Speaker 1: It was a Thursday night, which only mattered because in
Speaker 1: our rhythm, Thursdays were relieably hours. Usually Elise would have
Speaker 1: been home by now, curled into the battered green couch
Speaker 1: with her paint stained sweats, glass of white wine cradled
Speaker 1: in her palm, scrolling her foam with her legs thrown
Speaker 1: over my lap. Sometimes she'd hop up mid series to
Speaker 1: jot something in a note book or smudge an idea
Speaker 1: onto a scrap canvas. I'd tease her for hoarding brushes,
Speaker 1: and she'd shoot back with that conspiratorial grin, the one
Speaker 1: that always made me feel like I'd won some impossible lottery.
Speaker 1: But to night, our apartment was cold with vacancy. Even
Speaker 1: the cat Felix had given up waiting at the door
Speaker 1: and wandered off. Her text came at ten seventeen. Hey babe, sorry,
Speaker 1: were running late, just wrapping up soon, promise. I stared
Speaker 1: at the blue bubble as if my gaze could conjure
Speaker 1: her through the door. Most of the time I never
Speaker 1: doubted these things. Elise's collective liked to work late, and creativity,
Speaker 1: she always insisted, didn't fit into tidy blocks on the calendar. Still,
Speaker 1: something about the phrasing niggled at me. We're wrapping up soon?
Speaker 1: Why plural? And when at late started meaning pushing midnight?
Speaker 1: An hour dripped by, each passing minutes, sticky and dense.
Speaker 1: I tried work emails, a podcast, even aimless dish washing
Speaker 1: to fill the space, but I kept checking the time,
Speaker 1: my foot tapping a nervous rhythm against the linoleum. When
Speaker 1: the key finally spun in the lock, I looked up
Speaker 1: so fast my neck twinged. Elise padded in, cheeks pink
Speaker 1: from the cold flyways, escaping her beanie. Her eyes caught mine,
Speaker 1: then darted down and away. Hey, she said, voice oddly muffled. Sorry,
Speaker 1: that ran so much longer than planned. I got up,
Speaker 1: meaning to meet her half way for a welcome home hug,
Speaker 1: but she brushed past, gently, heading straight for the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I just really need a shower. I'm freezing, she called
Speaker 1: over her shoulder. She wouldn't look at me by the
Speaker 1: time she emerged, face clean and hair damp. She offered
Speaker 1: a tired half smile and climbed into bed, back to
Speaker 1: me as she fiddled with her phone. I tried awkwardly
Speaker 1: to break the tension. Did you guys actually get anything
Speaker 1: done or was it another setchuan, take out and complained session.
Speaker 1: Usually this would have made her roll her eyes and
Speaker 1: launch into all the group's messy drama, but to night,
Speaker 1: she just shrugged a lot of talk, nothing settled yet,
Speaker 1: no details, no jokes. She set her phone face down
Speaker 1: on the night stand. I reached for her hand in
Speaker 1: the space between us, but she only squeezed my fingers
Speaker 1: once before letting go, rolling to her other side. Lying
Speaker 1: in the dark, I watched the shadows flickering on the
Speaker 1: bedroom ceiling, arms folded tight across my chest. Was there
Speaker 1: really anything wrong? Work ran late, that was all? But
Speaker 1: it was subtle things. The drawn way she avoided my eyes,
Speaker 1: the damp hair, the curt answers, the phone turned screen
Speaker 1: down as if it contained something toxic. I reminded myself
Speaker 1: not to spiral. We had built so much trust across
Speaker 1: seven years, hadn't we People drift sometimes or just have
Speaker 1: an off night. But my mind replayed every small distance,
Speaker 1: stretching the silence between us until it felt cavernous. Eventually
Speaker 1: I drifted into a light, uneasy sleep, still pretending that
Speaker 1: nothing real had happened. It's embarrassing if I'm honest to
Speaker 1: admit how much of my identity wound into us Elisee
Speaker 1: and me as a unit as the friends who outlasted
Speaker 1: everyone's expectations. We met at a gallery opening throne by
Speaker 1: a mutual friend, which seems cliche in retrospect, too slightly
Speaker 1: out of place. Twenty somethings alone by the drink's table,
Speaker 1: mocking a sculpture that looked like a melted trash can.
Speaker 1: She was wearing Doc Martin's splattered with paint and an
Speaker 1: acid yellow scarf. And when she laughed at my joke
Speaker 1: about abstract existentialism? Is this piece called shame in polystyrene
Speaker 1: or just recycling? Era number three? It cracked something open
Speaker 1: in me. Our first year was a string of late
Speaker 1: night picnics at the sculpture garden roof top beers above
Speaker 1: her studio, spontaneous road trips to cities whose names we
Speaker 1: couldn't pronounce, just to chase down some new installation. We
Speaker 1: spent hours sprawled in a tiny studio apartment. Mine at
Speaker 1: the time was even smaller, Her feet in my lap
Speaker 1: as she painted, unashamed to let me see her process,
Speaker 1: her mess. Those days had a kind of scruffy, collaborative romance.
Speaker 1: I tried to keep pace with her chaotic inspiration while
Speaker 1: she teased me for my tidy marketing spreadsheets and mini notebooks.
Speaker 1: US social life evolved around what she called creative collisions,
Speaker 1: impromptu dinner parties with mismatched chairs, potlucks where someone always
Speaker 1: brought a musician or a poet. Elise was the sun
Speaker 1: that everything orbited. Her friends became mine, and gradually my
Speaker 1: friends bled into hers. We were that couple everyone expected
Speaker 1: to move to New York start something wild. We didn't,
Speaker 1: but we still played the part. Gallery nights, after hours clubs,
Speaker 1: joint vocations to weird beach installations, and endless nights dissecting
Speaker 1: movies over five dollar wine. When Elise started getting real attention,
Speaker 1: her pieces picked up for a local hotel, featured on
Speaker 1: a couple of regional blogs, I helped spin her Instagram
Speaker 1: into something close to professional. We'd brainstorm hashtags, plot out drops,
Speaker 1: argue about which photos felt authentic. I loved being part
Speaker 1: of her success, feeling like we were a team. Even
Speaker 1: before we officially married last year, marriage felt inevitable, overdue,
Speaker 1: even comforting. I never felt a need for permission. The
Speaker 1: ceremony was a warm, string light kind of night, our
Speaker 1: friends drunkenly chanting to make us kiss again and again.
Speaker 1: We de settled into the sort of life I once
Speaker 1: thought belonged only to fictional adults, joint grocery runs and
Speaker 1: rediscovered routines, but with enough art openings and late night
Speaker 1: bar crawls to keep us interesting. Elise liked to joke
Speaker 1: about our domestic gallery, thrifted art, her unfinished canvasses, polaroids
Speaker 1: from every trip, pinned to the fridge. And yes, even
Speaker 1: in those years we fought. Mostly it was about creative space,
Speaker 1: Elise's stubborn need for a lone time, the sometimes fragmented
Speaker 1: way artists needed boundaries. She grew up with her parents
Speaker 1: fighting over privacy and trust. One winter, she admitted, after
Speaker 1: too much whisky that she worried becoming a pair meant
Speaker 1: losing herself, that I'd tire of her wildness, or she'd
Speaker 1: become invisible. I sometimes felt out of place in her
Speaker 1: creative circles, the practical marketing guy in rooms bursting with
Speaker 1: performance artists and would be revolutionaries. There were insecurities, sure,
Speaker 1: but we always found ways to talk it through. Shared
Speaker 1: a language of inside jokes, ritual apologies, knowing when to
Speaker 1: give each other space. Looking back, it's striking how much
Speaker 1: I took for granted, the simple way we intertwined morning
Speaker 1: runs through the park, texting each other about new food joints,
Speaker 1: meeting at the neighborhood pub after work, watching trashy reality
Speaker 1: shows while she painted beside me, I thought I knew
Speaker 1: every variation on her laugh, every story she'd ever told,
Speaker 1: every micro expression. Maybe that's why the smallest change felt
Speaker 1: like stepping on to a floor that might give way
Speaker 1: any second. On Saturday, I'd planned brunch with our friends
Speaker 1: Max and Sylvia, our group's unofficial glue, the ones who
Speaker 1: always made the plans and dragged us out when we
Speaker 1: got too comfortable. Elise, who never met a brunch she
Speaker 1: didn't love, eyed the calendar from across the table that
Speaker 1: morning and shook her head. There's a net working thing
Speaker 1: at the new pop up, she said, flipping through a
Speaker 1: stack of mail. We could swing by after Max will order,
Speaker 1: she stopped me, gentle but firm. It's mostly just, you know,
Speaker 1: artists talk boring for you, Sylvia's vegan rants and Max's
Speaker 1: horror stories about toddlers. I promise you wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: tag along, She grinned a trace, forced go have mimosas
Speaker 1: without me. I'll catch up for dinner. I almost pushed
Speaker 1: the issue, but it felt petty. Elise's world had always
Speaker 1: had corners where I didn't fit. The language of pigment
Speaker 1: types and grant deadlines was hers, not mine. Why should
Speaker 1: now be any different? That evening, she swung home right
Speaker 1: around seven, flushed with energy foone already in hand. As
Speaker 1: she dropped her bag, I asked how it went, but
Speaker 1: she was evasive, mentioning lots of connections, some cool gallerist
Speaker 1: but skipping names and stories. I'll tell you more when
Speaker 1: I'm not fried, she said, trying to redirect me to dinner.
Speaker 1: Over the next week, the pattern snowballed. Ease started claiming
Speaker 1: the studio for herself more often staying out later on
Speaker 1: week nights or disappearing for long stretches under the pretense
Speaker 1: of catching up on solo projects. I didn't question her
Speaker 1: about locking the studio door, not after she'd snapped at
Speaker 1: me once for stepping in while she was sketching. It's
Speaker 1: a mess, trust me, you don't want to see the
Speaker 1: war zone, she joked her smile quick and brittle, still
Speaker 1: its strung. She'd always welcomed my mild chaos, never guarded
Speaker 1: her space like this before. There were smaller things too.
Speaker 1: Her phone grew into an additional limb, clutched tightly and
Speaker 1: never left out in the open. She seemed distracted even
Speaker 1: when we were together, answering texts in the bathroom, scrolling
Speaker 1: late into the night. When I touched her waist or
Speaker 1: brushed her arm, she sometimes flinched, apologizing, sorry, my mind's
Speaker 1: just not here, before snuggling closer out of reflex. I
Speaker 1: told myself not to be ridiculous. If anything, Elise was
Speaker 1: due for a surge of solo focus. Her show was
Speaker 1: coming up, the group was It made sense she'd get weird.
Speaker 1: But every time she ducked my curiosity or closed the
Speaker 1: door between us, I cycled through a tight loop. Was
Speaker 1: this creative passion or something she didn't want me to see?
Speaker 1: Was I reading too much into late nights and locked doors,
Speaker 1: or starting to become the boring husband I'd always sworn
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be. I tried deflecting my doubts at first
Speaker 1: to Alisha, an old college friend who'd known both of
Speaker 1: us since the beginning. We met up for a bier
Speaker 1: one night after work. Alicia had a knack for reducing
Speaker 1: my overthinking to simple explanations. You honestly think she's hiding something,
Speaker 1: she asked, eyebrows up over her glass. You married an artist, Matt,
Speaker 1: She's like genetically programmed to be mysterious. Sometimes, my god,
Speaker 1: you should see my girlfriend during Grant's season, I laughed,
Speaker 1: sort of. It's just she turns her phone over now,
Speaker 1: and sometimes she avoids stuff. I don't know, maybe she
Speaker 1: just needs more air. She's probably stressed about the collective show,
Speaker 1: Alisha said, don't work yourself up unless there's something real.
Speaker 1: Have you told her you miss her? No? I mean yes,
Speaker 1: but not like formerly. That make it weird, right, I
Speaker 1: half smiled. Unless you let it get weirder by not talking,
Speaker 1: Alisha said, matter of fact. Always the pragmatist. I wanted
Speaker 1: to believe her, But as the weeks unfolded, every doubt
Speaker 1: I'd tried to squash came back, nottted with new anxieties.
Speaker 1: Friday evening, Elise was out again collective office hours this time,
Speaker 1: and as I dusted the bookshelf, I noticed an envelope
Speaker 1: wedged behind a novel we'd both given up reading last year.
Speaker 1: The return address was from a gallery across town, but
Speaker 1: when I asked Elise why they'd written, she only shrugged
Speaker 1: a little too quickly. Oh, that's probably just the contract stuff.
Speaker 1: Nothing exciting, probably a tax thing. Later, when she carelessly
Speaker 1: mentioned a new artist, Jordan, who joined the collective, I
Speaker 1: pressed for a story. She gave me fragments. Jordan, Oh,
Speaker 1: the one with the rooftop sculptures. Yeah, they're interesting, kind
Speaker 1: of intense. Everyone's obsessed. It's wild. No smile, no further details,
Speaker 1: just a door closed. Again it came to her head.
Speaker 1: Two sundays later, we were at a party. Sylvia insisted
Speaker 1: we couldn't miss twenty people squeezed into someone's industrial loft,
Speaker 1: a mix of gallery types and regulars. Elise stuck to
Speaker 1: the edge of the group, phone flashing every few minutes
Speaker 1: with notifications she didn't share, eyes flicking to the door
Speaker 1: as if waiting for someone else. Eventually she slipped out early,
Speaker 1: announcing breezily, I think I'll walk home, get some air.
Speaker 1: It was a clear night. Love you, she called, waving
Speaker 1: but dodging my attempt to follow. When I got back
Speaker 1: two hours later, Elise was in the shower again, singing softly,
Speaker 1: her laughter echoing against the tile, the shadow of her
Speaker 1: outline barely visible through the frosted glass. I stood outside
Speaker 1: the door, beat, lips pressed tight. It was nothing, I
Speaker 1: told myself. Maybe she just needed to wind down, to
Speaker 1: rinse off the exhaustion of endless art talk, to recharge
Speaker 1: from too many questions. Except I could feel something between us, thickening,
Speaker 1: her rare hugs, the sidelong glances, the staling in jokes
Speaker 1: that used to connect us. Instantly, she stopped volunteering stories
Speaker 1: about her work. Dinner table conversations reduced to one word
Speaker 1: responses or deflected questions. Long day, sorry, she'd say, or
Speaker 1: deadline s eating my brain. I thought, this can't be
Speaker 1: what happens to us. We were the couple who survived
Speaker 1: the long haul, who made it. We knew how to
Speaker 1: talk about anything, didn't we. Tuesday afternoon, I picked up
Speaker 1: groceries and noticed odd charges in our shared account on
Speaker 1: my banking app. Two eubers from the previous weekend, both
Speaker 1: running to the East Side, where most of the city's
Speaker 1: loft spaces were also a seventy two dollars dinner at
Speaker 1: a place we'd only gone to one together, an upscale
Speaker 1: sushi bar and a bar tab that didn't match any
Speaker 1: dates I recalled. When I asked Elise, laughing softly, you
Speaker 1: running a secret club out there, she was all poked innocence. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's probably group's stuff. We had to you, but some
Speaker 1: people cover the tab. Collective gets reimbursed. Eventually, it's a
Speaker 1: whole thing. The next night, I tried for a surprise.
Speaker 1: I ordered tie from her favorite place and let myself
Speaker 1: into the empty studio, convinced she'd love the gesture. Instead,
Speaker 1: I found the door locked, muffled voices echoing inside a low,
Speaker 1: indistinct exchange. I knocked twice. It's me, I called, but
Speaker 1: the voices stopped. The door cracked after a fumbling moment,
Speaker 1: and Elise slipped out, closing it quickly behind her. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm on a call with a gallerist. She's like old school,
Speaker 1: hates people listening in. I'll be out in ten okay,
Speaker 1: She smiled, tense, as if expected a fight. I handed
Speaker 1: over the food. The tension flickered plain between us. Elise
Speaker 1: began declining even our core traditions, our annual double date
Speaker 1: dinner with Max and Sylvia, a ritual since before any
Speaker 1: of us lived together, was apparently too much for her
Speaker 1: this year. She texted Max directly, sorry, collective stuff last minute.
Speaker 1: Don't hate me next time. The group text filled with
Speaker 1: jokes about Elise's secret art cult, but I felt a
Speaker 1: prickle of distance. Nobody else noticed. It's surreal, those in
Speaker 1: between weeks, when you start to suspect the story is
Speaker 1: leaving you behind. I went back to Alsia, kneading outside context,
Speaker 1: something to grab onto. She listened, arms folded, foot tapping Matt.
Speaker 1: You can't live like this, waiting for permission to feel
Speaker 1: what you feel. She told me. Maybe she's going through something.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not about you. Could be burnout or imposter syndrome,
Speaker 1: or who knows what artists are weird? Right? I nodded,
Speaker 1: wanting to believe it, But then Alicia added, more hesitantly,
Speaker 1: she's just quieter lately, even in the group chats. And
Speaker 1: she hasn't heart reacted to my photos in like a month,
Speaker 1: which I know sounds dumb, but she practically curated my
Speaker 1: grid last summer. Maybe she's just spinning out. Days later,
Speaker 1: exasperated by the persistent ache in my chest, I confronted Elise,
Speaker 1: not directly, but by hovering, hoping she'd offer me some life.
Speaker 1: Len I asked if she wanted to go for drinks
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, or crash her friend's open mike night,
Speaker 1: or even just watch a trashy movie. She said yes
Speaker 1: to the last suggestion, but fell asleep half way through.
Speaker 1: Head heavy on my shoulder, phone tight in her palm.
Speaker 1: The intimacy faded, as if by slow deliberate neglect. The
Speaker 1: couple who once couldn't keep hands off each other now
Speaker 1: passed each other quietly, each physical touch transactional, a peck
Speaker 1: on the cheek, a brush of arms in the hallway.
Speaker 1: I wondered constantly if I'd done something to break the spell,
Speaker 1: or if the spell was ever really mine to begin with.
Speaker 1: A week after that last conversation, Elise apologized over omelets.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I know I've been weird. The collective shows
Speaker 1: eating my brain. When it's over, things will be easier again, swear.
Speaker 1: She handed me an embossed invitation to the group show,
Speaker 1: her name bold scrawled across the front. Promise you'll come
Speaker 1: as my date. I want you there. Really. The night
Speaker 1: of the show, she was dazzling black jumpsuit paint, smudged converse,
Speaker 1: cheeks flushed with nerves. She held my hand as we
Speaker 1: walked through the gallery, beaming at me before introducing a
Speaker 1: string of people whose names I only half caught. It
Speaker 1: felt like the Elise I'd missed, Silly, affectionate, proud to
Speaker 1: show off her work, and, by some extension, me. Every
Speaker 1: time she glanced up and caught me watching, she squeezed
Speaker 1: my hand or made a face at someone across the room.
Speaker 1: That night, we slipped home together, tipsy and buoyant in bed.
Speaker 1: The old pattern returned, soft words, jokes, the sound of
Speaker 1: her laughter, like coming up for air after weeks under water.
Speaker 1: I almost cried from relief. For a while, everything sweetened.
Speaker 1: Elise lingered in the mornings, made dinner plans with me,
Speaker 1: even texted funny gifts during work, like old times. I
Speaker 1: messaged Alisha, I think I had a melt down over nothing.
Speaker 1: She's just been stressed. You need to stop reading dystopian
Speaker 1: romance novels, Alicia wrote back with one of those I
Speaker 1: roll emojis. I laughed, the tension finally easing out of
Speaker 1: my shoulders. So when I woke one morning to a
Speaker 1: string of notifications. I didn't expect anything significant, but as
Speaker 1: I scrolled past the usual likes and event invites, my
Speaker 1: thumb paused on Elise's most recent Instagram post, her new painting,
Speaker 1: A bright layered mess of color in the comments, buried
Speaker 1: under the heart eyes and so proud messages from friends
Speaker 1: I found it. Couldn't have asked for a better night.
Speaker 1: Stardust Let's do it Again, posted by some one called
Speaker 1: art Jordan. Stardust not a nickname I'd ever heard before,
Speaker 1: and I thought Riley that in seven years, you would
Speaker 1: think I'd have heard all of them. The name snagged
Speaker 1: in my thoughts all day. I didn't want to be petty.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was just a silly endearment, artists being artists, right.
Speaker 1: The more I tried to rationalize it, though, the less
Speaker 1: it settled. If I was the only one called Stardust
Speaker 1: by Elise, I would remember, unless, of course I wasn't
Speaker 1: the only one, or unless she was someone else, with
Speaker 1: someone else. I searched Art Jordan discreetly, guiltily, feeling both
Speaker 1: childish and desperate. Their public profile was as much art
Speaker 1: as person. Blurred photos, cryptic captions and a swirl of
Speaker 1: tags from local art events. Their face was in only
Speaker 1: two photos, bony and androgynous, silver rings glinting from every finger,
Speaker 1: cro purple hair. The common thread tying posts together was
Speaker 1: the hashtag collective nights and stardust. In posts that included
Speaker 1: Elize's paintings or group shots from shows I'd never attended,
Speaker 1: I cross reference their activity obsessively. In the days that followed,
Speaker 1: Jordan's account tagged elizes Art more than any other collective
Speaker 1: member s, often with references to late studio nights, after
Speaker 1: show drinks, spontaneous mystery tour, all public, all plausible, but
Speaker 1: the frequency told another story. I found matching Venmo transactions
Speaker 1: for cabs, gallery runs, and receipts for gallery openings in
Speaker 1: neighborhoods where neither had regularly worked, all time stamped around
Speaker 1: the times Elise had claimed to work late or go
Speaker 1: home to clear her brain. I peered at our credit
Speaker 1: card records, queasy with shame at my own spying. The
Speaker 1: receipts lined up too, joint purchases, close time stamps, duplicate
Speaker 1: uber charges, sometimes spaced less than ten minutes apart from
Speaker 1: opposite ends of the city. It wasn't a smoking gun.
Speaker 1: But it looked a lot like a carefully managed dance,
Speaker 1: and I didn't remember meeting Jordan at the group show
Speaker 1: or hearing about them, not directly. For days, I alternated
Speaker 1: between outrage and self disgust. I made myself sick with
Speaker 1: imagining everything and nothing. Maybe this was just the intensity
Speaker 1: of creative friendships. Maybe artists truly lived at a more
Speaker 1: feverish pitch. Still. The locked studio, the flinches, the late nights,
Speaker 1: the phone always faced down. Those weren't the ellies I married.
Speaker 1: I thought about confronting her, then lost my nerve. What
Speaker 1: would I say, Hey, why do you have weird nick
Speaker 1: names online? I pictured her incredulous face, the weary patience
Speaker 1: in her voice as she explained that I was being paranoid,
Speaker 1: that art was messier than marketing, that I needed to
Speaker 1: trust her, that I was losing my own edge. Instead,
Speaker 1: I tried to catch her in a lie. I'd come
Speaker 1: home early, listening for sounds from the studio. Usually I
Speaker 1: heard only the hum of her work playlist and the
Speaker 1: occasional drawn out curse. But one afternoon, while she was out,
Speaker 1: I found the door unlocked. My hands shook as I
Speaker 1: pushed my way in feeling queasier with every slow step.
Speaker 1: The room smelled of turpentine, citrus, and acrylic Elise's familiar world.
Speaker 1: On the far desk, under a stack of sketch books
Speaker 1: and ragged canvases, I glimpsed something out of place, an
Speaker 1: old Android phone, face down and taped up with a
Speaker 1: thick band of masking tape. Its presence was so incongruous
Speaker 1: I almost laughed until the laughter died in my throat.
Speaker 1: I peeled up a corner, checked for a password. It
Speaker 1: was set to pattern unlock, but the pattern was the
Speaker 1: same one she'd used on her tablet years ago. My
Speaker 1: breath steamed in the dimness as I queued it up.
Speaker 1: There were only two active threads in the messenger app.
Speaker 1: The first was labeled Jay Staccato messages coming meet by ten,
Speaker 1: left the print under the stairs, see you. Then nothing
Speaker 1: outright incriminating at first. The second thread was a cascade
Speaker 1: of messages, half art, half something else. You make color dangerous,
Speaker 1: You know that, and I've never had a collaborator like you.
Speaker 1: Underneath blurred selfies from backstage at events, close ups of
Speaker 1: brush strokes, photos of new installations. Then I couldn't keep
Speaker 1: my eyes off you in the studio last night. Think
Speaker 1: I still smell like your paint and wish we could
Speaker 1: do Last Friday again. Stardust, you spark things in me
Speaker 1: I haven't felt in forever. I forced myself to scroll,
Speaker 1: biting my lips until I tasted metal. There were dates proposed,
Speaker 1: Let's get sushi after the opening, you free tonight after
Speaker 1: everyone leaves, and then after did you miss me after?
Speaker 1: I can still feel you everywhere. I locked the phone,
Speaker 1: hands slick with sweat, and replaced everything as carefully as
Speaker 1: I could. My phone buzzed as I left the room.
Speaker 1: Elise text, grabbing coffee, need anything I couldn't move. The
Speaker 1: proof was thicker than accusation. It was a world she'd
Speaker 1: built beyond my line of vision, one i'd tried desperately
Speaker 1: to believe wasn't real. That night, I met up with Alicia,
Speaker 1: clutching my beer with white knuckles. Let her explain, Alicia said, quietly,
Speaker 1: torn between loyalty and disbelief, you need to hear her out.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's more complicated. You deserve the truth, but don't
Speaker 1: assume everything yet. I nodded, mute the words useless. I
Speaker 1: went home and sat in our living room, the slow
Speaker 1: spread of dusk painting the space in blue and gray.
Speaker 1: Elise walked in a half hour later, her hair towsled,
Speaker 1: her bag heavy with unfinished canvases. She smiled, practiced and tired,
Speaker 1: and for the first time I felt the performance between us,
Speaker 1: something she'd built with care, now almost convincing herself. We
Speaker 1: sat together, not touching, the distance between us shrinking and
Speaker 1: stretching with every silent minute. Part of me wanted to
Speaker 1: storm into the next room, demand every answer, brandish her
Speaker 1: secrets like weapons. But another part, the softer, more terrified part,
Speaker 1: wanted to give her just one more chance to come
Speaker 1: to me, to tell me first, to build a bridge
Speaker 1: back before everything caved in. It didn't come. The door
Speaker 1: remained locked. After dinner, Felix, sensing the melancholy, pressed himself
Speaker 1: into my lap with a plaintive chirp. I scrolled my phone,
Speaker 1: staring at Jordan's Instagram thumb, hovering over the block button.
Speaker 1: Then changing my mind, I checked Venmo, Google Maps, any
Speaker 1: trace of a shared past that wasn't mine. Every piece fit,
Speaker 1: even the ones I didn't want to touch. The next morning,
Speaker 1: as I made coffee, I heard Elise humming in the shower,
Speaker 1: the old tune, her voice curling off key. I closed
Speaker 1: my eyes and tried to remember when she'd last sung
Speaker 1: just for me, when she'd last called me anything at all.
Speaker 1: I watched the coffee maker sputter and drip too loud
Speaker 1: in the quiet kitchen, steam mingled with the faint traces
Speaker 1: of citrus and paint. Elise always left behind a smell
Speaker 1: both comforting and lately unnerving. The door to the bathroom opened,
Speaker 1: Elise bundled in her favorite oversized hoodie, shuffled past on
Speaker 1: her way to the bedroom. She grinned a little too quickly,
Speaker 1: and I caught her watching me watch her an old
Speaker 1: rhythm off beat. Now got any of the Ethiopian left?
Speaker 1: Or is it the awful stuff? She asked? Didn't buy
Speaker 1: the cheap bag this time, Scout's honor. I tried to smile,
Speaker 1: to draw out a spark. Want a mug, Yeah, need
Speaker 1: it for life. She retreated down the hall, her footsteps
Speaker 1: a bit hurried. I poured two mugs, hands steady on
Speaker 1: the outside. I walked into the bedroom, stopped in the doorway.
Speaker 1: Elise was sitting on the bed, toweling her hair. Foae
Speaker 1: propped between her knees screens shielded from me. She looked up.
Speaker 1: You can hover, you know, but I swear all you'll
Speaker 1: see is my doom scrolling. I sat beside her, offering
Speaker 1: the coffee. You've been up late most nights. Just let
Speaker 1: me know if you need to talk about anything, She hesitated,
Speaker 1: just a flicker, then her face softened. It's just a
Speaker 1: lot right now, stuff with the collective politics, people vying
Speaker 1: for space, schedules all upside down, she sipped. I promise, Matt,
Speaker 1: if there was something bigger going on, I'd tell you.
Speaker 1: I nodded, but my insides felt like clay. Anything I
Speaker 1: can do, keep buying the good beans. She smiled too
Speaker 1: quickly and changed the subject to the temperature, how it
Speaker 1: was supposed to rain through the week end, how the
Speaker 1: city fell restless before spring. Later, as she left for
Speaker 1: a day at the studio, I lingered in the apartment.
Speaker 1: I kept finding small things left out of place. A
Speaker 1: sketch book on the kitchen counter, tickets from last week
Speaker 1: ends still folded and half torn, A faint smear of
Speaker 1: paint on the inside of the pantry door. When had
Speaker 1: she even been in there with a loaded brush. It
Speaker 1: was the sort of evidence that in another context might
Speaker 1: strike me as charming. Lately it felt like residue from
Speaker 1: moments I hadn't been invited to witness. A few days
Speaker 1: went by, Elise worked even stranger hours, sometimes missing dinner altogether,
Speaker 1: once whispering from the doorway that she was pulling an
Speaker 1: all nighter with the team and not to wait up.
Speaker 1: Occasionally I'd wake in the middle of the night and
Speaker 1: hear her moving around in the studio, her music barely
Speaker 1: above a whisper, the glow lifting under the door. I
Speaker 1: couldn't decide which was worse, leaving it alone or asking
Speaker 1: again and feeling the chill of her deflection. The following Friday,
Speaker 1: a package arrived, addressed to Elise with a return sticker
Speaker 1: I recognized as a local artist's supply shop out of
Speaker 1: habit I set it on her desk, but it tumbled
Speaker 1: open and spilled two glossy tickets across the rug. Both
Speaker 1: were for an art pop up called Midnight Palettes. The
Speaker 1: event was to night Elise, I called, picking up the
Speaker 1: tickets and brushing off some lint. Did you want to
Speaker 1: check this out together? She poked her head out from
Speaker 1: the bathroom. Surprise, painted plainly on her face. Oh those,
Speaker 1: I thought I left those at the studio. I'm actually
Speaker 1: I was going to meet Jordan there talk through their
Speaker 1: curation ideas, kind of a work thing. I tried to
Speaker 1: keep my tone light. No plus one's allowed, she shrugged apologetically.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could come, but it's probably going to
Speaker 1: be all collective inside jokes and pixelated art projections. You'd
Speaker 1: hate it, trust me. I hesitated, then set the tickets
Speaker 1: on the kitchen counter another time. Maybe. She seemed relieved
Speaker 1: and ducked back into the bathroom, humming a tune under
Speaker 1: her breath. I watched the tickets, wondered how many other
Speaker 1: things I was being gently excluded from that night. I
Speaker 1: wandered the empty apartment restless, my phone glued to my palm.
Speaker 1: I told myself I could go by the event just
Speaker 1: to see, but turning up uninvited felt petty. Instead, I
Speaker 1: prowled through Elise's social feeds, searching for new posts. None appeared.
Speaker 1: Jordan's account, on the other hand, was active photos from
Speaker 1: the pop up art installations, glowing in blue neon, blurry
Speaker 1: selfies and a video of a group laughing together in
Speaker 1: front of a projection wall. In the background. Elise instantly recognizable,
Speaker 1: head tipped back in laughter, her hand barely visible at
Speaker 1: the edge of the frame, resting maybe on some one's knee.
Speaker 1: They hadn't tagged her. She must have asked them not to.
Speaker 1: I tugged at that, a nott of irritation and shame,
Speaker 1: threading tighter in my stomach. She never used to hide
Speaker 1: the way she carried herself in the world, never insisted
Speaker 1: that entire swathes of her experience stay walled off from me.
Speaker 1: By the time she got home, well past one in
Speaker 1: the morning, I was feigning sleep. Elise was gentle in
Speaker 1: the dark, but distant. She slipped into bed, facing away
Speaker 1: from me, set her phone on vibrate, and was asleep
Speaker 1: before I could even turn toward her. Saturday sunlit and hollow,
Speaker 1: I texted Alisha, is it crazy that I'm starting to
Speaker 1: lose track of whom Elise sees more me or the collective.
Speaker 1: Alisha replied with a rolling eyes emoji. Then I hear
Speaker 1: you want to join me in Sofia for brunch no
Speaker 1: art talk Scouts honor. Sitting in the bustling cafe with
Speaker 1: Alisha and her partner, I tried to act normal, but
Speaker 1: it was impossible to silence the itch under my skin.
Speaker 1: I confessed more than I planned, explained about the tickets,
Speaker 1: the studio, the late nights. Alicia glanced at her phone,
Speaker 1: then back at me softer. Now, look, you don't have
Speaker 1: to prove you're not paranoid. But Elise wouldn't risk your
Speaker 1: trust lightly. Maybe ask her straight out about Jordan or
Speaker 1: about the studio. I shook my head. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go nuclear unless I'm sure. I still want to
Speaker 1: believe it's all just insularity, you know. Sophia looked up
Speaker 1: hawk poised. People don't lock doors and change patterns for nothing.
Speaker 1: But unless you've got something real, it'd only blow up
Speaker 1: what you have. Would you rather know or wonder forever?
Speaker 1: It was a good question. I didn't have an answer.
Speaker 1: The next few days, I watched Elise more closely when
Speaker 1: she locked herself in the studio. I listened for sounds,
Speaker 1: soft music, sometimes voices, sometimes just silence, the kind that
Speaker 1: stings your ears. She started using new Sense cologne, sometimes
Speaker 1: mingling with the paint. I began noticing her wardrobe shift too.
Speaker 1: Instead of the usual paint stained clothes, she reserved a
Speaker 1: new pile city cool boots, and jackets that made her
Speaker 1: look like she was dressing for someone else's eyes. One evening,
Speaker 1: after dinner, while Elise showered, I picked her jacket from
Speaker 1: the hook in the hall. A faint, unfamiliar perfume clung
Speaker 1: to the collar, not the sharp, citrusy one she wore,
Speaker 1: but something woodier, musky. I held it to my face, inhaled,
Speaker 1: and felt both foolish and deeply, deeply unsettled. When she reappeared,
Speaker 1: hair damp and cheeks flushed, she noticed the jacket in
Speaker 1: my hands. What are you doing? Nothing? Just hanging it better?
Speaker 1: It looked about to fall. I smiled, the lies sticking
Speaker 1: in my teeth. She pulled it from my hands, gaze
Speaker 1: flicking away. Thanks, she said, softly, slinging it over a chair.
Speaker 1: That night, we barely spoke. Felix crouched at the foot
Speaker 1: of the bed, his tail twitching in the silence. A
Speaker 1: couple of days later, as I walked past the studio door,
Speaker 1: I heard Elise laughing, genuine, full throated laughter I'd barely
Speaker 1: heard in weeks. A second voice, higher pitched, excited, magnetized
Speaker 1: me to the door. I pressed my palm gently against it,
Speaker 1: then hesitated knuckles cold. Without thinking, I knocked the laughter
Speaker 1: stopped instantly. After a pause, the door opened a few inches.
Speaker 1: Elise peered out, slightly flushed. Hey, sorry, we're in a zone.
Speaker 1: Can I catch up with you in a half hour.
Speaker 1: I caught a glimpse of someone behind her, slim, purple hair,
Speaker 1: deep rings on, slender fingers. Jordan. They raised a wine glass,
Speaker 1: offered a conspiratorial nod. Too familiar. I tried to sound casual,
Speaker 1: didn't mean to interrupt, didn't realize you'd a company this late.
Speaker 1: Elise smiled too bright, her hand gripping the door. We're
Speaker 1: just working through some pieces for the show. Sorry, it's
Speaker 1: a mess in here. Rain check on t V, shaw,
Speaker 1: I said, and retreated, heart tripping. Some kind of cold
Speaker 1: understanding slid into place, not fact yet, but a weight
Speaker 1: that couldn't be reasoned away. I went back to my computer,
Speaker 1: opened an incognito window, and began searching for more about Jordan.
Speaker 1: Their gallery history, social photos, any detail their posts marked,
Speaker 1: a timeline, photos from late nights, references to grinding in
Speaker 1: the studio, with the best tags of local haunts, emojilaced captions.
Speaker 1: I stopped at one video Elise and Jordan side by
Speaker 1: side at a gallery after party, trading jokes for the camera.
Speaker 1: It had been posted a month ago. I had no
Speaker 1: idea she'd been out that night. The realization crept in
Speaker 1: almost gentle. I didn't really know where my wife was
Speaker 1: more than half her night's these past few months. I
Speaker 1: closed the laptop pulse hammering, as if some embarrassing browser
Speaker 1: history was about to be discovered. What was I even
Speaker 1: hoping to find a text, a photo, a confession out
Speaker 1: in the open. Instead, I started paying attention to everything.
Speaker 1: Our finances, another unfamiliar cocktail bar bill under Elisee's name,
Speaker 1: The way she greeted me in the evening, faster to shower,
Speaker 1: always the apologetic I'm just wiped the gap between our bodies,
Speaker 1: even when we shared the same bed. One night, unable
Speaker 1: to sleep, I picked up her sketch book while she
Speaker 1: was out. The early pages were full of the usual
Speaker 1: quick studies, anatomical sketches, rough drafts for commissions. Farther in,
Speaker 1: I found rough portraits of the same face, sharp chin,
Speaker 1: wide mouth, eyes ringed with the bold lines elise only
Speaker 1: used when obsessed. Each page was dated, the sketches clustered
Speaker 1: in the last three months. Next to one written sideways
Speaker 1: in pencil colours. Only Jordan brings out in me. My
Speaker 1: stomach closed in on itself. I flipped through the next
Speaker 1: few sketches, looking for some clue that they were old
Speaker 1: or impersonal, but each one looked more and more like
Speaker 1: an intimate attempt to catch some one from memory. Later
Speaker 1: at dinner, I tried to bring up Jordan. They seem interesting.
Speaker 1: What's their background anyway? Elise didn't look up from her plate. Oh,
Speaker 1: just moved here at the start of the year. Total
Speaker 1: art brat, tons of opinions. Good for the group, honestly.
Speaker 1: She chewed for a moment, then finally met my eyes.
Speaker 1: Why do you ask, I shrugged, Just curious. You've been
Speaker 1: working together a lot. She froze, fork paused in madeia.
Speaker 1: It's all collective stuff, she said, a little too defensive.
Speaker 1: We're all pared off for this show. If you're feeling
Speaker 1: left out, I'm sorry. I wanted to tell her it
Speaker 1: was more than that that the left out feeling was
Speaker 1: a chasm. I could barely see a cross any more. Instead,
Speaker 1: I nodded, it's fine, I just miss hanging out sometimes.
Speaker 1: She reached for my hand, A quick performative Squeeze shows
Speaker 1: almost over. After it, I'm yours again, I swear. I
Speaker 1: pretended that was enough. The next day, walking home from work,
Speaker 1: I passed Jordan's name on a sand which bored outside
Speaker 1: a gallery. The opening was listed for Friday. This coming Friday,
Speaker 1: the same night Elise had claimed to be working late again.
Speaker 1: My mind raced. Had she planned to go alone? Was
Speaker 1: I supposed to be invited that night? I tried another
Speaker 1: small experiment. I off handedly mentioned the show. Elise's reaction
Speaker 1: was instant, a flush of surprise, then calm, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I might swing by for an hour. Got to show
Speaker 1: support for everyone. Want to come. It was the first
Speaker 1: time she'd offered. I searched her face. Sure if you want,
Speaker 1: She hesitated just a split second. YEA, I mean it'll
Speaker 1: be a lot of artists. Talk again, but you're always welcome.
Speaker 1: I could tell she meant it in some careful diplomatic way,
Speaker 1: but something about the invitation felt like damage control. Friday
Speaker 1: came around. We went together, arriving just as the crowd
Speaker 1: started to peeuk. Elise pressed our way through the room,
Speaker 1: introducing me to friends, barely letting go of my hand
Speaker 1: until we reached a circle of collective members crowding around
Speaker 1: Jordan's newest piece. Jordan caught my eye, friendly, even eager.
Speaker 1: Nice to finally meet you, Matt. I hear you're the
Speaker 1: marketing genius behind this one's in star. Elise laughed, perhaps
Speaker 1: a little too loudly, and looped her arm around my
Speaker 1: waist in a way I hadn't felt in months. The
Speaker 1: rest of the evening blurred friendly chatter, small talk about curation,
Speaker 1: Jordan moving through it all with easy assertion. Elise floated
Speaker 1: near by, always engaged, occasionally pulling me in to meet
Speaker 1: some one else or point out a detail in the work.
Speaker 1: Toward the end of the evening, I watched them to
Speaker 1: ge Elise and Jordan sprawled on the benches by the window,
Speaker 1: debating the placement of a sculpture. Their energy was charged.
Speaker 1: It radiated in glances, in overlapping laughter. I mingled near by,
Speaker 1: pretending not to see the way their knees touched, the
Speaker 1: way their voices dropped lower. Afterward, Elise insisted on a
Speaker 1: night cap at a dive bar near by, just the
Speaker 1: two of us. We drank cheap whiskey, held hands under
Speaker 1: the table, joked about our mismatched crowd, for an hour,
Speaker 1: I convinced myself nothing was wrong. Elise leaned into me,
Speaker 1: warmth in her eyes, and we stumbled home, giddy, clinging
Speaker 1: to each other. The next morning, an eerie sense of
Speaker 1: normalcy filled the apartment. We made pancakes. Elise fluttered around
Speaker 1: with Felix in her arms, humming. I waited half share
Speaker 1: we'd turned some corner that I'd been inventing monsters from shadows.
Speaker 1: But as I loaded the dishwasher, a new text pinged
Speaker 1: on Elise's phone, which she'd left behind in the living room,
Speaker 1: a rarity. I glanced over, intending to bring it to her,
Speaker 1: but the screen was lit with a message preview can't
Speaker 1: stop thinking about you last night. We'll call when I
Speaker 1: can Jaye. A shock went through me. I dropped a plate,
Speaker 1: which clattered and spun miraculously unbroken. Elise appeared instantly. What happened,
Speaker 1: just clumsy, I said, heart beat thrumming in my ears.
Speaker 1: Your phone went off. She scooped it up, checked the message,
Speaker 1: and immediately set it face down. Her disguise of calm
Speaker 1: was perfect practiced. Spam, I keep getting weird texts from bots.
Speaker 1: I watched her, unable to reply a wound opened inside me,
Speaker 1: deep and private. I wanted to scream, to drag all
Speaker 1: the shadows to light, but my tongue was lead. Instead,
Speaker 1: I finished the dishes, every movement stiff, and pretended not
Speaker 1: to notice her, avoiding my gaze. That afternoon, I drifted
Speaker 1: through the apartment aimless. Finally I cracked, returning to the studio,
Speaker 1: this time I wasn't alone in my searching. I went
Speaker 1: straight for the android phone, hands trembling less from nerves
Speaker 1: and more from some new icy resolve. I turned it on.
Speaker 1: Found nothing new from Jordan that I hadn't already seen,
Speaker 1: but the accumulation, the pet names, the reckless affection gnawed
Speaker 1: at me. I snapped a few pictures of the messages
Speaker 1: as evidence, half for Alicia, half for myself. I needed
Speaker 1: some one else to see it, to tell me I
Speaker 1: wasn't seeing ghosts. Hours later, when Elisee returned, I confronted
Speaker 1: her mid kitchen, unable to bear another night of pretending,
Speaker 1: is there something going on with Jordan? My words were quiet,
Speaker 1: my face hot. She stopped, key's jangling, eyes wide, What no,
Speaker 1: why would you say that? I shook my head. I've
Speaker 1: seen the way you too, are the sketches, the late nights,
Speaker 1: the text on your from this morning, the second phone
Speaker 1: in the studio. Don't lie, please. She stared, mouth parted,
Speaker 1: then closed her eyes. Matt. The pause was a weight.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do this. I waited, not pushing.
Speaker 1: Her face crumpled. It's complicated. I didn't want to hurt you,
Speaker 1: Jordan and I. At first it was just art, just collaboration,
Speaker 1: but it spun out. I didn't think it would mean anything.
Speaker 1: I was lost. I'm so sorry. I felt the world
Speaker 1: tilt and shudder, the kitchen going silent. She took a
Speaker 1: trembling breath. I couldn't talk to you about it. I
Speaker 1: didn't even want it to happen, but it did. I
Speaker 1: don't know. My knees felt weak. I leaned hard against
Speaker 1: the counter anger and heartbreak and relief at the absence
Speaker 1: of more lies swirling all at once. I didn't shout.
Speaker 1: I said, only we need to talk, but not now,
Speaker 1: not like this. Felix wound himself around my ankles, muling
Speaker 1: for attention, and the absurdity nearly made me laugh. Elise
Speaker 1: wiped her eyes, silent tears streaking her cheeks. Matt, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. I don't know how to fix any of this.
Speaker 1: I nodded, but started moving, not away yet not toward her,
Speaker 1: toward the living room, to the window, staring out at
Speaker 1: the city. I had always thought we would conquer together,
Speaker 1: two against the tide night fell. It was only just beginning.
Speaker 1: Elise's words seemed to echo off the windows and hang
Speaker 1: on the silence in the kitchen. I didn't move, not
Speaker 1: right away, not even as Felix jumped from the window
Speaker 1: sill and chirped his presence at my feet. Elise leaned
Speaker 1: heavily against the refrigerator, eyes red, hands pressed into her
Speaker 1: hoodie's cuffs, as if bracing herself against gravity. Her apology,
Speaker 1: the awkward pane of it, was the only thing in
Speaker 1: the room louder than our breathing. I found myself staring
Speaker 1: at the small domestic details, the orange mug she left
Speaker 1: on the counter, the careless spread of her mail, an
Speaker 1: abandoned hair tie. I tried to speak, to organize all
Speaker 1: the questions clawing at me, but I couldn't pick which
Speaker 1: mattered most. My mouth opened closed again. The room felt
Speaker 1: dangerously thin. Elise wiped her cheek, looking everywhere but me,
Speaker 1: Do you want me to go, she whispered after a minute.
Speaker 1: The words barely made sense. No or I don't know.
Speaker 1: The truth was I didn't know if I wanted her anywhere.
Speaker 1: The idea of her staying felt suffocating. The idea of
Speaker 1: her leaving felt worse. She nodded, small and shrunken. Do
Speaker 1: you need space? I did, But the apartment was suddenly
Speaker 1: crowded by things unsaid and a thousand new restrictions I'd
Speaker 1: never had to consider. I managed. I need to not
Speaker 1: talk right now. I just can't. My voice sounded like
Speaker 1: it belonged to some one else. Elise nodded again, mouth
Speaker 1: pressed flat for a moment. She hovered, then silently padded
Speaker 1: toward the hall, pausing outside the studio door. She didn't
Speaker 1: go in, only stood in the liminal space, head bowed.
Speaker 1: Felix wandered after her, tail high and hopeful, as if
Speaker 1: he could fix the seismic rift by simply existing between us.
Speaker 1: I exhaled, shoulders dropping, and slumped onto the couch. I
Speaker 1: could hear water running in the bathroom a few minutes later,
Speaker 1: a ritual attempt at scrubbing away feeling, or maybe just
Speaker 1: hiding in steam. The minutes wound on slow and sour.
Speaker 1: I kept replaying her words. I didn't want it to happen,
Speaker 1: but it did. An emptiness ached beneath my ribs. After
Speaker 1: a while, I dug my phone from my pocket and
Speaker 1: thumbed a Leicia's name. The message I sent was clipped,
Speaker 1: can I crash to night? No other details? But she
Speaker 1: replied in under a minute of course, doors unlocked, come whenever.
Speaker 1: I packed a small overnight bag with deliberate slowness, jeans,
Speaker 1: two shirts, shaving kit. My hands shook as I zipped
Speaker 1: it closed. I wrote a note on a sticky I'm
Speaker 1: staying with Alisha, I don't know about to morrow, and
Speaker 1: stuck it to the fridge, the most literal act of
Speaker 1: communication in weeks. When I passed Elise's studio, the door
Speaker 1: was closed, light leaking from under it. I didn't knock.
Speaker 1: I grabbed my coat, shoes, wallet, keys, letting each mundane
Speaker 1: item become an anchor as I stepped into the hallway.
Speaker 1: Even closing the apartment door behind me felt like trespassing
Speaker 1: on my own life. The walk to Alisha's felt longer
Speaker 1: than it ever had, a cold wind snapping me alert
Speaker 1: every few blocks. Occasionally I'd find myself midstep, wanting to
Speaker 1: turn around, to go back and make her confess more,
Speaker 1: or to take it all back and choose ignorance over
Speaker 1: this new certainty. My phone vibrated once, a message from Elise.
Speaker 1: Just let me know you're safe. Please. I slipped the
Speaker 1: phone away, unable to compose a reply that wouldn't sound
Speaker 1: like a threat or a plea. Alisha answered her door
Speaker 1: in sweats, her eyes tired but gentle with concern. You
Speaker 1: look like hell, she said, then just held out her
Speaker 1: arms for a minute. I let myself be held. She
Speaker 1: didn't ask questions, didn't push. She just gestured toward her couch,
Speaker 1: pressed a warm beer into my hands, and let silence
Speaker 1: fill up the rest. I slept poorly, if you could
Speaker 1: call it sleep, mostly dozing, waking with a jolt at
Speaker 1: every unfamiliar sound. In the dim comfort of her apartment,
Speaker 1: I kept rerunning every interaction with Elise from the past
Speaker 1: few months. All the things I thought were recoverable quirks
Speaker 1: or predictable stress cracks looked now like a map I'd
Speaker 1: refuse to read. By the time the first light began
Speaker 1: filtering through Alicia's half shuttered window, I hadn't landed on
Speaker 1: any feeling beyond numbness. I expected rage or grief, or
Speaker 1: even relief at the honesty, but what I got was
Speaker 1: something duller, a kind of heavy awareness that the next
Speaker 1: step would be mine alone. Elise texted again at dawn,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I'll give you space. Let me know
Speaker 1: what you want me to do. In the same string,
Speaker 1: I never wanted to hurt you. I never meant any
Speaker 1: of this. I put my phone face down beside me.
Speaker 1: Alicia brewed coffee, moving with that unhurried efficiency of old
Speaker 1: friends who know were not to talk. You need to
Speaker 1: call in sick, she said. One day's not gonna wreck
Speaker 1: your job. Play hooky process. I don't think I could
Speaker 1: write an email that doesn't sound insane, I said, My
Speaker 1: voice felt raw. She nodded, you need anything, you have
Speaker 1: the run of the place. The morning crawled by in
Speaker 1: fits and starts. My phone vibrated three more times. Elise again,
Speaker 1: can we talk. I'm scared I ruined everything. Please just
Speaker 1: tell me if you're okay. The messages were bracketed by silence,
Speaker 1: then apology, then dread. Instead of replying, I reached for
Speaker 1: grocery delivery and absent tasks busy work, just noise to
Speaker 1: fill the air, but none of the old distractions stuck
Speaker 1: for more than a few minutes. The ache behind my
Speaker 1: eyes kept returning, a reminder that there was nowhere to
Speaker 1: hide from the shape my life had taken overnight. By noon,
Speaker 1: practicalities started to press in work emails, piling up notifications
Speaker 1: from our joint calendar about date night, hold for sushi.
Speaker 1: I swatted the reminders away. I wondered if she saw
Speaker 1: them too, automatic echoes of a life we'd lived on autopilot.
Speaker 1: Around two p m. Alicia tiptoed in, mug in hand.
Speaker 1: She looked apologetic. I don't mean to parent you, but
Speaker 1: are you gonna tell any one else like the core group?
Speaker 1: The thought made my stomach clench. Not yet. I don't
Speaker 1: know what to say, or even if it's I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's real, but she cut me off. Gentle
Speaker 1: it is, Matt. I know you want to be fair,
Speaker 1: but this isn't ambiguous. If you need me to run interference,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. Want me to text Max tell him
Speaker 1: you're under the weather. Please. I can't manage any one
Speaker 1: right now. She squeezed my shoulder, then let me drift
Speaker 1: back into restless pacing. Later, Elise sent a longer message,
Speaker 1: each word painfully careful. I'll stay in the studio to
Speaker 1: night if you want the apartment, or I can be
Speaker 1: gone all weekend. Tell me what I should do. I
Speaker 1: don't want to make it worse. The offer strung both
Speaker 1: too little, too late, and a mercy. I typed out
Speaker 1: a response, deleted it, wrote another, and finally managed only,
Speaker 1: I'll need more time, Please just stay away to night.
Speaker 1: She didn't reply for hours, and a small, petty part
Speaker 1: of me drank in the silence like oxygen. By evening,
Speaker 1: I'd let Alisha order take out for us, sugar shock
Speaker 1: pad tie and too Sweet tie iced teas. Between bites,
Speaker 1: she asked quietly, do you think you'll want to talk
Speaker 1: to Jordan or is this just between you and her?
Speaker 1: The question made me pause. What do you even say
Speaker 1: to someone like that? Thanks for ruining my marriage, Alisia
Speaker 1: made a face. Or maybe why did you have to
Speaker 1: be there at all? She shook her head. It's not
Speaker 1: about them, it's a Lieze, that's who chose. I nodded,
Speaker 1: not ready to intellectualize any of it. That night, the
Speaker 1: weight of sleeplessness pressed harder I scrolled through more old
Speaker 1: photos of Elise in me wine, dazed, gallery shots, stupid polaraids,
Speaker 1: the kind of detritus that used to feel invincible. I
Speaker 1: wanted to hate her, or at least wall her off
Speaker 1: from my memory, but all I could muster was a
Speaker 1: queasy longing for five months ago, before hashtags and hidden
Speaker 1: phones and secrecy that gnawed holes in trust. The next morning,
Speaker 1: after a bleary, dreamless sleep, I decided to go home,
Speaker 1: not to make amends or force a shedon, but to
Speaker 1: reclaim some piece of myself from the debris. I texted
Speaker 1: Elise first, I'm coming to get some things. Please don't
Speaker 1: be there. The reply was automatic, Okay, I'll stay at
Speaker 1: the studio all day. Alicia watched me tie my shoes,
Speaker 1: handed me my bag, and pulled me into one last hug.
Speaker 1: Whatever you do, you don't have to decide to day,
Speaker 1: she said. I nodded, hollow, grateful, and headed out into
Speaker 1: the sharp light of morning. The building was quiet, Saturday empty.
Speaker 1: I made my way up, key, clumsy in the lock.
Speaker 1: Stepping inside the apartment felt different already. I could smell
Speaker 1: turpentin from the closed studio, the imprint of Elize's world
Speaker 1: persistent even in absence. I grabbed clothes, a few toiletries,
Speaker 1: my laptop. Every object seemed to demand a new evaluation.
Speaker 1: Did it belong to me, to us, to a partnership
Speaker 1: now fractured. I wandered into the kitchen. Her sticky note
Speaker 1: was gone, The countertop was wiped clean. In the fridge,
Speaker 1: her half eaten yogurt and lemons, A bottle of white wine,
Speaker 1: A single left over slice of pizza from last week,
Speaker 1: Everything as mundane as it should be, everything tainted by
Speaker 1: the invisible residue of what had changed. I found myself
Speaker 1: opening the studio door, hand trembling on the knob. The
Speaker 1: space was as she left it, canvases leaning against one wall,
Speaker 1: paint tubes open and stiffening, sketch books fanned on every surface.
Speaker 1: The old Android phone was gone, replaced by a scattering
Speaker 1: of fresh pencils. Her jacket, the one I'd held searching
Speaker 1: for comfort, was scrunched on a chair there next to
Speaker 1: her favorite brush. Hers not hours sat a battered mug
Speaker 1: with the remains of last night's coffee. I closed the door,
Speaker 1: leaned against it, breathing in the sharp synthetic tang of acrylic.
Speaker 1: I tried to conjure anger, but my mind kept slipping
Speaker 1: into exhaustion. Instead, I stared out from the balcony, watching
Speaker 1: anonymous people hauling groceries, couples squabbling over the week's errands,
Speaker 1: a billion lives that seemed to move forward without ever
Speaker 1: cracking a part. I realized I was standing in the
Speaker 1: liminal hour, where everything could either fall permanent to pieces
Speaker 1: or start to be rebuilt, but not yet. I left
Speaker 1: the apartment as it was the way you don't make
Speaker 1: a bed after someone s died, Afraid of erasing their
Speaker 1: shape from the world. I turned my phone on again,
Speaker 1: thumbed compulsively through the old half started texts. Elise had
Speaker 1: sent one last message, simply I'm sorry. I don't know
Speaker 1: how to let go of this. It wasn't clear if
Speaker 1: she meant us or her own failing, or Jordan or
Speaker 1: the life we'd built. That evening, I let myself go
Speaker 1: to ground, reckless in my helplessness. I ignored calls from
Speaker 1: Max and let group chats stack up all idle concern
Speaker 1: and gentle ribbing about being Mi. I a for the
Speaker 1: next stretch of time, the world could wait. On Sunday,
Speaker 1: the weather turned and the city fell under a mist
Speaker 1: that blurred all edges. I wandered aimlessly through familiar streets,
Speaker 1: stopping at corners where I'd once met Elise for coffee,
Speaker 1: inertia yanking me fourward and backward with every step. I
Speaker 1: wound up outside the gallery where we'd first met, a
Speaker 1: sentimental pilgrimage that left me feeling more exposed than comforted.
Speaker 1: I sat on the cold bench across from the entrance,
Speaker 1: staring at the posters in the window, bright ambitious names,
Speaker 1: bold as revolutionaries. Jordan's last name was printed across the
Speaker 1: bottom for an upcoming showcase. Elise's initials nestled with the others.
Speaker 1: I tried not to picture them inside, arguing over spotlights,
Speaker 1: passing paint tubes, conspiratorial with art and opportunity. Instead, I
Speaker 1: sat staring, numbness giving way to a quiet, heavy ache
Speaker 1: that felt almost clean, an after taste of grief with
Speaker 1: none of the fire. My phone chimed Alisia, just checking in.
Speaker 1: I watched the screen go dark, let the moment pass.
Speaker 1: Felix's absence, quieter than expected, haunted the apartment. I wondered
Speaker 1: if Elise was feeding him, if she spoke aloud to
Speaker 1: the cat, when she couldn't sleep. That afternoon, I opened
Speaker 1: our joint laptop, an impulse propelled by restless fingers. On
Speaker 1: the desktop a folder labeled Collective Project Shared Assets. I
Speaker 1: opened it before I could second guess myself. Dozens of
Speaker 1: images Elise's paintings, group photos, some shots of the two
Speaker 1: of them, Elise and Jordan, half obscured smiles, arms draped,
Speaker 1: something candid and illicit, caught by the camera, mixed in
Speaker 1: a draft of a grant proposal, the kind I used
Speaker 1: to proofread for her. I scrolled to the end, where
Speaker 1: a thank you section was half written. I couldn't have
Speaker 1: done any of this without the wild partnership of j
Speaker 1: The rest trailed off, unfinished, a muscle in my jaw tensed,
Speaker 1: I closed the file and sat staring at the blank
Speaker 1: blue of the desktop, the computer humming against my thighs.
Speaker 1: I left the laptop open. I was done being their editor.
Speaker 1: That night, I lay awake in Alicia's guests room, the
Speaker 1: two firm mattress not unforgiving enough. My mind bounced from
Speaker 1: fury to impotence to hope, then curled around the sharp
Speaker 1: edge of reality. I had no control over what Elise
Speaker 1: did next. No leverage over what came after this breach,
Speaker 1: only the muddy freedom to choose what dignity I wanted
Speaker 1: to salvage from the wreckage. I turned the question over
Speaker 1: and over. What do I want? Revenge, forgiveness, some neat
Speaker 1: adult parting, or the rageful burning of every bridge. None
Speaker 1: of it fit. Every answer felt incomplete. By the following morning,
Speaker 1: the hunger for a real confrontation, a final, definitive exchange,
Speaker 1: was stronger than my fear of more pain. I texted Elise,
Speaker 1: we need to talk in person to night. Please. The
Speaker 1: reply was almost immediate, of course, whatever you want. The
Speaker 1: hours ticked down, leaden and thick. I tried working, but
Speaker 1: kept failing to finish even the simplest tasks. Late in
Speaker 1: the afternoon, I went for a run, hoping exhaustion might
Speaker 1: grant me composure. It did not. When I returned home,
Speaker 1: Elise was waiting inside, seated on the couch in the
Speaker 1: same spot she used to drape herself over my legs,
Speaker 1: knees tucked to her chest. She looked haunted, rung out.
Speaker 1: I sat in the arm chair opposite. The gulf between
Speaker 1: us measured in more than feet. For a while, we
Speaker 1: just sat Felix, loyal or oblivious, jumped onto Elise's lap
Speaker 1: and kneaded her thigh. She stroked him absently, eyes fixed
Speaker 1: on the cat's ears. I spoke first. I read your messages.
Speaker 1: I saw the photos, the texts. YOU built a whole
Speaker 1: other world. Why. She pressed her hands to her cheeks,
Speaker 1: blocking her face. I didn't plan for any of this.
Speaker 1: At first. It was just art electricity. Jordan made me
Speaker 1: feel new, not weighed down by everything. But then it
Speaker 1: got complicated. I knew I was lying, but I couldn't stop.
Speaker 1: I tried to keep my voice steady. Was I a burden?
Speaker 1: It came out fractured. Not accusation, but raw inquiry. She
Speaker 1: looked at me then, eyes red, mouth trembling. No. Never,
Speaker 1: but I felt like I was becoming only half myself,
Speaker 1: stuck between wanting to be the person you saw and
Speaker 1: wanting to be more than our marriage, more than what
Speaker 1: people expected. I lost track of where the line was
Speaker 1: supposed to be. I thought the collective would fill the
Speaker 1: space in me, but her shoulders shook. I just got
Speaker 1: further away from both of us. My throat went tight.
Speaker 1: So this wasn't just sex, was it? She shook her
Speaker 1: head hair falling across her face. No, it was validation, risk,
Speaker 1: feeling seen by someone who didn't know my history. Stupid, selfish.
Speaker 1: I would have told you, but I couldn't bear to
Speaker 1: be the one to break us. We sat with that,
Speaker 1: the ugly honesty rattling the windows. Eventually I asked, are
Speaker 1: you still seeing Jordan? If it was a childish question,
Speaker 1: I couldn't suppress it. She paused, not like that. We
Speaker 1: are tied together for the project. But after everything I
Speaker 1: pulled back. I had to. I couldn't keep pretending. But
Speaker 1: I still work with them. I can't just erase it.
Speaker 1: If I asked you not to work with them, would
Speaker 1: you do it? My voice was low, a long pause.
Speaker 1: I'd try, but I don't know if I could quit
Speaker 1: the collective. It's my life too. It doesn't feel fair
Speaker 1: to pin my mess on the work, but that's what
Speaker 1: it would take. There it was unvarnished. She could leave,
Speaker 1: but she wouldn't, and I couldn't decide if that should
Speaker 1: hurt more or less. I nodded, hands clasped to keep
Speaker 1: from shaking. Then this can't work, not as it is.
Speaker 1: I can't be the person you return to when it's convenient.
Speaker 1: I can't keep guessing which version of you I'm coming
Speaker 1: home to. She started to speak, but no words formed.
Speaker 1: Only tears came, bright and unrestrained. I didn't move to
Speaker 1: comfort her. The reflex was still there, buried under everything,
Speaker 1: but I let it rot. We sat silent for long minutes.
Speaker 1: Felix jumped down and disappeared between rooms, leaving us alone
Speaker 1: in the stifling, uncompromising quiet. Finally I stood, I'm going
Speaker 1: to Alisha's. I need you out of the apartment at
Speaker 1: least for the week. After that, we'll figure out next steps.
Speaker 1: This isn't punishment, it's survival. She nodded, unable to meet
Speaker 1: my eyes. I'm so sorry, Matt. I don't know how
Speaker 1: we got here. I didn't have an answer, so I
Speaker 1: left it. I packed a larger bag enough for a week,
Speaker 1: letting my hands move mechanically through possessions, marking off what
Speaker 1: was essential. Elise didn't help. She stood at the window,
Speaker 1: arms crossed, watching the city's pre sunset glow hit the
Speaker 1: opposite buildings. I closed my suit case, gathered Felix's food
Speaker 1: bowl and a few small things, then paused in the doorway.
Speaker 1: I considered telling her I loved her even then, but
Speaker 1: the words were stale, wrong. All I could manage was
Speaker 1: I'll be back for more later. No response. I stepped
Speaker 1: into the hall, the door clicking shut behind me. Downstairs,
Speaker 1: the world buzzed on, unchanged traffic snarling on the avenue,
Speaker 1: the bakery across the street spilling cinnamon into the air,
Speaker 1: a dog barking as its owner tugged it past. I
Speaker 1: stood outside for a minute, letting the city noise settle
Speaker 1: my nerves. I didn't look back until I was nearly
Speaker 1: at the curb. When I did, I thought I saw
Speaker 1: a shadow at the window, Elise maybe, or just the
Speaker 1: trick of light in glass. I turned and started walking,
Speaker 1: my bag heavy on my shoulder, every step feeling more
Speaker 1: decisive than the last. Nothing would undo this fracture. The
Speaker 1: only thing left was to decide who I was going
Speaker 1: to be. When I reached the next street, for a moment,
Speaker 1: I paused, glancing in the direction of Alisha's place, I
Speaker 1: let myself Breathe fell. The ache shift. The old version
Speaker 1: of us was over, unfixable, and something steadier settled in
Speaker 1: its place, the simple truth of my own choosing. I
Speaker 1: started walking again, the weight of my bag grounding me,
Speaker 1: the sound of my steps, steady in the dusk. I
Speaker 1: didn't rush, didn't check my phone, didn't reach for anything
Speaker 1: behind me. There was only this moment, and then quietly
Speaker 1: the next, and that is the end. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and I will see you in the next one.