Tiding up,
Speaker 1: I found another pottery item hidden amit design proof was
Speaker 1: a mug taller than the first, deep green, beflecked with
Speaker 1: copper hand a loss said like a question mark. Turning
Speaker 1: it over, I found the same initially d but next
Speaker 1: to it, this time a symbol even more elaborate, A
Speaker 1: stylized spiral crossed at one edge, almost like a tattoo design.
Speaker 1: The thought who's helping her? Who's this for a court?
Speaker 1: Then quickly twisted into guilt. Was I about to undermine
Speaker 1: all that togetherness by sneaking on her new hobby. I
Speaker 1: told myself to knock it off. Maybe, I argued she
Speaker 1: needed this. Maybe the pressure of our business, deadlines, clients,
Speaker 1: constant proximity finally got too much. Maybe she was just
Speaker 1: burned out on me. I tried to let it go,
Speaker 1: but she was less and less present at our work table,
Speaker 1: careless with her half of projects, distracted a meetings, texting
Speaker 1: half in code. I could see a shift, and try
Speaker 1: as I might, I couldn't not look. Late that weekend,
Speaker 1: she told me Chavonn's stopping by the collective to night.
Speaker 1: I'll be back late. Don't wait up. I didn't even
Speaker 1: ask to come. Didn't want another quick deflection. I worked
Speaker 1: on inverses, tried to fix a broken layout, but I
Speaker 1: just kept circling those mags, the way they looked on
Speaker 1: our shelf, home Mark and some one else's to I
Speaker 1: started poking a round online. Her eigiad new follower Stephen
Speaker 1: m Rosa all tagged in some recent stories about the
Speaker 1: pottery collective in her d MS at least does popping
Speaker 1: up as notifications. Most of the chats with surface level
Speaker 1: group planning mean trading, but some one named Jonas kept
Speaker 1: surfacing with comments on every firing, every picture of finished pieces.
Speaker 1: I sculled back Joana's profile a few Mudiforto's hand streak
Speaker 1: was slip half a sleeved tea showing in the workshop mirror.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be the guy who snoops his
Speaker 1: wife's friends, but the curiosity was still eating at me.
Speaker 1: If I had led it fester, maybe nothing would have happened.
Speaker 1: But the universe or fate or bad timing, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it, has its own plan. The next
Speaker 1: bush came not from me, but from our own circle. Friday,
Speaker 1: we went to a gallery opening something for a local muralist,
Speaker 1: one of Ella's friends from the city's graffiti scene. The
Speaker 1: room was full, the wine was cheap, and for the
Speaker 1: first hour we fell into our old routine, snarky commentary
Speaker 1: whispered under our breath, rating the work in fake French accents,
Speaker 1: Ella cling into my arm, then yanking at a way
Speaker 1: to be better seen. It was good, almost fun, until
Speaker 1: he arrived. I clocked him first, because he had that
Speaker 1: looked too sharp, too at home, the right kind of
Speaker 1: rumbled tall light hair TOI too visible cuff, wearing a
Speaker 1: black T shirt with white clay cheeks like he never
Speaker 1: bothered to change Joan Is. He greeted Ella with a
Speaker 1: one armed hug, a broad smile that creased at the eyes.
Speaker 1: They caught up in a manner that might seem friendly
Speaker 1: on the surface, laughter, a low hand at her back,
Speaker 1: but there was an ease of familiarity. I waited for
Speaker 1: her to introduce me, Liam, this is Jonah's studio friend.
Speaker 1: Her tone was sunnier than necessary. Quick. Joan Is nodded,
Speaker 1: eye sharp, heard about you. He the one who keeps
Speaker 1: the lights on in the creative partnership. I shook his hand,
Speaker 1: strong grip but not friendly, and tried to joke some
Speaker 1: one has to save her from her color crimes. They
Speaker 1: both laughed, but there was an edge. We drifted apart,
Speaker 1: Jonah's introducing Ella to another potter. Ella glancing back now
Speaker 1: and then I found myself alone with an old friend,
Speaker 1: but couldn't keep my focus. Every time I glanced over,
Speaker 1: Ella was angled towards Jonah's clothes. Their hands nearly touching
Speaker 1: as they gestured over some inside joke. Before I could
Speaker 1: get annoyed, Chauvon swooped by, grinning, Hey, you doing okay,
Speaker 1: she asked a little too pointedly. Sure why, I replied?
Speaker 1: She shrugged, sipping her gin. Elle's really into this clay stuff.
Speaker 1: How thought ye'd be with her at the collective more?
Speaker 1: I played it off. She's the artist and the business end.
Speaker 1: Not much clay under my nails. Chavonn shot me a
Speaker 1: look but moved on. On the ride home, Ella was
Speaker 1: quieter than usual. I asked about Jonas, who was he really?
Speaker 1: And she shrugged. It's just one of those people. Everyone
Speaker 1: sort of knows. He's a character, but harmless works at
Speaker 1: the collective, good at the rowing. That phrase, good at
Speaker 1: drawing stuck. The conversation trailed off into discussions of the
Speaker 1: mural show instead, and she drifted to her phone. At bed,
Speaker 1: she brushed her teeth at the door half closed, humming
Speaker 1: a song I didn't recognize. I lay there thinking about
Speaker 1: her odd distance, the silent room, the way Jonahs's hand
Speaker 1: had found her elbow. In the gallery. Saturday morning, another
Speaker 1: pottery piece appeared on our shelf, A vase sleek and
Speaker 1: taller than anything she'd made before. The glaze, a deep
Speaker 1: maroon with metallic strands, was unlike her usual taste. Ella
Speaker 1: always ruded me about my gray on everything, but this
Speaker 1: was even less so than me turning it over. Two
Speaker 1: marks her initials and that same spiral, this time drawn
Speaker 1: in gold under the glaze. I frowned when I picked
Speaker 1: up her jacket to hang after breakfast or receive fell
Speaker 1: out kiln fees paid at the collective under the name
Speaker 1: me D. Sparrow. Sparrow her old college nickname a private joke.
Speaker 1: The handwriting was hers, but the signature was different to
Speaker 1: another flourish like the pottery mark she started working later.
Speaker 1: The glaze window sucks, I swear, she explained. If you
Speaker 1: miss your slot, you lose the piece. I offered to
Speaker 1: come by. Maybe you run a coffee to her, but
Speaker 1: she shut me down. He'd be bored. Everyone's focused anyway.
Speaker 1: I kind of like getting lost in it. I tried
Speaker 1: to let it pass. Maybe she wanted separation, maybe she
Speaker 1: deserved some solace without me hovering. But each night her
Speaker 1: mood changed. Snappya Harms's jokes, impatient with our process. We
Speaker 1: missed two client deadlines. She forgot to reply to network
Speaker 1: contacts who previously been life land for us. Once, when
Speaker 1: I prodded about creative direction on a new restaurant branding pitch,
Speaker 1: she rolled her eyes. Can't you just make decisions? For once?
Speaker 1: Then tired. At another dinner, this time with friends we
Speaker 1: both trusted to some one asked about her pottery people.
Speaker 1: Ala bristled, Why did every one so obsess with who
Speaker 1: I hang out with? Let me add my thing? She
Speaker 1: changed the subject so quickly, Awkwardness thick in the air.
Speaker 1: We all tried to recover, putting my gut a pit
Speaker 1: twisted harder. The next day, as she rushed from morning
Speaker 1: meeting she'd previously described as optional, her laptop pinned on
Speaker 1: our work table. She left it open, not locked, for once.
Speaker 1: Notifications flickered. One was from Jonas a deem that simply
Speaker 1: read close to night late slot should be fun a
Speaker 1: hard emoji at the end. My hands hovered. Did I
Speaker 1: want to snoop? Was it? Even? Am I right? She
Speaker 1: had left her computer out, but deliberately or out of habit?
Speaker 1: I heard her footsteps returning, so I let it be
Speaker 1: ghilp prickled my neck when she saw me near her laptop,
Speaker 1: her eyes narrow just a little too long, we stopped
Speaker 1: collaborating on our big projects, more or less by accident.
Speaker 1: She seemed drained by our tension, her energy now reserved
Speaker 1: for pottery or the studio. When I mentioned the gallery
Speaker 1: expision we'd plan for months, she shrugged, I might need
Speaker 1: to drop things at the studio or intense. I raised
Speaker 1: my eyebrows, but she just brushed past, hugging her phone
Speaker 1: to her chest as though expecting a call. One night,
Speaker 1: as if to prove my nerves unjust, she came home sweaty,
Speaker 1: arms dusted with clay, but bright eyed. She waved a
Speaker 1: flyer from the collective. They're doing an open studio. You
Speaker 1: should come see the world I'm always talking about. I
Speaker 1: think they'd like you. I hesitated, then agreed, seeing her
Speaker 1: enthusiasm as the first sign she might be letting meat
Speaker 1: in the night at the open studio. The atmosphere in
Speaker 1: side was all nervous energy, drying clay and mismasted. Eccentricity
Speaker 1: is a parade of bearded millennials, ponk care cuts, people
Speaker 1: so comfortable in their overalls you'd think the old ran
Speaker 1: on Glazing's slip. Joan has welcomed everyone at the door,
Speaker 1: grinning with the charm of someone who's used to performing
Speaker 1: at openings. He gave Ell a cool nod, treating me
Speaker 1: with exaggerated warmth, glad to finally meet the other half.
Speaker 1: Ella drifted between workstations, showing off her pieces, a lumpy
Speaker 1: teapot with copper glazes, a clever little plate, the blue
Speaker 1: bowl that started my spiral. Other collective members praised her.
Speaker 1: She's got an eye for shapes. Man who wish I
Speaker 1: had her color scents, E tea Escot, the touch. I
Speaker 1: watched her beam. It was genuine and inhibited, perhaps the
Speaker 1: happiest I'd seen her in months. I tried to relax,
Speaker 1: to let go of my suspicions. Maybe she needed this,
Speaker 1: the new community, outside validation that didn't require both of us.
Speaker 1: At dinner later, sharing leftovers in front of the TV,
Speaker 1: Elle apologized, I've been really, really burnt out. I guess
Speaker 1: I just needed something else for a bit. The business
Speaker 1: us at all kind of blends together sometimes. I know
Speaker 1: I've been a pain. It's fine, I said, and it
Speaker 1: almost was. She seemed blighter and guarded, laughing at my
Speaker 1: dry commentary on the latest streaming disaster. For the first
Speaker 1: time in weeks, our got dropped. She leaned against me
Speaker 1: on the couch, nudged me to fetch ice cream, even
Speaker 1: stayed up an extra hour sketching rough logo concepts while
Speaker 1: I emailed invisis and muttered that maybe Glay's Knight had
Speaker 1: loosened her up. She chuckled, maybe you should try mud sometime,
Speaker 1: could help. I remember clearing the table before bed. The
Speaker 1: mixing bowl I was about to put away had a
Speaker 1: slip of paper tucked inside half torn graphite lines scrolled diagonally.
Speaker 1: At first it looked like a phone number, Then yes,
Speaker 1: it was, with the lupinage at the end and a
Speaker 1: note meet me after don't forget the keys ajay. The
Speaker 1: back was a copy of the studio's private schedule, one
Speaker 1: row high lighted. I tucked it into my pocket heart racing,
Speaker 1: then slid it into my own sketch book. Later, staring
Speaker 1: at the ceiling, I ran her explanations. Did she need
Speaker 1: Jonahs for something and seen a technical help lay access
Speaker 1: Maybe studio politics I just didn't get. Or was this
Speaker 1: the symbol of the secrecy it's attention something different? What
Speaker 1: would I even do with proof. I was still stuck,
Speaker 1: halfway between paranoia and trust, between logic and dread. I
Speaker 1: started stepping up my own search, but careful, afraid to
Speaker 1: cross some line I couldn't across on her next. All
Speaker 1: night I waited late, busied myself with tedious client work.
Speaker 1: In Visu's half complete, her audgy trickled with cryptic stories,
Speaker 1: a spinning wheel, glaze mixing, Jodas's hands ghosting in the background,
Speaker 1: A flash of his laugh cut off quickly. I noticed
Speaker 1: that her legs came at odd hours. I noted the patterns,
Speaker 1: but hated how they made me feel. One day, Cheuvon
Speaker 1: stopped by to drop off some extra prints for a wall.
Speaker 1: Friendly enough, but her tone was tentative and sure. He
Speaker 1: seemed much of Ella. Lately. She's crushing it at the
Speaker 1: collect of Jonahs. Says she's probably the best new member
Speaker 1: they've had in ages. He's teaching her the Rocky process. Apparently,
Speaker 1: I hesitated searching Chavon's face for some kraak. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: loves it. I can barely get her to sit still
Speaker 1: at home anymore. She looked uncomfortable somehow, both impressed and pitying.
Speaker 1: Well the hours of nuts. Huh. I saw them at
Speaker 1: the studio like eleven thirty at night a few times.
Speaker 1: Figured you were probably the helping too. Nope, guess she's
Speaker 1: got new partners in crime. I forced a smile. Chavon
Speaker 1: packed up quick, clearly not wanting to be on any
Speaker 1: side of this. I kept my suspitition to myself, but
Speaker 1: it gnawed at me for days. The fat that some
Speaker 1: one else saw my wife out late with another man
Speaker 1: and thought nothing of it put an edge on everything.
Speaker 1: I kept expecting confrontation, but instead, I'll las simply fractured
Speaker 1: around the silence. It wasn't just home, it was worked too.
Speaker 1: Our dead lines started to slip. The big project for
Speaker 1: a new cafe. We missed the review. Ella blamed creative overload,
Speaker 1: and when they were two hours before our pitch, leaving
Speaker 1: me to scramble the slides myself, we lost the contract.
Speaker 1: She showed little remorse, just a vague I'm sorry. I
Speaker 1: can't do everything at once. I shared chats, a daily
Speaker 1: litany of memes, inside jokes, workflow notes, thin to dry
Speaker 1: business send in vice a client feedback attached. Remind me
Speaker 1: about the logo files. No more affectionate jabs no late
Speaker 1: night photo bombs, no roster of bad punns. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: pottery collection on our shelf carew another oddly shaped mug,
Speaker 1: a delicate dish, a squat pitcher, different glazes each time,
Speaker 1: but always the same pattern. E. D. Jonas is spiral,
Speaker 1: sometimes a date or code. I asked once what the
Speaker 1: marks meant. Ala blinked, It's just studio tradition. Everybody stamps
Speaker 1: their stuff with the mark. Jone has taught me the
Speaker 1: spiral means growth or cycles. I guess her answer was automatic,
Speaker 1: too prepared. Saturday, during a tense din of friends, some
Speaker 1: one asked if she was planning to start selling her pieces.
Speaker 1: I don't know, honestly, she snapped, it's just a hobby.
Speaker 1: Why does everyone think I have to monetize everything? The
Speaker 1: subject dropped, but she was quite the rest of the night.
Speaker 1: Later she said I should stop trying to fit everyone
Speaker 1: else's narrative onto her hobbies. I wondered if this was
Speaker 1: about me at all. What struck me most was her restlessness,
Speaker 1: the way she always seemed to be moving away, choosing
Speaker 1: the hardest route to avoid being knew me while not
Speaker 1: making it obvious. I caught her packing for another overnight,
Speaker 1: her phone tucked into her back pocket, face down on
Speaker 1: a private smile, flickering when a text flashed on her screen.
Speaker 1: I wanted to believe her, I really did, But when
Speaker 1: I looked at the business receipts her supply runs, the
Speaker 1: kellnin fors his strange regularities started to pop. Two payments
Speaker 1: to the same vendor in the same day, one in
Speaker 1: her name, one in a variant cash withdrawals. She didn't look.
Speaker 1: When asked lightly, she shrugged the studio asks for Jane,
Speaker 1: sometimes petty cash. You know how it is. But I've
Speaker 1: heard the tremor at the end of her sentence. Another night,
Speaker 1: coming home lay, I noticed her laptop on the couch,
Speaker 1: screen half open. I couldn't help myself. This time. Her
Speaker 1: in books was a mess of group and bites, promos,
Speaker 1: baum supply inverses, but there tucked in a folder labeled private,
Speaker 1: with threads laced with joan AS's name. The messages themselves
Speaker 1: were mostly about studio schedules, inverses, collective events, but the
Speaker 1: tone between them casual, intimate, threaded within jokes about the
Speaker 1: others at the studio. Bring the green, I'll bring the fire,
Speaker 1: don't stay too clean artist. I scrawled each line, hissing
Speaker 1: with a fresh jab of doubt. A new theory collesced.
Speaker 1: Maybe this was just studio politics. Or maybe the more
Speaker 1: dangerous explanation belonged to the simplest answer of all. One afternoon,
Speaker 1: after a tense argument about design choice is a dumb
Speaker 1: squable of a font weight sellers nat Sometimes I just
Speaker 1: wish we worked with different people, or even alone. She
Speaker 1: stormed up. An hour later, leaving behind our share project folder.
Speaker 1: A fallen court client dropped and her clay smeared apron
Speaker 1: on the kitchen chair. I didn't see her until the
Speaker 1: next morning. My patience thinned. I tried to talk, really tried.
Speaker 1: One night, Setting the table, I said, do you want
Speaker 1: to tell me what's actually going on? I feel I
Speaker 1: could barely see you any more. She hesitated, scooping food
Speaker 1: onto her plate, her mouth set in a grim line.
Speaker 1: Nothing's wrong. People change, hobbish change. Maybe you could find
Speaker 1: something to do that's not this. She gestured around at
Speaker 1: the infinished sketches, the loft, the detritus of our combined
Speaker 1: one's shared life, as if it were suddenly a cage. Upset.
Speaker 1: I almost said something I'd regret, settling instead for silence.
Speaker 1: We finished dinner with only shallow bites. The new brittle
Speaker 1: is dry. Clay Ella packed a bag for the studio,
Speaker 1: not saying good night when she left. A few nights later,
Speaker 1: unable to sleep, I paced the living room, passing and
Speaker 1: repassing the shelf for its growing hold a ceramics sich
Speaker 1: one stamp with her initials in the now Familia spyro.
Speaker 1: When I heard her keys in the whole hours later,
Speaker 1: she slipped past me, smelling of glaze and soap. Eyes
Speaker 1: foked with exhaustion, she dropped her coat carelessly, sliding into
Speaker 1: bed without removing her earrings, her face pressed to the
Speaker 1: fat edge of her pillar. We woke too early, both
Speaker 1: pretending sleep, both pretending everything was still fixable. The city
Speaker 1: kept reigning, always it seemed, rain at night, appause in
Speaker 1: the morning, but never for us. The next few days blurred.
Speaker 1: Our studio calender, washed out with cross states and last
Speaker 1: minute maybe later's. She pulled out of our next gallery
Speaker 1: show with a single line email, can't commit to timeline,
Speaker 1: maybe askiam. I scrambled to find a replacement, explaining to
Speaker 1: network contacts that life stuff was slowing us down. Our
Speaker 1: friends noticed. I could feel their glances at pollocks and
Speaker 1: gallery nights. Ella, always the extrovert, faded into potting with
Speaker 1: her new tribe, retreating to the studio at every spare
Speaker 1: or not so spare a hour. Joan has tagged her
Speaker 1: in more and more posts. Once his caption couldn't have
Speaker 1: done it without e d starn the making the comment
Speaker 1: piled on Ella, blushing in her answers, never mentioning me.
Speaker 1: Once Tuesday, just before midnight, Chavon texted, Hey, just jacking
Speaker 1: and no you okay? Things seem stressful. It was more
Speaker 1: than a hint, it was a warning. I wanted to
Speaker 1: reply with the truth no I'm not okay, but instead
Speaker 1: a typed busy season a guesst studios rough lately She
Speaker 1: left it at a sad emoji. Late that week, final
Speaker 1: confirmation started to collect in words I couldn't dismiss. But
Speaker 1: the shape of what I needed to see was still
Speaker 1: maddeningly just out of reach. And that's where I'm now.
Speaker 1: Phone in one hand, mugg and Elda steering at another
Speaker 1: night of rain, all his laughter echoing in some other stays.
Speaker 1: Our loft grown too quiet for comfort, US shared history
Speaker 1: starting to feel as fragile as the un five cloychy
Speaker 1: disappears into every nay. I found myself standing by the
Speaker 1: tall windows city light, stuttering in the rain silk glass,
Speaker 1: trying to reconstruct where it first grew off kilter between us.
Speaker 1: The silence after she left again felt physical pressure in
Speaker 1: the room. I started doing what I always did in
Speaker 1: creative gridlock, sorting our art books by color, lining up
Speaker 1: our pane tubes, exposing myself to the rhythms of order.
Speaker 1: It didn't help. Normally a fellow was out, i'd hear
Speaker 1: from her by midnight, a jerk text, maybe a picture
Speaker 1: of some word, snack or the latest absurd collective tradition.
Speaker 1: That night nothing. I checked my phone compulsively when it
Speaker 1: buzz with a group DM from Journey's inviting. The study
Speaker 1: began till last minute. After I was firing party. My
Speaker 1: stomach flips, even though I wasn't the intented recipient. It
Speaker 1: felt illicit, like reading a note meant for some one else.
Speaker 1: Her name was first on the inviteless circled in blue.
Speaker 1: I open our shared calendar. I've always managed our schedules,
Speaker 1: partly a habit, partly because ALLA load details. She used
Speaker 1: to tease me for color curding our deadlines, setting reminders
Speaker 1: for her flaky artist as now to Calendo was littered
Speaker 1: with private entries, blocked off as studio personal. Our old events, gallery, dinners,
Speaker 1: friend birthdays, movie nights had faded to gray, tented to
Speaker 1: voiuttrite missing. The new one stood out in blue lines,
Speaker 1: dividing our days into hers and not hers. Somewhere between
Speaker 1: one and two a m my hunger for normalcy turned
Speaker 1: into resolve. I sent Ella message light, intended as a joke.
Speaker 1: Did the kiln implode again? Shall I send rescue snacks?
Speaker 1: Her reply came nearly half an hour later, loll not yet,
Speaker 1: don't wait up, trying to finish a piece for the
Speaker 1: group's show love you No, can't wait to show you.
Speaker 1: No emoji even just love you like a password. Our
Speaker 1: pets even seemed to notice the thing the air. Our
Speaker 1: cat Juno, normally inseparable from Ella, slept caled on my feet,
Speaker 1: her tail flicking every time the elevator groaned. I found
Speaker 1: myself whispering into her fur, She'll be back, It's just art.
Speaker 1: Maybe I would have left it the lone, but over
Speaker 1: the next days, the routine such as it was slip
Speaker 1: even further off axes. We missed a call with a
Speaker 1: big client that Monday morning, a cover telling the mellow
Speaker 1: was running a fever. She texted from the next room, Sorry,
Speaker 1: brain fog, Promise I'll make it up. I could see
Speaker 1: the blue glow under the studio door, or she'd been
Speaker 1: in there working on something headphones in Not for us, Apparently,
Speaker 1: I'd a week's end. I'd had enough of inventing reasons
Speaker 1: to be left. At Saturday, I walked by the Collective,
Speaker 1: tugging my coat type from the drizzle, hoping for a glimpse,
Speaker 1: but not really sure I wanted one. The windows were
Speaker 1: fogged with heat. Through the door, I could see figures moving,
Speaker 1: Jonas's laugh bouncing over the street unmistakable. I saw Ella
Speaker 1: ponatail high in an apron, dusted with charcoal, gesturing at
Speaker 1: something on the spinning wheel. Their heads bend together, Jonas's
Speaker 1: armsteadying her wrist as she shaped what a bowl, a vase,
Speaker 1: some vessel. The intimacy wasn't sexual exactly, It was the
Speaker 1: patience of shared obsession. I don't know what snapped, but
Speaker 1: I kept walking. The image burned in my mind that night,
Speaker 1: back in Aloft, she came home late, face flushed, voice
Speaker 1: still half in some other world. It work, she announced,
Speaker 1: dropping keys and half empty take out on the counter.
Speaker 1: I've finally got the lips right on that rocket bowl,
Speaker 1: Jonah says it's the best one I've done. I wanted
Speaker 1: to say, you don't even like bulls, but I bit
Speaker 1: it back instead. Sounds great. I passed by you seemed busy,
Speaker 1: she tensed instantly. Next time come in felt like study
Speaker 1: or time a sacred, I said, forcing a laugh. She
Speaker 1: set her back down with a heavy thunk. I don't
Speaker 1: need you to police my hobbies, Liam. My patients faltered here,
Speaker 1: are never around, the business is falling behind? Or you
Speaker 1: are you happy here? She flinched, like had struck her. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I just needed a break from the grind that's allowed.
Speaker 1: It was our first real fight about it, though half
Speaker 1: our words were about work, the other half about all
Speaker 1: the things neither of us said. She retreated, and I
Speaker 1: slept badly, the echo of frustration throbbing in my temples.
Speaker 1: The next morning, I looked for comfort and routine, brewing
Speaker 1: strong coffee, making oatmeal, setting out a bowl for her
Speaker 1: with extra nut butt of the way she liked it
Speaker 1: before studio breakfast became her thing. She came out, saw
Speaker 1: the set up, rolled her eyes and muttered thanks, but
Speaker 1: didn't touch it. I forced myself into our studio, reopen
Speaker 1: client files, tried to channel the old energy, but everywhere
Speaker 1: our life felt full of holes. Her pain brushes missing
Speaker 1: from the cup, headphone snowered, a note on her monitor,
Speaker 1: don't need this to day be Beckley. Even her scent
Speaker 1: faded from our chew blanket. I called Chrevonne that afternoon,
Speaker 1: more to hear a friendly voice and probe. We ended
Speaker 1: up talking business, but she slipped in a gentle question,
Speaker 1: you are know okay? I hesitated, then admitted she's somewhere
Speaker 1: else these days. I don't know if it's the work
Speaker 1: or something I broke. She was quite a long moment,
Speaker 1: then just said I saw her with Joan as the
Speaker 1: other night. They looked thick as thieves. But you know,
Speaker 1: maybe that's the creative process. I wanted to agree, but
Speaker 1: something in her tone, gentle diplomatic, made me think she'd
Speaker 1: already picked a sod, even if she didn't say it.
Speaker 1: There was a gap between what friends would say and
Speaker 1: what everyone wanted to know. The physical evidence kept stacking up,
Speaker 1: room temperature coffee, more frequent cash withdrawals, receipts from supply
Speaker 1: stores we hadn't used together, and familiar color samples tucked
Speaker 1: between her sketch books. But it was the changes in
Speaker 1: our communication knock at deepest jokes, ah unanswered questions, brushed
Speaker 1: away one swap for brusquefficiency. Our design work suffered. Once
Speaker 1: we thrived best in chaos. Now, when we tried to
Speaker 1: coordinate on a brunch of brand campaign, every decision became
Speaker 1: a spurfer irritability. I'd suggest to von variant, she'd reply,
Speaker 1: just pick one. I'd hesitate, She'd sigh loud enough to
Speaker 1: rattle my insides. Deadlines once adrenaline turned to dread. One Tuesday,
Speaker 1: desperate for connection, I asked if she wanted to host
Speaker 1: friends for dinner, just like before. I'm too tired, she said,
Speaker 1: barely glancing up as she scold her phone from the couch.
Speaker 1: Studio is running a late firing. Maybe next week. Everything's
Speaker 1: next week with you, I retorted, instantly, wishing I kept quiet.
Speaker 1: She shot me a venomous side eye. You want to
Speaker 1: control my calendar, Go ahead, just make it clear your
Speaker 1: booking my personality too. That night, I stared out at
Speaker 1: the ceiling, counting potholes in the plaster as thunder snapped
Speaker 1: at the window. It was Friday afternoon when things shifted again.
Speaker 1: We'd gotten a rejection on a major mural pitch, one
Speaker 1: that should have been as by reputation, but her proposal
Speaker 1: had obviously been rushed. She shrugged, scrolling her phone while
Speaker 1: her wereid the Cleine's regret to inform email, trying to
Speaker 1: pass where we'd gone wrong. Do you even care, Ella,
Speaker 1: I finally asked. Her head snapped up. I saw, actually
Speaker 1: saw a flash of giltour's at resentment cross her features.
Speaker 1: Of course I care. I just maybe it's time to
Speaker 1: try something else. Maybe this isn't working the way it was.
Speaker 1: I couldn't bring myself to ask if she meant the business,
Speaker 1: O us or everything. Later that night, her voice came
Speaker 1: after as she packed up for yet another all nighter.
Speaker 1: Maybe you should come by some time, meet the other
Speaker 1: side of me? Should I? I asked? Or is that
Speaker 1: a separate whirl? She looked at me, eyes dark. What
Speaker 1: if I wanted to be both? I found myself lost
Speaker 1: in that unanswered, gnawing uncertainty, that space between closeness and
Speaker 1: retrievable distance. The invitation to the open studio came days later,
Speaker 1: in a way that felt almost ceremonial. She slid a
Speaker 1: flyer across the table at breakfast, her hand trembling just slightly.
Speaker 1: Come if you're curious. No pressure, there was no or
Speaker 1: SVP required no time to prepare. So when the night arrived,
Speaker 1: I put on my safe shirt of faded black, bottomed down.
Speaker 1: She'd always loved to brave the unfamiliar echo of community.
Speaker 1: The studio buzzed with energy, all rough, walled and bright,
Speaker 1: lit the edge of sharp with creative chaos. Ella was
Speaker 1: at the center, radiating practiced ease, but the way she
Speaker 1: lit up at Jonas's arrival made something staying inside. Jonas
Speaker 1: greeted me with the slightly forced want of a temporary host.
Speaker 1: He the infamous partner. Glad you finally made it. She's
Speaker 1: been holding out on us. Ella rolled her eyes but
Speaker 1: linked her arm through mine. Just remember, he could spot
Speaker 1: a lumpy room from ten feet. I tried to play along.
Speaker 1: New faces filtered through, offering introductions that landed flat. New
Speaker 1: students explained their work, pointing out Ella's pieces with genuine respect.
Speaker 1: She's got ross Gelle, one woman said, totally not afraid
Speaker 1: to try aggressive shapes. Jonahs hovered available in a way
Speaker 1: that suggested possession or competition. I couldn't be sure, he
Speaker 1: laughed loudly at her jokes. They shared side glances, trading
Speaker 1: quips over my head. I asked, pointedly, so, what's your
Speaker 1: next piece together? Jonah smiled slow ayes, flickering to Ella bough.
Speaker 1: We've got a few things planned. Ella cut in. It's
Speaker 1: just Glaz's babe. Jonahs helps with the tricky ones. There
Speaker 1: was a plulse from the crowd as someone lifted a
Speaker 1: finished ball from the kiln, declaring, first time it didn't crack. Legendary.
Speaker 1: Ella clapped out of spaming. I faked yase, but my
Speaker 1: hands is to check my phone. Eventually, mercifully, at the
Speaker 1: event thinned, Joanas drifted away to advise a new member.
Speaker 1: I caught Ella alone by the supply closet habby. I asked,
Speaker 1: as neutral as I could. She smiled up at meat,
Speaker 1: the old Ella visible for a fleeting beat. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: am thanks for coming. I know this isn't your thing.
Speaker 1: I touched her wrists tried a joke. If the next
Speaker 1: bowls from me, can I request something rand? She grinned
Speaker 1: some warm, flickering deal, but you're glazing it. That night
Speaker 1: at home, we drifted into a rare, relaxed truce. We
Speaker 1: ate left over tie, watched a trush show, laughed more
Speaker 1: than we had in weeks. She reached for my hand
Speaker 1: during a commercial. Sorry, if I've been away, sometimes I
Speaker 1: just need burn Outrisett. I squeezed her fingers, almost believing
Speaker 1: all the tension could be in tie. Thanks for letting
Speaker 1: me in. She leaned her head against my shoulder. Next time,
Speaker 1: let me drag you into the mucksonner. We curled into
Speaker 1: bed together, cautious, hopeful for ast liver. It felt possible
Speaker 1: we weren't deemed. But when I cleared the table and
Speaker 1: found the slip with Jonas's numbiscal next to who meet
Speaker 1: me after? Don't forget the Keys of Jay that the
Speaker 1: dread returned fuller than ever. I debated confrontation. I replayed
Speaker 1: words in my head, Who's this for? Is there something
Speaker 1: I should know? But I held off second guessay, if
Speaker 1: I accused? Now, would I just confirm my own neuroses?
Speaker 1: What if this really was just art, and I was
Speaker 1: the once spiraling. Instead, I let the evidence stack quietly, defensively.
Speaker 1: I noticed a new pattern. When Ella was home, her
Speaker 1: energy crashes if the effort of joy at the studio
Speaker 1: left nothing for us. If I asked about her day,
Speaker 1: should rokochet into stories about the collective, never specifics, never
Speaker 1: naming Jonah's upright any more. She became even more private
Speaker 1: with her phone, shutting her laptop as soon as I
Speaker 1: came into the room, quick to flip to emails or
Speaker 1: dull spreadsheet. Her sketches turned up in odd places, left
Speaker 1: in her back half finished margins decorated with quick swooping spirals,
Speaker 1: drawn over and over. Late one afternoon, I decided to
Speaker 1: look for myself. I waited until she left firs supposed
Speaker 1: supply run, then fired up her laptop. My pulsehammered in
Speaker 1: my chest, gille threading every keystruck, but the facts had
Speaker 1: become impossible to ignore. In her email, I found a
Speaker 1: subfuller labeled collective. Inside messages from Jonah's. Most hovered at
Speaker 1: the edge of professionalism, scheduling, firing notes, supply lists, but
Speaker 1: some pinged with something else. Can't wait to see what
Speaker 1: you do with the next glaze. Last night made everything
Speaker 1: click or further down one unguarded late night message. You
Speaker 1: bring out the good kind of crazy in me, don't
Speaker 1: let it fade. Ella's replies were similar, guarded in content
Speaker 1: but not in tone. Don't know what I'd do without
Speaker 1: your energy at the wheel. Don't get used to me
Speaker 1: being clumly forever. In Among them were calendar invites for
Speaker 1: a late window message is sent at word. I was
Speaker 1: to eight a m. Three, twelve a m. The kind
Speaker 1: of times ye don't talk shopping as something else binds
Speaker 1: you There my hand shook. I told myself I didn't
Speaker 1: know the whole story. Maybe creative. He really did look
Speaker 1: like this intimate, raw absorment. Maybe everyone else at the
Speaker 1: studio had the same rapport with Jonah's. But I knew
Speaker 1: Ella her aversion to intimacy without trust, her way of
Speaker 1: sharing everything worth sharing. At least I used her. I
Speaker 1: consider talking to Chavon again, dredging for clues. Maybe she'd
Speaker 1: say what she'd left unsat. I taxed it. Got time
Speaker 1: for a drink this week, could use a friend, she agreed.
Speaker 1: We met a corner bar midweek, rains still pelting the windows,
Speaker 1: the city outside blurred and forgiving. Chyvonne didn't press at first,
Speaker 1: but when I brought up the studio, her eyes grew soft.
Speaker 1: Is she okay? She asked. I tried to dodge but failed. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't know she herself at the collective. I guess
Speaker 1: I feel like she's some one else at home. She
Speaker 1: definitely seems happy there, Chavon said reluctantly. Jonah's has that effect.
Speaker 1: He's good at making people feel wanted. I noticed their
Speaker 1: close may be too close. The way they joke together,
Speaker 1: how she touched his arm. It's like he's her anchor
Speaker 1: right now? Is it? I hesitated? Unable to name it,
Speaker 1: she offered a small WinCE. I don't know, lim, Maybe
Speaker 1: just keep her eyes open. On the walk back, the
Speaker 1: wind slicing through my coat, I weighed how much I
Speaker 1: really wanted to know. Denial seemed less painful, but the
Speaker 1: hunger for truth nagged. I had to see for myself
Speaker 1: in the raw that Friday, Ella claimed she was missing
Speaker 1: our biggest pitch yet to handle a studio emergency. She
Speaker 1: left early, barely glancing at her shared plan. I'll fix it, promise.
Speaker 1: Jonas needs someone to finish the larger piece. I covered
Speaker 1: for her again, my voice sounding brittle on the client call.
Speaker 1: That evening, after dark, I walked past the collector's street
Speaker 1: to Telene myself. I was running an errand trying for
Speaker 1: nonchalance that folded no one my pastload. Outside the foggy windows,
Speaker 1: the sign on the door read closed in bold strokes. Inside,
Speaker 1: the lights glowed warm. On the clay flag floor, I
Speaker 1: saw two silhouettes ella the wheel in a borrowed shirt,
Speaker 1: Jonah's leaning over her hand, over her hand shaping a vessel.
Speaker 1: He said something. She tipped her head back, laughing, Her
Speaker 1: cheeks flushed, a loose intimacy so obvious it made my
Speaker 1: guts ache. They didn't see me, or if they did,
Speaker 1: they didn't care. The embrace was long, too long, too easy.
Speaker 1: I watched her lean her head on his shoulder, washed
Speaker 1: his hand find her waist as they turned a ball together.
Speaker 1: Their board is fit in a way that felt practiced natural,
Speaker 1: as if they had already crossed it in calculable line
Speaker 1: I hadn't been able to name. I staggered away, rain
Speaker 1: hitting my face, anger and heartbreak cling in my chest.
Speaker 1: No more excuses, no more pretend. I honed the loftless, silent.
Speaker 1: The bowls on our shelf gleamed in the storm light,
Speaker 1: the spier Almo catching every stray glant, mocking me with
Speaker 1: its repetition. The most recent one, O my calf finish rimwarp,
Speaker 1: had both their marks side by side. I set it
Speaker 1: on the table. Weeded. Midnight passed before the elevator groaned,
Speaker 1: and her footsteps coughed in the hole. I let the
Speaker 1: anger build, let it shape itself into resolution. Ella entered, soaking, hair, tangled,
Speaker 1: cheeks pink with studio heat, Carrying a plastic rat teapot.
Speaker 1: She saw the mug on the table. Her eyes flocked
Speaker 1: to me, where I held the gaze. Want to talk
Speaker 1: about these My voice was steady, but barely. She set
Speaker 1: the teepot down, eyes bright as glass. Not to night Liam.
Speaker 1: I'm tired. I steadied myself, knowing everything would change. That
Speaker 1: honesty demand did not offered was now all that was left.
Speaker 1: She stood there, hans jammed in the pockets of her jeans,
Speaker 1: breath coming too fast for someone only winded by the elevator.
Speaker 1: Her shoulders were stiff under her batted porkot, cheeks so
Speaker 1: flushed and marked by flowery smudges of clay. I watched
Speaker 1: her glance between me and the mug, and I knew,
Speaker 1: just in how she hovered by the door, not crossing
Speaker 1: past the frame, that this was a moment, as seemed
Speaker 1: finally splitting. I didn't let the silence stretch as far
Speaker 1: as it wanted, even working laid a lot. I said
Speaker 1: every word careful, more even than I felt. And I'm
Speaker 1: not asking for a blow of by blow. But if
Speaker 1: we're at the point of lying about it, I to know.
Speaker 1: She flinched her joll, working sideways mout, setting for something defensive,
Speaker 1: but instead she just let out a long, exhausted sigh.
Speaker 1: I told you I've been tired. It's demanding new studio,
Speaker 1: new people. Sorry, if it's Joan, is more than just that.
Speaker 1: I cut her off, not sharp, but not softer either.
Speaker 1: There was a tremor under it, just barely. For a second,
Speaker 1: she looked ready to lie again. I could see the
Speaker 1: flicker in her eyes, the way she weighed telling me
Speaker 1: what she thought I wanted, or darting to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: escaping into sleep, or pretending this didn't de man words.
Speaker 1: But then the mass cracked. She looked away. It's complicated, Liam,
Speaker 1: can we just can we sit? I nodded, because I
Speaker 1: didn't know what else to do, letting her walk past.
Speaker 1: She didn't touch me. We sat across from each other.
Speaker 1: The mugged. The mugged between us, both of us staring
Speaker 1: at it like it was a live wire. She pulled
Speaker 1: her knees up in the chair, arms hugging herself. The
Speaker 1: room felt even bigger, emptier, as if the rain outside
Speaker 1: had soul in the air from our walls. I'm not
Speaker 1: coming at this from nowhere, I started, keeping my voice steady.
Speaker 1: I've seen messages, the marks on the pottery. The late night.
Speaker 1: I saw you and Jonas together. She didn't look up,
Speaker 1: Hans fluxing in her lap. Are you having an affair?
Speaker 1: Her lips parted for a second. She tried to start
Speaker 1: a sentence, but failed. She looked as if she jumped,
Speaker 1: but her voice came out low, almost a whisper. Yes,
Speaker 1: behind my ribs. Something sparkled white hot, then went cold,
Speaker 1: like glass cracking under water. I nodded, letting the words sink.
Speaker 1: Time just for a few beats meant nothing. How long
Speaker 1: she squeezed her hands together, I shining with tears. She
Speaker 1: wouldn't let fall. I don't know. A few months that
Speaker 1: started after the Winter Show. I didn't I didn't plan
Speaker 1: for it to happen. I steadied my breathing, feeling the
Speaker 1: pressure in my chest, that brittle float of unreality. Explain
Speaker 1: it to me, because I want to understand how we
Speaker 1: go from us working, fighting, laughing, bowlding tea with him.
Speaker 1: What happened? Her face crumpled just a little at the
Speaker 1: edge of her voice, scraping. It wasn't supposed to be
Speaker 1: a big thing. We worked late. He he paid attention,
Speaker 1: not just to my work, but to me. I felt seen.
Speaker 1: I guess Hugh and I we were stuck in work
Speaker 1: and bav routines. Remember that big favor brand Wild lost
Speaker 1: after that, I just I don't know. I felt like
Speaker 1: I didn't matter in our own life. Joan has noticed.
Speaker 1: I guess he made me feel like I could do
Speaker 1: something alone, not just as your other half. I bit
Speaker 1: back a reply at my tongue, Leaden, why didn't you
Speaker 1: tell me we'll leave? Why this? She lifted her chin, angry, ribbling.
Speaker 1: Now it's not as neat as that lim There were
Speaker 1: a dozen nights I almost said it, but we built
Speaker 1: everything together. Friends, The studio, this stupid place. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to blow it up. I tried to keep it
Speaker 1: in its own box, to end it. Then every time
Speaker 1: I go to the studio, I tell myself it was
Speaker 1: just about the clay. But it always ended up. She
Speaker 1: stopped shaking her head. I stared at the mug, the
Speaker 1: spiral mark, the kiln receipts, the cash withdralls, all the
Speaker 1: evidence that had built up in the cracks of our lives.
Speaker 1: So all the nights he said you were working, sometimes
Speaker 1: I was. She frowned. Pain and a hint of defiance
Speaker 1: woven in Most times, Yes, but he'd stay late, help
Speaker 1: with things. And when it eventually happened, I told myself
Speaker 1: it was just a phase. You were always here, holding
Speaker 1: everything together. I thought maybe you didn't even need me.
Speaker 1: My joke lenched. Of course I needed you. That's why
Speaker 1: I kept asking, That's why I kept hoping you'd talk
Speaker 1: to me, not him. Her eyes met mine finally, tears
Speaker 1: carving lines threw under glaze and grime. You didn't see me, Liam,
Speaker 1: not the way he did, or if you did, you
Speaker 1: only saw the pots that fit into what we'd always been.
Speaker 1: A sharp, ugly laugh tore out of me? What else
Speaker 1: was I supposed to see? Alla? I was here, I
Speaker 1: waited up, I covered your work. I did everything but beg.
Speaker 1: She wiped her face, angry at the tears. I wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to hurt you, then, what were you trying to do?
Speaker 1: She shook her head, hands twisting in her lap. I
Speaker 1: don't know, feel free, maybe feel like part of my
Speaker 1: own story again, jonas he wanted me to choose. I
Speaker 1: never told you that. She dropped her eyes. He said
Speaker 1: he wouldn't keep waiting. The silence stretched, neither of us moving.
Speaker 1: I touched the mug, finally turning so the marks caught
Speaker 1: the weak light. Is it over? Or are you going again? Tonight?
Speaker 1: Her face fell. I told him I couldn't not now,
Speaker 1: not with you knowing he wanted more. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what I want any more. I studied her hornas
Speaker 1: her shoulders hunched, her voice trembling between defensiveness and defeat.
Speaker 1: I can't keep living like I don't know, not another day.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking you too, she managed, voice wrecked. We
Speaker 1: let the quiet fell. Everything else, the last trembling refrain
Speaker 1: of truth still echoing off the brick. From that point,
Speaker 1: everything else felt automatic. I stood, walked to our bedroom,
Speaker 1: crowed the first bag within reach, an old tote from
Speaker 1: a conference we barely remembered. In the closet, My hand
Speaker 1: hesitated only once, passing my favorite jacket, the one she
Speaker 1: borrowed the night we got soap running for the subway.
Speaker 1: Laughed till louder than the thunder. I stuffed essentials into
Speaker 1: the bag, a few shirts, jeans, my notebook, laptop, phone charger,
Speaker 1: the bare minimum for survival. All motion, No thought. My
Speaker 1: heart was a stone in my throat. Ella didn't follow.
Speaker 1: I heard her moving in the kitchen, glass clinking the
Speaker 1: cabinet's LAMI I saw her silhouette through the glass wall
Speaker 1: of our bedroom, hunched over arms, grasping her own shoulders.
Speaker 1: For once, I didn't want to fix her pain. Cheer
Speaker 1: No twined around my ankles, purring madly at the confusion.
Speaker 1: I scooped her up, press hill warm body to my
Speaker 1: cheek and left her on our bed before I closed
Speaker 1: my suit case the hall. We was silent as I
Speaker 1: walked back through my footsteps so chalk. In the living room,
Speaker 1: I paused. Alice stood near the window, looking out at
Speaker 1: the city. She didn't say anything. She wiped her nose,
Speaker 1: then crossed her arm's bodies so small under the heavy light.
Speaker 1: I'll text you where I end up, I said. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about the business later. I can't do this now,
Speaker 1: she nodded, refusing to look at me. Outside, the rain thickened,
Speaker 1: drumming out the windows. All the city's clamor reduced to
Speaker 1: a single, ceaseless rhythm. I reached for the door, open
Speaker 1: the hand that barely felt real. Without turning, she said quietly,
Speaker 1: I am sorry, Liam, I really am. I set my jaw,
Speaker 1: let the words pass between us unclaimed. I opened the door,
Speaker 1: stepped out into the hallway, and shut it behind me.
Speaker 1: The elevator ride was endless in its silence. My phone
Speaker 1: buzzed Chavon's name, but I let it bring the world outside.
Speaker 1: Our door continued as if nothing had split wide open,
Speaker 1: spilling our secret into the spaces between floors. Nothing felt right,
Speaker 1: but for the first time in months, I was moving
Speaker 1: by my own force. That first night, I crashed at
Speaker 1: Chavan's place, a borrowed frud on a toothin blanket. She
Speaker 1: didn't interrogate, only handed me a glass of whiskey and
Speaker 1: a pillow case that smelled faintly of her detergent an
Speaker 1: old cigarette smoke. I left my phone off, unable to
Speaker 1: take any more questions or condolences. The practicalities came in
Speaker 1: a rush the next day at Tixidella, I'll be out
Speaker 1: of the loft for the week. Forward studio files to
Speaker 1: my email, she replied a few hours later, O K,
Speaker 1: I'll stay clear. Let me know if you want to
Speaker 1: talk about any of it. Our business once a living
Speaker 1: circuit between us, splintered over night. I messaged our shirt clients,
Speaker 1: telling them that would be delays, reassigning dead lends, disabling
Speaker 1: our joint calendar, cloud accounts in verses. The admined guts
Speaker 1: of our life suddenly a land mine for both of us.
Speaker 1: I removed her access to the few things I'd managed alone.
Speaker 1: She did the same, assumed for anything I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: to consider. Shrust, once implicit, was now a touchhrup. Friends
Speaker 1: caught the ripple quickly. A few messages from friends like Marco,
Speaker 1: who'd taken our pictures at Burning Men, landed you. O K.
Speaker 1: Saw something on other stories, Holler if you want to talk.
Speaker 1: When I checked Instagram, I saw her vag poise taking
Speaker 1: some space to put myself back together. Thanks for understanding.
Speaker 1: Comments ran the spectrum, some supportive, some confused, some neutral,
Speaker 1: moji laden non answers. I didn't reply to any of them.
Speaker 1: Didn't want to explain, not until I'd figured out how
Speaker 1: to say what had happened in a way that didn't
Speaker 1: sound like an indictment or confession. I let the business
Speaker 1: it fallow, spend it. In that pause, Ella predictably retreated
Speaker 1: further into the collect of her posts, now entirely pottery,
Speaker 1: no mention of design or us or anything before Ahom
Speaker 1: in my mind was reduced to a patchwork shells crowded
Speaker 1: with unfinished ceramics, our old couch, a silence loud enough
Speaker 1: to drown out music. Midweek, I stopped by the loft
Speaker 1: in daylight, wanting to gather a few extra things. She
Speaker 1: was gone, gone in the physical sense, maybe at the studio,
Speaker 1: but every trace of her felt changed or absent in
Speaker 1: the space. The air was heavy, the detroitus of our
Speaker 1: partnership now just a record of good attentions lost. I
Speaker 1: packed a few books, deleted her logins from my laptop,
Speaker 1: and left the studio keys on the counter. At chavans
Speaker 1: I barely spoke. She pressed me to eat. You don't
Speaker 1: have to defend her, sh said once softly. Whatever happened,
Speaker 1: he deserved better, and I'm sorry I didn't say something earlier.
Speaker 1: I shrugged. It wasn't yours to fix. I saw enough. Eventually,
Speaker 1: emails stacked unread. My sketch book pages barely used this month,
Speaker 1: just sat open on the side table. The only markus
Speaker 1: spiral I must have drawn without noticing. Gallery shows got canceled,
Speaker 1: one by one. I reached out to new clients, telling
Speaker 1: the truth, half baked business changes, taking a step back
Speaker 1: from partnership. No one pressed for details. No one does
Speaker 1: in ardor and heart break. Every time I tried to sleep,
Speaker 1: I replayed the months, the first ball on the shelf,
Speaker 1: the Lookin'ella's eyes when I finally asked, the tiny reversible
Speaker 1: crack that had widened quietly until it split everything I
Speaker 1: trusted apart That weekend, packing my bag for long the
Speaker 1: stage Vonn's, I let myself circle the law of once more,
Speaker 1: touching the work table, the war notes still stuck under
Speaker 1: the plex glass, the monks with matching spirals. I laid
Speaker 1: my key on the table and let myself look over
Speaker 1: the city spots of neon flickering in the mist. No
Speaker 1: text from Ella, no new balls, just the sense of
Speaker 1: something vast and enfallible. I finished my last pass for
Speaker 1: forgotten clothes. As the afternoon dinned. I closed the lid
Speaker 1: of my bag, sipped it shut, and let myself stand
Speaker 1: silent before the door. Before leaving, I stopped by the
Speaker 1: pottery shelf, now dustier, more clotted than ever. The ball
Speaker 1: that started it all still sat too close to the edge.
Speaker 1: I thought about hurling it into the trash, but found
Speaker 1: I couldn't. Downstairs, are passed our mail, books, flies, bills,
Speaker 1: a catalog for supplies, the tedious rhythm of shared life,
Speaker 1: waiting another week for some formal acknowledgment of change. On
Speaker 1: the street, it had just started to rain again. My
Speaker 1: reflection blowed in the glass of storefronts, the same city,
Speaker 1: but now foreign in ways I couldn't articulate. Later, at Chauvn's,
Speaker 1: I scrolled through photos, deleting those two row to keep songs.
Speaker 1: We sang on the work table, a snatch out of
Speaker 1: the polaroid. At burning Man, A hundred tinies meen to
Speaker 1: proofs that love once filled the spaces ill, and I
Speaker 1: now left vacant that night, staring at the ceiling rain
Speaker 1: hitting the window, a kind of relief cane than and trembling,
Speaker 1: a feeling of finally, if painfully, facing what couldn't be
Speaker 1: ignored any longer. A week passed enough time for routines
Speaker 1: to begin to shift, for the cline of rage and
Speaker 1: hurt to dull into a manageable fob. On a gray morning,
Speaker 1: I woke at Chavaughan's before the sun pull through the
Speaker 1: smok while she made coffee, I packed my note book,
Speaker 1: zip my jacker. I needed no instructions for this, The
Speaker 1: need to see it for myself was suddenly impossible to ignore.
Speaker 1: I left her a note on the fridge, just thank
Speaker 1: you won't be late. Then I stepped outside into the
Speaker 1: wet the city just barely stirring, the streets silvered with vrain,
Speaker 1: people moving in their little orbits, all of us forming
Speaker 1: and breaking connections un scene. I walked west, letting my
Speaker 1: feet gud me no destination but my mind, circling around
Speaker 1: the one place that needed finishing. The air on the
Speaker 1: block near the pottery studio always smelled like mud, fresh mineral,
Speaker 1: a little sharp from the kilns. I s lord pausing
Speaker 1: at the curb opposite the warehouse, Waia for months, some
Speaker 1: other chapter of my marriage had happened without me. The
Speaker 1: lights were on. Through the window, I could see shells
Speaker 1: crowded with new bulls, glazes, curing all the evidence of
Speaker 1: communal creation. Ella was nowhere in sight, just a woman
Speaker 1: with a tight bun arranging pieces and jonas, moving with
Speaker 1: quig efficients toward a back storeroom. But it was the
Speaker 1: object's lined on the front table that held me. I
Speaker 1: recognized the Curvavella's vase, the dip in one of her mugs,
Speaker 1: the maring golis she said she hated, now shining under
Speaker 1: the glass. I let myself look long at as time,
Speaker 1: seeing the twin stamp of initials in spiral. The symbols
Speaker 1: there once might have only meant studio pride, but now
Speaker 1: meant an entire language of secrecy. The woman inside noticed
Speaker 1: me and looked up. She smiled politely, not knowing me,
Speaker 1: not guessing anything at all. I let the moment beep
Speaker 1: your observation, not moving to enter, just to witness. I
Speaker 1: djusted my bag on my shoulder, felt the wet in
Speaker 1: my sock seepin. For a second, I thought about stepping
Speaker 1: inside and demanding a scene, or taking one of the
Speaker 1: pieces and chattering it on the sidewalk, but instead I
Speaker 1: turned away, head down. I walked, a steady patter of
Speaker 1: rain on my hill. I crossed the street without looking back.
Speaker 1: By the time I reached the corner, the sun had
Speaker 1: soarted to break through. Weakened, watery, glancing off the puddles
Speaker 1: at my feet. For the first time since the ball
Speaker 1: appeared on our shelf, I felt light, if only by
Speaker 1: the weight of what I was no longer carrying. I paused,
Speaker 1: looking up at the slate sky, at a world beginning again,
Speaker 1: indifferent to what had splintered inside me. There was a
Speaker 1: coffee place, two doors damp from the studio, with grimy
Speaker 1: windows and chairs weighed done by generations of lost afternoons.
Speaker 1: I ducked inside, letting the bell announced me to no
Speaker 1: one in particular. I ordered a black coffee, watched the
Speaker 1: barrister work the lever, more grateful for the anonymity than
Speaker 1: the caffeine, and found an empty corner to sit with
Speaker 1: my cup. My hands felt on familiar fingers, raw gripped
Speaker 1: slack skin, pricked by the damp, but unable to register comfort.
Speaker 1: I needed to let myself be nothing, a customer in
Speaker 1: transit while my mind negotiated what was left of my
Speaker 1: sense of self. Rain Drops battered the glass, streaking the
Speaker 1: outside world until everything beyond the window blurred. I lost
Speaker 1: time watching the street, barely sipping, letting the ache in
Speaker 1: my chest bloom and recede, letting the hole where el
Speaker 1: lived inside me burn with every passing minute. Every so
Speaker 1: often laughter would filter from a nearby table, or the
Speaker 1: smell of burnt toast would waft over. I kept playing
Speaker 1: and replaying the last night in the loft in my head,
Speaker 1: or hunched back the silent fight with tears, the brutal
Speaker 1: clarity of everything said and said. The strange thing was
Speaker 1: at the eruption I had imagined, all the fury had
Speaker 1: given way to something flat bottom is a dull recognition
Speaker 1: that neither of us could fix what we done to
Speaker 1: each other. In private, I texted Chavorn and Okay, needed
Speaker 1: a walk. Thanks recovering from me, she replied, almost instantly,
Speaker 1: you don't have to thank me, you want company. I tied,
Speaker 1: not just now, and sat the phone down. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be alone. I wanted to be forgiven. I wanted
Speaker 1: everything back in its place, knowing full well nothing ever
Speaker 1: would be. I finished a coffee, its heat barely reaching me,
Speaker 1: then let the cup sit a while longer before I
Speaker 1: pushed outside. The clouds had thickened, the rain less, now
Speaker 1: more mist than downpour. I walked the long block to
Speaker 1: the main avenues, waving through the city of morning crowd
Speaker 1: Every phase looked purposeful, I envied to people, was somewhere
Speaker 1: clear to be my own life. An attached from its
Speaker 1: moorings felt light, unstable, Lisa's green clay before the fire.
Speaker 1: By the time I reached the river front, the wind
Speaker 1: had picked up, and I stood under an awning let
Speaker 1: in the pattern of water and movement nom the edges.
Speaker 1: I stood there for a long time until my phone
Speaker 1: vibrated in my pocket. The message was from Ella, when
Speaker 1: you're ready, I left her vials and mailed by the door.
Speaker 1: We need to set up a time to talk dissolution.
Speaker 1: I'll stay away if you need more time. Breathing her
Speaker 1: tone so business like after everything, and did a hidden nerve,
Speaker 1: I almost replied with all the words crowding my mouth, anger, longing, explanation,
Speaker 1: or resentment. Instead, after too much time staring at the
Speaker 1: blinking cursor. All I sent was understood, don't be home later.
Speaker 1: I need to pick up a few more things. There
Speaker 1: was no reply, but I didn't expect one. By the afternoon,
Speaker 1: the air was cold, my sock sowden, and my mind steadier,
Speaker 1: if not settled. Back at Chavan's, her absence was a messy.
Speaker 1: She'd left a note saying she'd gone to run errands.
Speaker 1: I changed clothes, bundled my file with a rubber band,
Speaker 1: then lay on the feud on, staring at the ceiling.
Speaker 1: Every object in Chevan's loving room was a stranger to me.
Speaker 1: Vintage posters from bands I didn't know, bright enamel cups
Speaker 1: clustered on open shelves, Plants wild and thirsty. Unlike the loft,
Speaker 1: nothing he held the memory of two people building their
Speaker 1: lives around each other. It felt incomplete, but for now
Speaker 1: that in completeness protected me. I dozed on and off,
Speaker 1: the rain and the city sounds blending into a gray throom.
Speaker 1: Some time after dusk, my phone buzzed again. This time
Speaker 1: it was Marco, our photographer friend Gallery said, you canceled
Speaker 1: the show. Want to talk, man? I like go to voicemail.
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine how to summarize the last month into
Speaker 1: anything small enough to send through text to call. By nightfall,
Speaker 1: practicalities pressed in and needed to go back to the
Speaker 1: loft to collect the last of my things, that thought
Speaker 1: just hours earlier almost unbearable, now registered with clinical dispassion.
Speaker 1: I packed a top with my sketch book's chargers, a
Speaker 1: bottle of water, and walked the ten blocks with even steps.
Speaker 1: The city was quiet in the blue hours, the streets
Speaker 1: gloss with puddles, traffic softened by the ongoing drizzle. Inside
Speaker 1: our building, everything felt shrunken and hollow. The walls in
Speaker 1: the hall, once warm and inviting, seemed to close in.
Speaker 1: I hesitated a heartbeat at the door tower loft, the
Speaker 1: door that was mine, then ours, now neider. The envelope
Speaker 1: Bella had promised was just inside, along with a neat
Speaker 1: stack of my paperwork, a few pieces of stray mail,
Speaker 1: and a mug I'd nearly left behind, the one with
Speaker 1: yellow glaze, and a formless duck spiraled at the rim.
Speaker 1: One of her oldest experiments fired down, missed on its base.
Speaker 1: Inside the empty in his head spread. The shelf with
Speaker 1: the ceramics was packed tighter as if she cleared space
Speaker 1: for her new life, or for clarity or sympid to
Speaker 1: corral the chaos into some understandable pattern. There were still
Speaker 1: traces of her, her smell, the sweatshirt dripped over the
Speaker 1: chair and opened tin of tea on the counter, but
Speaker 1: the dominant note was absence. I moved quietly, not because
Speaker 1: anyone was there to hear, but because quite was all
Speaker 1: I was capable of. I gathered my books, the blanket
Speaker 1: was split on winter movie nights, my backup hard drive,
Speaker 1: and the sweat I'd forgotten last week. One by one,
Speaker 1: I zipped them into my bag. I left my duplicate
Speaker 1: keys by the door, tucked into the little duck mark No, no,
Speaker 1: nothing at all. I worked each route, scanning for things
Speaker 1: i'd need, phone charger, portfolio, the ridiculous mini caactor she'd
Speaker 1: gotten as a good luck joke, and left it sitting
Speaker 1: where it was. The plants, I reminded myself, weren't my
Speaker 1: problem any more. In the end, the only thing I
Speaker 1: took from the pottery shelf was the first ball, the
Speaker 1: blue one, the one thus started everything, marked with her
Speaker 1: initials and journeys's spiral. I wrapped it in a t
Speaker 1: shirt and slid it into my bag, not out of sentiment,
Speaker 1: but as proof I hadn't made it all up. I
Speaker 1: glanced one once more at the window, where the rain
Speaker 1: was still coming down hard. For an instant I thought
Speaker 1: about leaving a message. One last word caught to the
Speaker 1: fridge on the chalk put by the door, but there
Speaker 1: was nothing left to say. Absence, I realized, sometimes speaks
Speaker 1: for you. On my way out, my phone pinged with
Speaker 1: a new email. It was from our gallery Klein. Sorry
Speaker 1: to hear about the partnership shift. Let us know if
Speaker 1: either of you are still interested in solo work. Take care.
Speaker 1: The sharp, professional tone made everything feel down, sealed official.
Speaker 1: I wanted to throw my back, scream or crack one
Speaker 1: of the mugs, just to hear something break. Instead, I
Speaker 1: let the doorries close, soft and final. Back on the street,
Speaker 1: the city swallowed me again. The ordinary world swept around
Speaker 1: my small private ruin neon flooded puddles with color musically
Speaker 1: from open apartment windows. A man in a suit with
Speaker 1: whitch shoes started under awnings, talking to someone who wasn't there.
Speaker 1: Hours later, with everything stood in the corner of Chauvonn's
Speaker 1: living room, I sat at the window, ball in my lap,
Speaker 1: staring into the reflection of the thin yellow light, the
Speaker 1: city carrying unblow. I lost the hours watching, letting my
Speaker 1: self grieve. More days passed, work emails returned without urgency,
Speaker 1: and new offer was drifting in from people who still
Speaker 1: believed I was half for something vibrant. Chevon kept her distance,
Speaker 1: checking in only when she saw the circles deepen under
Speaker 1: my eyes. I deleted social notifications, blocked Jonas's I camp
Speaker 1: not out of anger, just to stop the endercurrent constantly
Speaker 1: pulling at my focus. I told myself, when the weather cleared,
Speaker 1: I'd find a new sublet, maybe leave the neighborhood for
Speaker 1: a while, put true miles between me and the ghost
Speaker 1: of who we'd been. Maybe when gallery season circled back around,
Speaker 1: I'd put my name on something and see if I
Speaker 1: still belonged. But for now, the fallout the real kind
Speaker 1: was enough. A few more business items needed settling. Ellis
Speaker 1: sent a spreadsheet for the division of assets he got
Speaker 1: with clients. What to do with the remaining partnership funds,
Speaker 1: how to split the security deposit at our building. We
Speaker 1: scheduled the time to talk in a week. The email
Speaker 1: was brisk, only mildly apologetic. Her signature hadn't changed. Still,
Speaker 1: both our names at the bottom a hank of her
Speaker 1: from before. I almost wrote back to point it out,
Speaker 1: but then I didn't. These things like JACKX and Clay
Speaker 1: wide and quickest when you don't notice them. On the
Speaker 1: day I was supposed to meet her to sign things,
Speaker 1: I stopped outside the pottery studio for just a moment.
Speaker 1: The window was open to the street, and I could
Speaker 1: see Joans hunched over a table, working a lump of
Speaker 1: dark rare clay, oblivious to everything but his own hands.
Speaker 1: For a second, I wished I could hate him, the
Speaker 1: way moves teach you to hate the rival, but all
Speaker 1: I felt was exhaustion. I stood there, invisible for a
Speaker 1: minute longer, then turned away before either of them looked up.
Speaker 1: Across the street, a flower stall had buckets pressed full
Speaker 1: with irises and fat headed peonies. I bought three stems, cheap,
Speaker 1: right unnecessary. I carried them with me back to Chavon's,
Speaker 1: not knowing if they were meant as apology remembrance or
Speaker 1: just something with roots that might out last the storm
Speaker 1: in my head. That evening, I unpacked my bag for
Speaker 1: the first time in weeks. The bull sat bottomost still
Speaker 1: wrapped in the old T shirt. I set it on
Speaker 1: the window ledge above the radiator, turning it so the
Speaker 1: initial's face outward, the spiral visible only if you looked hard.
Speaker 1: I could have hidden it, could have broken it, but
Speaker 1: I let it stay, unremarkable and an adornder record, not
Speaker 1: a monument. I called Shavonne in from the kitchen. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be out for a while, I said, there
Speaker 1: are a few things I need to take care of
Speaker 1: on my own. She nodded, I'll be here. It was
Speaker 1: simple and more kindness than I deserved. The next morning,
Speaker 1: I woke the city with my eyes up for once, seeing,
Speaker 1: not searching. I passed the bakery Ella and I used
Speaker 1: to visit. I crossed a bridge over the river where
Speaker 1: she had once drawn me, leaning against the railing wind
Speaker 1: in my face, her colors wild and bright. None of
Speaker 1: it belonged to me now. Eventually I found myself at
Speaker 1: the studio's block again, only this time I didn't pause.
Speaker 1: I passed the window, saw the light inside, the finish
Speaker 1: bowls and mugs and vases lining the shelves in the front,
Speaker 1: their surfaces shining in the early sun. A color palette
Speaker 1: was different, no deeper, heavier, streaked immroon and copper and blue.
Speaker 1: Ella's work everywhere and nowhere, her name still half hidden
Speaker 1: in a glace. I didn't stop, didn't press my face
Speaker 1: to the glass, didn't search for her shadow among the racks.
Speaker 1: I walked on my step, steady, hands deep in the
Speaker 1: pockets of my coat. By the time I reached the
Speaker 1: next corner, the sky let down, new rain light at first,
Speaker 1: and then heavier, lling off the roof lines and splattering
Speaker 1: through the gutters. I pulled my head up and kept moving,
Speaker 1: the city opening in front of me with a kind
Speaker 1: of quite promise of nothing owed, nothing explained, just a
Speaker 1: rhar cold niness of what comes next. And that is
Speaker 1: the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see
Speaker 1: you in the next one.