Speaker 1: There's a kind of quiet you only notice late at night,
Speaker 1: when the city's lost its hum, and even the walls
Speaker 1: of the old building seemed to be slower. I was
Speaker 1: pacing in that hush, balancing a plate of crackers and
Speaker 1: cheese chidas, starting to sweat pre collapse into the corners,
Speaker 1: because it was almost ten and I was still half
Speaker 1: certain Mirror would walk through our door with some wild
Speaker 1: story from the gallery. The gallery, by which I mean
Speaker 1: the loft, the over ambitious, underheated warehouse nonprofit where she
Speaker 1: spends her fridays hovering between evant goddess Anne free help.
Speaker 1: That's what she calls herself. Anyway, when we met, neither
Speaker 1: of us was what you'd call a planner. But now
Speaker 1: Friday nights had a rhythm. Usually she takes when the
Speaker 1: last glass was poured, and by the time she stumbled in,
Speaker 1: I'd have her favorite tea steeping. We debrief her about
Speaker 1: eccentric donors and accidental installations, me about my day's sketching
Speaker 1: from magazines that paid months late, and whatever mean our
Speaker 1: friends were fighting over. Sometimes we'd climb on to the
Speaker 1: fire escape and let the shouts and laugh to swell
Speaker 1: up from the bass buller, But for three weeks running
Speaker 1: she hasn't brought the gallery home of her just text
Speaker 1: don't wait up you work in the morning, don't bother
Speaker 1: coming by, locked up tight. These weren't strange exactly Me
Speaker 1: was always floated through life on her own schedule, but
Speaker 1: the regularity felt all wrong. Habit is funny, you only
Speaker 1: see it once. It's broken. That Friday, eight forty two,
Speaker 1: at night, another message pained I remember because I'd set
Speaker 1: a silent time there a ten fifteen year old, but
Speaker 1: with no word I'd head over on the pretense of
Speaker 1: forgetting the time. Instead, the message hit my fun in
Speaker 1: those bright blue bubbles, so short startled me. Don't come by,
Speaker 1: I'll be late late, love you. No punctuation almost rushed
Speaker 1: the double late stood out. Usually she gave some context.
Speaker 1: Meeting after drinks, ran long, cleaning duty, venting about repairs,
Speaker 1: not to night. For a moment, I wondered if i'd
Speaker 1: miss news of a panel of surprise opening ellery. Life's
Speaker 1: nothing if not chaotic. I pulled up the loft Instagram
Speaker 1: carefully curated otsey with a wink, but nothing about a
Speaker 1: big night or last minute from dreising lost pose a
Speaker 1: minimalist photo of a chipmug tight has gallow life. I
Speaker 1: scanned the comments, same handful of regulars, no clues fine.
Speaker 1: I starved it. Tidying up our shared art nook the
Speaker 1: one chip or table we'd angled under the window for
Speaker 1: best light. Mirror space is always a beautiful mass tubes
Speaker 1: of paint nested together, even if the caps are sticky.
Speaker 1: A graveyard of Stirbey pencils and two ceramic mug stuff
Speaker 1: but brushes more splaye than briskly. Her side always smells
Speaker 1: faintly over Lindsey Doyle. In surprise. I was halfway through
Speaker 1: stacking her loose sketchbooks when I lift at one. I
Speaker 1: didn't recognize a thick craft paper cover, the kind we
Speaker 1: both used for travel, but not in months. It slid
Speaker 1: from the wedge of a supply bin, like a secret
Speaker 1: trying to reveal itself. The front page was blank except
Speaker 1: for a single watery blue fingerprint. Tucked inside was a
Speaker 1: small cream envelope, not quite business card sized, with edges
Speaker 1: slightly smudged by grapha. Inside a folded thank you card
Speaker 1: written in looping, oddly careful handwriting, thank you for our
Speaker 1: secret adventure you make the world new. I can't stop smiling,
Speaker 1: grateful for everything. Eh, Jay, there's a precise kind of
Speaker 1: cold that runs through your core when you see the
Speaker 1: word secret in a note that isn't yours, rushly paired
Speaker 1: with adventure. It wasn't a romantic script, but it was warm, intimate,
Speaker 1: personal in a Waplike gallery correspondence never is. My immediate
Speaker 1: thought was this is something to do with the gallery,
Speaker 1: Maybe a thank you from a donor. What Jay, of
Speaker 1: all the people in our circle, Janel, the gallery manager,
Speaker 1: was abroad posting annoying pictures of bedgi and chocolate cakes
Speaker 1: and modern art. For ten minutes, I debated, do I
Speaker 1: tax Mira ask augh Wright, But a more hesitant part
Speaker 1: of me, some animal refix, kept me silent. I pocketed
Speaker 1: the note instead, slit the sketchwok back into the stack
Speaker 1: and told myself it meant nothing. Still, the apartment felt
Speaker 1: like it had shrunk by half. I started tidying with
Speaker 1: more force, careful to place every brush and sheet, as
Speaker 1: if the right arrangement could put all the questions back
Speaker 1: in the box. The truth is, there's never been a
Speaker 1: time in our relationship when I doubt if Mirror's openness before.
Speaker 1: If I close my eyes, I can still picture the
Speaker 1: first four seconds I saw her. We were both at
Speaker 1: some exhausting, over stuffed Saturday market, half Indie art fair,
Speaker 1: half high school reunion for people who dopted for paint
Speaker 1: on their hands over actual credentials. She'd been wrangled and
Speaker 1: enormous unless be honest, ugly keempast, trying to wedge it
Speaker 1: into an undersized display. I'd offered to help and promptly
Speaker 1: stop my toe on a crate of Jessa jaws. She
Speaker 1: laughed loud and self conscious, and asked if I always
Speaker 1: made first impressions by bleeding on gallery floors. We spent
Speaker 1: that whole afternoon talking about how the city, for all
Speaker 1: its grime, kept spitting up color in the corner as
Speaker 1: you least expected, about painting and music, and what counted
Speaker 1: as real escapism. She had moved to town only a
Speaker 1: year before, chasing the cachet of finding her creative people.
Speaker 1: I'd wanted that too. My freelance work was ranging from
Speaker 1: actual illustration gigs too. Can you help me photoshop my
Speaker 1: ex out of this group photo for fifty bucks? There
Speaker 1: were no sparks of destiny. I didn't even get her
Speaker 1: number that day, but a week later she trapped me
Speaker 1: down on social send a DM with a photo of
Speaker 1: my bath at sketch book, lost and found, drinks and tray.
Speaker 1: Those early months felt like a heist. So many nights galleries,
Speaker 1: warehouse shows, impromptu dragging of friends to midnight picnics and
Speaker 1: public parks because the night air was so sharp it
Speaker 1: ought to be bottled. Our first official day, we split
Speaker 1: a cheap pets in the back of a pop up show,
Speaker 1: arguing about art a sport versus artist soul. She spilled
Speaker 1: root be in my lap and announced if she'd only
Speaker 1: date someone who forgave clumsy accidents. We built our life
Speaker 1: with the kind of scrappy duror. We locked into this
Speaker 1: tiny loft cheap because the pipes grown theatrically and the
Speaker 1: heating blew out at the first sign of frost. Over
Speaker 1: five quick, blurry years, we patch send it, painted and
Speaker 1: collected clutter wherever she went. A tornado of materials followed,
Speaker 1: sketches curled on every flat surface, magnet's holding up as
Speaker 1: many failed ideas as successes. Our walls crammed with friends, art,
Speaker 1: pressed flowers, concert tickets. We threw parties that bloomed from
Speaker 1: a couple of drinks to the entire building, shouting along
Speaker 1: to sell popsalms. I was always half in the kitchen, prepping,
Speaker 1: checking that nobody spilled red wine on the only good couch.
Speaker 1: But that was my role. Mirror was the ring muster,
Speaker 1: making strangers into a temporary tribe. For most of that time,
Speaker 1: transparency felt like our default. Maybe it was pragmatic car
Speaker 1: communities of gossipy as hell. Mir shared every ridiculous anecdote,
Speaker 1: every crazy interaction at the gallery or from her wanderings,
Speaker 1: even when projects buttered or jobs dried up. We planned together,
Speaker 1: even if the plan was only let's see what Ren
Speaker 1: feels like next month. But lately the rhythm has changed.
Speaker 1: My freelance work sewed magazine budgets vaporized overnight, and there
Speaker 1: wasn't a backup plan. Mirror picked up more hours of
Speaker 1: the gallery. I need to be around people, she said,
Speaker 1: which made sense. Some nights she'd come home wrong out,
Speaker 1: but still bubbling about new painting ideas, glass with this artist,
Speaker 1: that curator. Still she grew more protective of her phone,
Speaker 1: quick to change the subject. When I asked about specific events,
Speaker 1: I told myself. This was normal. People grow even in
Speaker 1: the same small apartment, but the difference was there. We
Speaker 1: moved among artists, couples, the hovering gravity of gallery employees,
Speaker 1: like moons orbiting a scene that never fully settled. Mirror
Speaker 1: was the pulse of it all. People leaned toward her
Speaker 1: in conversation, laughed easier round her. I supplied the practical stuff, rights, food,
Speaker 1: the Fahm trees. During il faded road trips, she'd squeeze
Speaker 1: my hand before opening doors a coat. Let's do it
Speaker 1: all together, even the weird bits. Still, I'd noticed over
Speaker 1: the past month, a weird drift. Mutual friends grew vague
Speaker 1: or ducked invitations. Some nights she slippin' at two with
Speaker 1: the paint's watch grin others should stay out till the
Speaker 1: birds began calling, creeping in as if not to wake me.
Speaker 1: Maybe I was just seeing patterns. I damn weak, for
Speaker 1: work makes you paranoid. But two weeks ago she did
Speaker 1: the small, quietly loving thing. She took one of my
Speaker 1: nooncow's sketches, a city of view, something I'd labored over
Speaker 1: in a haze of self doubt, and hung it about bed. This,
Speaker 1: she said, is the soul of her home, and she
Speaker 1: actually met. The way she looked at me, honest and sure,
Speaker 1: pushed my brain's reset button. I keep going back, too
Speaker 1: to one night at the loft after a gallery party,
Speaker 1: fizzle with only as in the janitor left, music cleaking
Speaker 1: out of some one's laptop. We spun lft in the
Speaker 1: empty room, her hair wild, her cheeks dusty with red bastel.
Speaker 1: We don't keep secrets, she'd said, and pressed in clothes
Speaker 1: drunk on paint fumes and half warm wine. I believed her,
Speaker 1: who wouldn't now Back in the present, the note unexplained,
Speaker 1: nestled deep in a sketch she hadn't cared to show me,
Speaker 1: lingered heaviest hunger at the back of my mind. The
Speaker 1: next Friday, I tried something simple I was thinking, I said,
Speaker 1: making too much noise with the grinder. I could stop
Speaker 1: by the gallery early, bring you in the crew coffee
Speaker 1: for the last hour if you want. Mira's body language
Speaker 1: shifted immediately, a subtle coil, her shoulders tensing in a
Speaker 1: way I recognized from when her mother would call to
Speaker 1: nag her about professional stability. This night wouldn't be good
Speaker 1: to trust me, really, she said, almost too quickly. She
Speaker 1: angled herself toward the counter, so in hand her thumb
Speaker 1: grazed this green. I caught a glimpse of flaming color
Speaker 1: as her notifications piled up, short, previous, stacked like coat.
Speaker 1: It's chaos, no one's organized, and I don't want you
Speaker 1: to see the backstage circus. She tried to joke, but
Speaker 1: her smile stayed stitched to one side. I can handle chaos,
Speaker 1: I countered, trying not to sound hurt better than six
Speaker 1: dollar lottes. But she kissed me soft, a quick touch
Speaker 1: that used to mean don't worry before and ash out
Speaker 1: of reach. This just coordination stuff, she said, tilting the
Speaker 1: phone so I couldn't see nothing exciting. I promise that night.
Speaker 1: I waited if she was annoyed by my hovering. She
Speaker 1: didn't show, to send a series of neutral EMOCHI heavy
Speaker 1: check in, running late, so much to finish. We'll eat
Speaker 1: at the loft, save you leftovers. By the time midnight
Speaker 1: roll passed, I moved into the limbo space, where sleep
Speaker 1: as possible only in thirty second increments. She finally came
Speaker 1: home at one fifteen, cheeks flushed, not with exhaustion but
Speaker 1: something brighter, not drunk, exactly, pagiddy. I noticed immediately a
Speaker 1: new scarf peek up, blurin, impossibly soft round her neck.
Speaker 1: She never owned one like it. A nice scarf, I said,
Speaker 1: casual as possible, new gallery merch. She paused for a beat. Well,
Speaker 1: a friend at the gallery gifted it. I do honestly
Speaker 1: can't remember if it was Jess or maybe Julia. She
Speaker 1: waved away my squint and twisting the scarf. It was
Speaker 1: a joke, I think, her voice said, the defensiveness of
Speaker 1: an actor trying to recover from dropped lines. I could
Speaker 1: tell the question annoyed her, but she worked to turn
Speaker 1: it all lightness. Don't be jealous. It's ugly anyway, she said,
Speaker 1: tossing it on to a chair. We both glanced at it.
Speaker 1: It was not ugly. She peeled off her jacket, shoes,
Speaker 1: drifting through her night timbroutine in the bathroom mirror. I
Speaker 1: watched as a smile, lingered. It felt like a performance.
Speaker 1: My body humble with questions I didn't want to voice.
Speaker 1: There are patterns you can see too late lately, the
Speaker 1: night she comes home most relaxed and ever, the ones
Speaker 1: following major gallery events. Some weeks she returns anxious. All
Speaker 1: business are those she's almost luminous, no rhyme, no reason.
Speaker 1: None of it lines up with the public schedule at all.
Speaker 1: None of this is proof. Maybe she's hosting a giant
Speaker 1: birthday surprise for some mutual friend. Maybe all my stress
Speaker 1: and paid contracts commission's gone missing has me projecting, But
Speaker 1: each knew odd thing like that note refuses to let
Speaker 1: go of its place in my brain. One day midweek,
Speaker 1: I asked one of our couple friends, Jack's sometimes gallery regular,
Speaker 1: mostly nowhere to be found. You've been around the loft, march,
Speaker 1: I said, stirring coffee in a to go cup, searching
Speaker 1: his face for a flicker of certainty. He's a crazy
Speaker 1: busy lately. Or Jack's coughed into a sleeve and moved
Speaker 1: that telegraph discomfort. Nah, same old. I think he gets repetitive.
Speaker 1: You know, Mary's probably drowning in it. They run her
Speaker 1: then I've got to kolkat about her opening, and he
Speaker 1: ducked away a clumsy with relief. How do you measure
Speaker 1: suspicion against the thousand microscopic ways you've trusted some one?
Speaker 1: My head ran both tracks at once, Of course, nothing's
Speaker 1: going on, except shouldn't you at least ask? That weekend,
Speaker 1: I started looking harder. I keep a household digital calendar
Speaker 1: because otherwise bills don't get paid and events don't exist.
Speaker 1: Mira keeps her own and shares out events when she
Speaker 1: thinks to. I'd noticed she hadn't been inviting me to
Speaker 1: his studio appointments. Lady said she needed quiet and interrupted
Speaker 1: blocks to get lost in something new. But when she
Speaker 1: left her laptop open one afternoon, she's always been careless
Speaker 1: with devices. I noticed how Google khand I had a
Speaker 1: repeating item blocked out Studio seven eleven PUM, usually Fridays.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it overlapped with gallery. In the notes, just a
Speaker 1: string of color paletts somewhat look like initials J and M. Familiar,
Speaker 1: if only because those same two letters had appeared on
Speaker 1: the painting hidden in her closet. I asked her gently
Speaker 1: about all the extra studio time. It's when the gallery
Speaker 1: lets me stash work, so it's not crowding the apartment,
Speaker 1: she said, bear, pausing as she rooted through our gent
Speaker 1: draw He remember how nuts it got lost time I
Speaker 1: tried to prep a series at home, Oil paint and
Speaker 1: sleep don't mix, true, but the answer felt pre package
Speaker 1: too easy. Still, that was always her trick, keep talking,
Speaker 1: and the moment for confrontation slipped away. I scolled her
Speaker 1: Instagram while waiting for her to come back from errands.
Speaker 1: She had always posted openly group shots, art supplies snippets
Speaker 1: of work in progress with goofy captions, but lately only
Speaker 1: close ups from her studio, all moody, light and blurred corners,
Speaker 1: not a single human inframe. No check ins with friends,
Speaker 1: no shots from the gallery itself. I tried to set
Speaker 1: up a double date with two of our regulars, Ma
Speaker 1: and Leelah after one of mirrors shifts. Leelah hesitated, stammered
Speaker 1: something about already having plans with Jeannette, the gallery manager,
Speaker 1: who by all accounts, was sending photos from the other
Speaker 1: side of the Atlantic the very night. The discomfort was
Speaker 1: loud in their voices, the careful tiptoin I'd never heard before.
Speaker 1: I started paying more attention to small money questions, the
Speaker 1: boring stuff you only worry about when things feel off.
Speaker 1: I handled most bill pay but Mirrors got her own
Speaker 1: cards for ride apps and occasional night out. In two weeks,
Speaker 1: I caught four left charges all costed on late Friday nights,
Speaker 1: unmatching her usual routes between the gallery and our place.
Speaker 1: I found it to no receipt, tucked into a pile
Speaker 1: of receipts, to be sordid, she claimed up to mindedness,
Speaker 1: called it maybe the coworker's birthday. But the restaurant was
Speaker 1: a place she'd mocked as if a rustic and overpriced
Speaker 1: the last time we passed it. The next clue came
Speaker 1: almost by accident. Tidying up the closet proquet snooping, I
Speaker 1: found a half finished painting stats behind several older failed
Speaker 1: pieces in the bottom corner, two initials J plus M.
Speaker 1: The work was rough, more abstract than her usual style,
Speaker 1: but the palette was brighter, loser. It wasn't a collaborative
Speaker 1: painting for one of the gallery auctions. I checked a
Speaker 1: running inventory. It looked new and finished. Maybe hurried at
Speaker 1: her friends exhibit the following weekend, one of Mirror's closest acquaintances, Free,
Speaker 1: the kind of person who chats with everyone knows all
Speaker 1: the gossip, barely looked me in the eyes when I
Speaker 1: mentioned Mirror in passing. Rhees's response to shrank to monosyllables,
Speaker 1: shifting her weight, asking if I tried the wine she
Speaker 1: used to top my ear off. Now she did appeared
Speaker 1: at the first hint of gallery talk. I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk it all through with mirror, ask about us, our future,
Speaker 1: what came next, now that my work was drying up
Speaker 1: and hers was all consuming. When I broached the topic
Speaker 1: of a dinner, it rick shed across the table and
Speaker 1: never landed less. Not stress for once, she said, pushing
Speaker 1: her food around. The everything's up in the air. Now
Speaker 1: we'll figure it out. Like always, her gentle smile was
Speaker 1: supposed to reassure, and maybe it would have if she
Speaker 1: didn't seem half somewhere else already. One night, as I
Speaker 1: poured hot water over her favorite tea leaves, I caught
Speaker 1: her in the kitchen typing away, fingers flying. She didn't
Speaker 1: hear me. The light from her phone painted her face
Speaker 1: pale and intent. When she noticed my shadow on the wall,
Speaker 1: she locked us green and spun around, launching into a
Speaker 1: cheerful pitch about planning a summer week in someone New.
Speaker 1: I told myself none of this was actionable. What our
Speaker 1: routines had become lopsided. There were few spontaneous moments, no
Speaker 1: surprise dinners, no late night walks were shared tederens echoing
Speaker 1: some strange French electronic we both pretended to understand, but
Speaker 1: in new ways. She worked harder to balance things. My
Speaker 1: favorite tea appeared out of no She'd email me listings
Speaker 1: for art residencies, tried to set up date nights. I'd
Speaker 1: been too moody to suggest. Maybe she felt guilty about
Speaker 1: the extra time away. The evidence built anyway. One Friday,
Speaker 1: I left the tiny painting in her bag, as silly
Speaker 1: stylized pigeon I'd drawn for her as a joke, hoping
Speaker 1: she'd find it while at work and text me. It
Speaker 1: was never mentioned, never posted on her story, never showed
Speaker 1: up on a shelf for the fridge. When I glanced
Speaker 1: inside her bag a week later, it was gone. I
Speaker 1: came close several times to break in the silence, but
Speaker 1: always held back. I couldn't shake the fear that this
Speaker 1: was about me amid career stall, maybe or neediness on
Speaker 1: my part as her world expanded. Maybe she was planning
Speaker 1: a surprise. I reread the thank ye note, flipping it
Speaker 1: under a desk lamp, and for the first time saw
Speaker 1: a faint gallery water mob pressed into the paper, a
Speaker 1: kind they used for donor events, not anything day to day.
Speaker 1: It was a detail I'd messed for weeks. My theories multiplied,
Speaker 1: none fully satisfying. Despite everything, relief arrived in disguise. One
Speaker 1: Monday night. Mirror came home humming, tossing off her coat,
Speaker 1: as if she just stumbled out of a vacation. She
Speaker 1: looked hired but clear, and she placed both palms on
Speaker 1: the counter in front of me. I have to confess
Speaker 1: I've been acting word, she started, then chewed her lip,
Speaker 1: studying me. Yeah, my heart rich uncertain. I felt awful
Speaker 1: about it. There's been too much secrecy, and I know
Speaker 1: how it looks. I'm sorry for making you feel left out.
Speaker 1: She sounded rehearsed, but not insincere. I was desperate to
Speaker 1: surprise you. I'm prepping a solo gallery show with Janelle's help.
Speaker 1: It's for you. Some of our friend's pitching the private
Speaker 1: studio time, the word schedule, some white lies off for
Speaker 1: the big reveal. I made everyone swear silence. She winced. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I've been terrified you'd figure it out early. Jannelle had
Speaker 1: to play hyder in chief that's why Matt and Leelah
Speaker 1: acted word I stared at her, unsure whether to feel
Speaker 1: idiotic or related. All this was Frusha. She nodded, cheeks flushing.
Speaker 1: She pulled a large canvas from her back, one I'd
Speaker 1: never seen. It was a DREAMY said, escape our favorite bridge.
Speaker 1: It's unset across the water. Two tiny figures holding hands
Speaker 1: and barely defined, inspired by us brush drugs in flight,
Speaker 1: She kissed my forehead. I wanted you to know you're
Speaker 1: my heart, even one thing feel tough. She radiated affection
Speaker 1: that night, warm rushing and after weeks of frost, my
Speaker 1: heart eager to take the life line, shust the doubts,
Speaker 1: lift rights, matings, the odd dinner, brainstone sessions, though j
Speaker 1: plus m painting just a sketch I made in secreted
Speaker 1: stands for Janelle and Mirror, and in jerk, she explained,
Speaker 1: whisking the canvas on to the mantle. I let out
Speaker 1: a laugh, half relief, half mourning for all the neurotic
Speaker 1: spirals I'd spun in my head. If anyone could orchestrate
Speaker 1: a covert gallery show in a maneuver suspicion, it was Mirror.
Speaker 1: Things loosened up again we jerked, danced round Bill's band
Speaker 1: to make up for lost weekends. For a moment, the
Speaker 1: gap between us closed until exactly four days later. I
Speaker 1: saw her eye pad light up as she stepped into
Speaker 1: the shower. She'd left it unlocked, perched on a steel
Speaker 1: by the sink. A notification prevy blinked up. Message from Jay,
Speaker 1: just an initial above a small red heart. Pridy was amazing.
Speaker 1: Can't stop thinking about your laugh. My pulse thudded hard
Speaker 1: and stupid. The iPad pinged again. A second preview cut
Speaker 1: off any chance we get our own adventure again. The
Speaker 1: envelope in my jacket pocket suddenly weighed ten pounds. My
Speaker 1: mind spun. Wasn't Jay Jell? Why this voice? This flotation?
Speaker 1: I listened to the cascade of water and felt the
Speaker 1: distance last and soft, cating between the truth I had
Speaker 1: been handed in the one hinting from behind digital curtains.
Speaker 1: She returned, skin pink, hair twisted in a towel. I
Speaker 1: acted normal, almost too normal, as we curled up to
Speaker 1: watch a show, my brain lipping as if some stranger
Speaker 1: might step from the screen. When sleep finally came, it
Speaker 1: was blotchy in then in the morning, as me were
Speaker 1: drifted out for coffee with an old friend from before
Speaker 1: you you wouldn't remember her anyway. I found myself alone
Speaker 1: with her iPad, my stomach tight and swept, prickling my palms.
Speaker 1: I knew what snooping meant. I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: that person, but the noble world was receding, replaced by
Speaker 1: accident and suspicion. I waited for confirmation, for something concrete
Speaker 1: to pull me forward or back. Instead, I spent all
Speaker 1: day we rehousing questions, none of which would fit in
Speaker 1: my mouth. I sat in the silent loft, coffee gun cold,
Speaker 1: contemplating what the next Friday might bring and weather, and
Speaker 1: knowing would be better or worse than imagining. The first
Speaker 1: time I ever held Mirror's phone in my hand, it
Speaker 1: was two years ago, borrowed to double check the address
Speaker 1: for a party. She laughed at the way I squinted,
Speaker 1: elbowing me. What would you ever do if you had
Speaker 1: to burgle a password from me? I said, I just
Speaker 1: waited until she fell asleep. She snorted, called me a coward,
Speaker 1: and unlocked it with a flourish. We shared passwords, then,
Speaker 1: neither of us guarded devices like gates are secrets so
Speaker 1: ordinary they felt unworthy of protection. Now, the slab of
Speaker 1: the iPad's stare back at me from the kitchen's jewel,
Speaker 1: radiating heat I could almost feel across the room. I
Speaker 1: didn't move toward it. Instead, I reheated the coffee she'd abandoned, microwaved,
Speaker 1: ticking down seconds as my mind jetted around, desperate to
Speaker 1: land on anything but what was on that screen. I
Speaker 1: tried to imagine what I would find, Maybe just a
Speaker 1: misfied message from some group to read. What if Jay
Speaker 1: was Jack's or Julie an old room maid out of
Speaker 1: the blue. That's what I'd say if she caught me,
Speaker 1: Except I'd already found myself a writing explanation she'd already
Speaker 1: half provided. That silent negotiation with reality is the embarrassing part,
Speaker 1: the way you start to build lesser betrayals as a
Speaker 1: shield against the worst ones. I stared around aloft, waiting
Speaker 1: for signs that none of this was happening. Though. Were
Speaker 1: dam reassuring touches ever? Were her old hiking boots under
Speaker 1: the cooked rack? My chipmunk fell with her paint water,
Speaker 1: The still and patch box of polaroids we'd meant to
Speaker 1: hang last year. It was impossible to square these artifacts
Speaker 1: with the anxious machinery running in my head. I would
Speaker 1: have given anything right then, for just one more perfectly
Speaker 1: boring Friday night. Hear at the gallery stories about coolest
Speaker 1: owners instead a stranger name Jay, and secrets, and my
Speaker 1: own breath coming ragged. The slice of morning sunlight coming
Speaker 1: into our cracked window felt like a light too bright
Speaker 1: for secrets. I made myself busy. I ran out to
Speaker 1: pick up groceries needed, of us needed, wandered the produce
Speaker 1: ale until my basket brinned with things I could dice
Speaker 1: and slice and repackage, as if the energy might cancel
Speaker 1: out the cyclone inside me. I even started a super
Speaker 1: mirror's favorite heavy ungarlic and key mint. The kitchen warm,
Speaker 1: unfamiliar ours passed. She messaged just a selfie with her coffee,
Speaker 1: a blue wall behind her of a caption old friends,
Speaker 1: catch up, love you. The love You landed differently, like
Speaker 1: something being measured. By afternoon, I realized that I had
Speaker 1: spent most of the day spinning through worst case headlines
Speaker 1: the world as I had condensed to the humming fridge
Speaker 1: and my own increasingly desperate russianizations. When mirr returned. She
Speaker 1: was bright eyed, sun wind tangled in her hair. She
Speaker 1: leaned into me, kissed my jaw, complimented the soup. We
Speaker 1: ate a new silence, My appetit gone. Every word of
Speaker 1: her is echoing around my skull and slow motion. Whenever
Speaker 1: she asked me a question, has your latest commission? Are
Speaker 1: you going to Matt's open studio next week? I answered
Speaker 1: too quickly, desperate to have the conversation, not the one
Speaker 1: we needed, but the easier, lazier one about errands and
Speaker 1: friends and upcoming deadlines. It was a few hours after
Speaker 1: sundown when I found myself fixing a loose door latch
Speaker 1: in the pantry, something I promised to do months ago
Speaker 1: but had always put off. Mira joined me with her
Speaker 1: own tollboos. She's never been comfortable letting hand em and task,
Speaker 1: sit and finish. Her father instilled that in her, she says.
Speaker 1: Though I never met the man, I feel like we've
Speaker 1: both been ghost Lady, she said, squatting next to me,
Speaker 1: watching as I struggled with the screw driver, I made
Speaker 1: a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan. I
Speaker 1: was thinking the same thing, like we keep missing each other.
Speaker 1: She fiddled with a screw, not looking up, but only temporary. Right,
Speaker 1: it'll all smooth out. She set the screw on her palm,
Speaker 1: rolling it back and forth. Just feels like so much
Speaker 1: is about to break loose. For maybe that's what it
Speaker 1: takes for things to change. I couldn't tell if it
Speaker 1: was a warning or an apology. Bottled up my mind
Speaker 1: snouted on the phrase about to break loose. I wanted
Speaker 1: so badly to ask her about the gallery, about Jay,
Speaker 1: about every announcer question. But the eir felt thin, the
Speaker 1: rhythm between us so fragile that the smallest nudge might
Speaker 1: shatter it. We fixed the latch. She halved me from
Speaker 1: the side. Her face passed against my neck, and I
Speaker 1: tried for one second to believe everything was just as
Speaker 1: she said. But her body was slightly stiff, her hands
Speaker 1: tangled and musher, not within me, but grasping for comfort.
Speaker 1: The next day, I tried again to reset the ledger.
Speaker 1: I suggested breakfast at the tiny diner round the corner,
Speaker 1: the one she'd claim Maydeck's worth painting faces for. She hesitated,
Speaker 1: checking her phone twice during the meal, fingers dancing under
Speaker 1: the table. Midway through, she offered up a trivy question
Speaker 1: about mirreal paint, a game we used to play during
Speaker 1: slow brunches, But this time the laughter snacked. Her laugh
Speaker 1: came too loud, too high. She excused herself to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: phone pressed to her chest. On our walk home, passing
Speaker 1: a wall of commission street art, I asked, when's your
Speaker 1: next real night off? She frowned, shielding her eyes, not forbid, Sorry,
Speaker 1: the gallery is tying me up next week's patch board meeting.
Speaker 1: Then helping Jona, she cut herself off and corrected, helping
Speaker 1: Janelle organize the storage room for the new member show. Jonah.
Speaker 1: The name caught like a stick in my spokes. Jonah
Speaker 1: was a visiting artist. He'd passed through for a mural project,
Speaker 1: but I remembered mere mentioning his departure weeks ago. I
Speaker 1: pretended I hadn't noticed. Jane El still not back from Europe,
Speaker 1: I asked, watching for her reaction, she shook her head,
Speaker 1: face smooth, lazy, lucky jerk posting pastry porn, but her
Speaker 1: cheeks flushed slightly. She kicked at the pebble, then quickly
Speaker 1: veered the conversation back toward our summer plans. Should re
Speaker 1: rent a cabin up state, a break from all this.
Speaker 1: She squeezed my hand, almost too tightly. That night, as
Speaker 1: I stayed up sketching, finally settling on a commission i'd
Speaker 1: put off till long, I heard giggles coming from the
Speaker 1: other room. How video coll echoing fainly. When it ended,
Speaker 1: she patted in cheeks pink, claiming she'd been catching up
Speaker 1: with her friend Sarah from college. You'd remember her if
Speaker 1: you'd ever come with me to Vermont, she teased. But
Speaker 1: Sarah's voice was deep and masculine. I've caught the last syllable,
Speaker 1: a soft coodbye, too low to be missert. My stomach twisted.
Speaker 1: I threw myself into my freelance work, taking on on
Speaker 1: glamorous iustration gigs for local businesses, desperate for holiday posters,
Speaker 1: just to quiet my brain. Day's bled into each other,
Speaker 1: punctuated by small, telling absences. Her phone never left hose, sad.
Speaker 1: Her schedule was peppered, with the studio laid into the night.
Speaker 1: One time, a notification flashed outside, down on her phone
Speaker 1: across the couchy jay. Still thinking, she grabbed it quickly,
Speaker 1: locking the screen without meeting my eyes. I replayed something
Speaker 1: Jack said the week before something about it getting repetitive.
Speaker 1: I wondered what he had meant. Were these gallery nights
Speaker 1: really so routine, or was there a different repetition, one
Speaker 1: measured in secrets, traded and shadowed corners. By Thursday, I
Speaker 1: felt like a wire stretch too tight. I texted Matt
Speaker 1: about drinks again. He deflected, blaming work late super slammed.
Speaker 1: I checked his Instagram out with friends at the loft,
Speaker 1: laughing in a group photo. Mirror was just out of frame,
Speaker 1: tired but silent. So I drifted into the gallery around six,
Speaker 1: an hour before closing. I told myself I was just
Speaker 1: stopping by, bringing coffee to the volunteers. The loft is
Speaker 1: never empty, too many people passing through to really spot
Speaker 1: any one out of place. When I arrived, the door
Speaker 1: was locked, but the lights inside were on. Through the
Speaker 1: high windows, I could seem Munshadow's working in the back storage,
Speaker 1: laughter echoing faintly. I texted Mirror outside with caffeine, what's
Speaker 1: the password for entry? No reply? I tried the gallery
Speaker 1: land line, no answer. I peered through the glass, half
Speaker 1: expecting her to pop up arms full of canvasses. After
Speaker 1: ten minutes, the door swung open an in turn I
Speaker 1: barely recognized, startled to see me. Ah hey, mirrors around back.
Speaker 1: Let me check if she's free. Before I could reply,
Speaker 1: a crash of laf rolled down the hallway, mirror's pride
Speaker 1: and giddy. I leaned in. No rush, just here to
Speaker 1: deliver coffee, I said, But the interurn looked nervous and
Speaker 1: ducked away. I waited, awkward, feeling like an uninvited guest
Speaker 1: in a world i'd helped her build. When Mira finally emerged,
Speaker 1: her face was flushed, hair pulled into a messynt cheeks ruddy,
Speaker 1: There was paint on her fingers, and her shirt was
Speaker 1: one I hadn't seen before. She seemed at once delighted
Speaker 1: and startled. What are you doing here? She asked for
Speaker 1: s a register higher than normal coffee delivery for the people.
Speaker 1: You said you'd be here late. I tried to smile,
Speaker 1: keep it light. Behind her, A burst of deep laughter,
Speaker 1: a man's voice not quite familiar, echoing around the corner.
Speaker 1: Mira closed the door behind her, stepping into the hallway
Speaker 1: with me, Sorry, it's chaotic right now. We're prepping for
Speaker 1: the fundreezer, she said, pushing strand of hair behind her ear.
Speaker 1: Next time, give me a little more warning. Okay. Her
Speaker 1: eyes darted back down the hallway. I can't stay long.
Speaker 1: The director's about to show up, and it's going to
Speaker 1: be a circus. I nodded, holding out the coffee. She
Speaker 1: took it with a grateful smile, pepped me on the cheek.
Speaker 1: Go home. I'll be late. Thank you. Love. The word
Speaker 1: love sounded wordily transactional. She squeezed my hand briefly, then
Speaker 1: ducked back in the side door, swinging shut too quickly.
Speaker 1: On my way out, I noticed a fly for an
Speaker 1: upcoming show Joan As name was listed among the artists,
Speaker 1: his project noted as concluded. So why had Mira referred
Speaker 1: to him? Is still in the loop. The next few
Speaker 1: days I lurked around the edges of our life, trying
Speaker 1: to pass every molecule of her behavior. She was both
Speaker 1: more attentive and more remote, buying my favorite chocolate, leaving
Speaker 1: sticky notes with tiny hearts to hang in there though
Speaker 1: almost Friday, but banishing behind locked doors for calls always
Speaker 1: a work stuff. I tried to script how to ask
Speaker 1: her straight out about ja imatchine every answer, from guilt
Speaker 1: to outrage rehearsed with I believe any of them. I
Speaker 1: kept failing to build up the courage. I kept circling
Speaker 1: back to the scarf, the expensive blue one forgotten on
Speaker 1: our court rack. The label was unfamiliar, some place petti
Speaker 1: Qui in a suburb. I giggled it. Found the shop
Speaker 1: its Instagram showcasing custom scarfs. It was the kind of
Speaker 1: gift you don't pick up for a joke. When she
Speaker 1: wore it again, I asked, ever, figure out who gave
Speaker 1: it to you. She glanced down, distractedly, smoothing the fabric. Actually,
Speaker 1: it was probably one of the newer interns, someone trying
Speaker 1: to get on my good side. There were always gifting
Speaker 1: things after I was perks, you know. She busied herself
Speaker 1: with dishes, ending a conversation before it could turn. Saturday
Speaker 1: night came, and with it another late late text. I
Speaker 1: opened the note from the sketch book, running my finger
Speaker 1: over the our secret adventure line. I reread all the
Speaker 1: explanations she given for the gallery at the studio, the
Speaker 1: scoff the painting, all plausible, none satisfying. I found the
Speaker 1: painting in the closet, turned it in the light. J
Speaker 1: plus M initials uncharacteristically neat the strokes, walled and fast,
Speaker 1: as if chasing a fleeting emotion. I checked the back,
Speaker 1: nothing but the label in the corner had a day.
Speaker 1: Three weeks prior, the same night, Mirror told me she
Speaker 1: was painting at the gallery alone. I sculled through her Instagram.
Speaker 1: There was a story from that night, just a shot
Speaker 1: of a tin of brushes on a windowsill, captioned working late,
Speaker 1: no faces, no details. Normally she tagged me or at
Speaker 1: least referenced something about our shared home life. This time
Speaker 1: it was pure absence. I sent a message to one
Speaker 1: of our only neutral mutual Sophie and artists, who floats
Speaker 1: few scenes but never sets roots, A friend to both, Ben,
Speaker 1: never quite part of our tider circle. He've been to
Speaker 1: the laft lately. Anything fun coming up, she replied, I'm
Speaker 1: away for a while. Heard it's busy. Mir said, she's
Speaker 1: swamped with prap. She okay, I paused, yea, things just
Speaker 1: feel stretched, so Free's reply that whole crew seems more
Speaker 1: secretive lately, weird energy. Hope you both taken care of yourselves.
Speaker 1: I tried to watch a movie, but every background color
Speaker 1: reminded me of her pallets, the ones blending into someone
Speaker 1: else's laughter, someone else's adventure. I organized our brushes, quietly,
Speaker 1: removing the ones walk by too many nights away from home.
Speaker 1: I started to sketch an empty chair looking out over
Speaker 1: a river, but every time I thought I was finally
Speaker 1: getting the shape right, it floated into obstruction. Sunday morning,
Speaker 1: Mira found me at the table, sketched a cope and
Speaker 1: but n touched. You look haunted, she said, pressing cold
Speaker 1: lips to my forehead. Didn't sleep much. I forced a smile.
Speaker 1: Too much soup. Maybe she's quinted or too many worries.
Speaker 1: You know you can tell me if you need to talk.
Speaker 1: I wanted to explode, to lay it all out. I've
Speaker 1: had messages, lift receipts, seek notes, awkward friends, scarves that
Speaker 1: arrived from nowhere. Instead, I said, I just want us
Speaker 1: to land on the same page again. Feels like we
Speaker 1: haven't lately. To my surprise, her eyes shimmered and she
Speaker 1: squeezed my hand. I know, let's make plans, something just
Speaker 1: for us, no one else. I'll clear a night, But
Speaker 1: that night another text, Sorry running late, don't wait up.
Speaker 1: I hesitated at the kitchen table, staring at the iPad,
Speaker 1: which she left unlocked in her hurry. This was the
Speaker 1: moment to cross the line find the truth while live
Speaker 1: with ambiguity. For fifteen minutes, I sat torn between not
Speaker 1: wanting to know and not being able to bear not knowing.
Speaker 1: I opened it. Our message chain with the Jay was
Speaker 1: not long, but each entry was scalpel. Jay was Jill
Speaker 1: now not Janelle. The profile picture blurred photo at the
Speaker 1: river side, unmistakably mirrored with a scarff be sid a
Speaker 1: tall man whose face was mostly turned away. The conversation
Speaker 1: was intimate, but careful, words that hovered between coded creativity
Speaker 1: and naked warmth. Can you believe last Friday? Still thinking
Speaker 1: about the way the city looked when you laughed at
Speaker 1: that mural? Maybe we find another while next time? Friday
Speaker 1: was amazing when you left, the whole place fell smaller.
Speaker 1: Ye make me want to paint like I used to.
Speaker 1: Photos from the hiking spot she told me was too mudy,
Speaker 1: closed plans for their next project thinly disguised. Sculling up,
Speaker 1: I realized the messages started around the time Jonah's residency began.
Speaker 1: Their adventures fell on Night's Mere, claimed Solo's studio time
Speaker 1: or urgent gallery prep. I checked her photos back up
Speaker 1: sync from her phone. Selfie's in a cafe I had
Speaker 1: never been to her smile wide head, close to Jonahs,
Speaker 1: shadowed silhouette. The cafe's decor was familiar. It was to
Speaker 1: one that match the mystery dinner receipt. I dropped the
Speaker 1: iPad onto the table, hand shaking. It was as if
Speaker 1: something fundamental had shifted the floor of our home angle
Speaker 1: just a few more degrees until I was for ever
Speaker 1: on edge. That night, I waited form here to come home.
Speaker 1: She arrived after two cheeks, when burned as bright. We
Speaker 1: lost track of time, moving paintings, labeling so much stuff,
Speaker 1: she said, dropping her keys with exaggerated fatigue. I nodded,
Speaker 1: emptied of performance, want tea. My hands worked the motions.
Speaker 1: My mind ran back through every conversation we never had
Speaker 1: about honesty, every late night confession of fear or hope,
Speaker 1: all now in question. She smiled, with something like nostalgia.
Speaker 1: You are too good for me. You know that. I
Speaker 1: wanted for an instant to say yes, to take the
Speaker 1: easy route, to buy the story, to imagine that what
Speaker 1: I found meant something less dangerous than what it was
Speaker 1: but the words stuck in my clock. I couldn't dissolve.
Speaker 1: I lay awake into the blue hours, watching the city
Speaker 1: flickers move across our seiler. Mirror shifted beside me, her breathing,
Speaker 1: even one hand call toward nothing. By noon, an old
Speaker 1: friend holed, we lately distant, her voice low. Is everything okay?
Speaker 1: She asked, failing at small talk. I stammered back, sure,
Speaker 1: just busy. Why on pause? I am sorry. I saw
Speaker 1: Jonah last week. Mirror was with him. Maybe you already know.
Speaker 1: But her voice broke off. Unwilling or unable to say
Speaker 1: it directly. It's fine, I lied, the words acid in
Speaker 1: my mouth, thanks for checking in. After the call, I
Speaker 1: sat at the window, city sounds rising up, ordinary as always,
Speaker 1: but newly foreign. The weight of my own indecision pressed in,
Speaker 1: narrowing the field of possibilities to just too, keep pretending,
Speaker 1: or confront the truth. I turned our framed sketch, the
Speaker 1: one mirror called the soul of her home, to face
Speaker 1: the wall. The silence was total, apart from a faint
Speaker 1: hum of the radiator and the distant echoes of laughter
Speaker 1: from some patier party blow. I wanted desperately to step
Speaker 1: outside leave all the evidence behind. But the room felt
Speaker 1: like a museum of the life we built and without
Speaker 1: knowing when let's flits part that evening, As Mire prepared
Speaker 1: to head out fore yet another late shift, her back
Speaker 1: already pat with more than she need for gallery paperwork,
Speaker 1: I stopped her in the tiny corridor by the door mirror.
Speaker 1: Who is Jay, I asked, a voice small and flat.
Speaker 1: She blinked, tossed, her hair, forced to laugh, already falling
Speaker 1: apart around the edges. Oh that's just Janelle, you know that,
Speaker 1: or sometimes Jonah, just gallery stuff. I held the painting out,
Speaker 1: though j plus m inches from my heart. You sure,
Speaker 1: she hesitated, lips parted, searching my face for the version
Speaker 1: of myself most willing to let her lie. Don't worry, Love,
Speaker 1: It's nothing, she said, almost as if by wrote that
Speaker 1: the world had already changed. My breath hovered in the
Speaker 1: polls after her last words, it's nothing about everything that mattered,
Speaker 1: I begun to tipper reversively. I stood there, the painting
Speaker 1: in my hand, my body cool with adrenaline, in some
Speaker 1: deeper kind of exhaustion, while Mira fiddled with the strap
Speaker 1: of her back and pretended a conversation was already over,
Speaker 1: but I didn't let her leave. I couldn't. My voice,
Speaker 1: when it finally came, was quiet and flat. Stay for
Speaker 1: a minute. I moved away from the door so she
Speaker 1: couldn't slip past. She set her back down, arms folding
Speaker 1: and tie her jaw flex just once. I almost pitied
Speaker 1: the way we both seemed to brace, as if for impact.
Speaker 1: I saw your messages, I said, and winstt how small
Speaker 1: my voice sounded, even to me on your eyepad. I
Speaker 1: watched her eyes, looking for any flicker fight, guilt, or
Speaker 1: even relief that the secret was out. There was half
Speaker 1: a second of nothing. Then her whole face dropped, her
Speaker 1: lips parting, hands fluttering at her sides. It was as
Speaker 1: if a mask slid off, and beneath it, terror and
Speaker 1: resignation moored for control. I she started it, but I
Speaker 1: spoke over her, shaking out the painting, slipping against my palm.
Speaker 1: You didn't plan the show with Janel, he lied. Jay's
Speaker 1: join her Friday was amazing, he said, I heard my
Speaker 1: own voice distorting. There are photos, there are She reached
Speaker 1: for me instinctively, but I flinched back and she caught
Speaker 1: herself hand pressed to her own sternum, like she might
Speaker 1: hold herself together by force. Pleased, just as she said,
Speaker 1: then stopped and looked the spot behind my shoulder, as
Speaker 1: if searching for a prompt. The light through the window
Speaker 1: caught the faintest quiver at her throat. I weeded. I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to let the slip into marquis easy silence again,
Speaker 1: not now that the ground was gone from under us both.
Speaker 1: I didn't want this, she said, in a flat voice,
Speaker 1: as if she was only just hearing the words as
Speaker 1: she said them. Not like this. I never meant for
Speaker 1: everything to get so complicated. Her eyes finally met mine, wide, pleading.
Speaker 1: It started small. I felt lost when the gallery turned chaotic,
Speaker 1: and then Jonah, he listened, really listened, when everything felt
Speaker 1: gray and closed. In my mind recoiled, wanting to snatch
Speaker 1: at any other explanation, any version less complete than much
Speaker 1: she gave. But the shape of things was too clear now.
Speaker 1: The nights out, the scarf, the studio hours, the secrecy
Speaker 1: fitted into the blurry edge of friendship and more, until
Speaker 1: there was no border. The air in the room pulsed.
Speaker 1: She stepped closer and so tentative, as if anything between
Speaker 1: us was still breakable. I'm sorry, I am you have
Speaker 1: to believe me. I felt shut up from you, like
Speaker 1: everything was piling up my work. You'll worry. He saw
Speaker 1: something in me outside of all that apart i'd forgotten.
Speaker 1: I never set out too sleep with him, I said,
Speaker 1: unable to keep a bitterness from rising. The word hum there,
Speaker 1: raw and hostile. She shook her head at first, tears stinging.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just listener, she caught herself force catching. The
Speaker 1: first night he kissed me, I swear, I told myself
Speaker 1: I had to stop, but then I kept going back.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to tell you. I told myself
Speaker 1: it was a phase. I'd get bored, he'd move on,
Speaker 1: and everything would fix itself. How long the angusmeared every syllable.
Speaker 1: She took a moment, working out the courage since the
Speaker 1: mural project three months he leaves soon. I thought I'd
Speaker 1: find a way back. That maybe if I just poured
Speaker 1: myself into our life or the gallery show or new projects,
Speaker 1: I could God. I tried it. I tried to picture
Speaker 1: her in him together, in our places, at our river,
Speaker 1: in the cafay I'd never visited with her in studios,
Speaker 1: I thought we'd only shared. The guilt in her voice
Speaker 1: did look to dull the jugged edge. I wanted to shout,
Speaker 1: to leave, to wound her the way she'd wounded me,
Speaker 1: But all I could do was ask one lad, fragile question,
Speaker 1: did our friends know? She pressed her face into her hands,
Speaker 1: fighting tears, Some at first just free, then others. They
Speaker 1: didn't want to get stuck in the middle, so I
Speaker 1: didn't make anyone life for me. But yes, a few
Speaker 1: knew them. Sorry, I thought, She shook her head. I
Speaker 1: let the silence stretch longer, this time, until it was
Speaker 1: a canyon. I couldn't hide my ache. How could you
Speaker 1: bring all of them into this? Did you ever think
Speaker 1: about what it would do? Her voice was barely a whisper.
Speaker 1: I know it's not fair. I was scared, ashamed. The
Speaker 1: more I tried to cover it, the more everything slid away.
Speaker 1: I pushed a hand through my hair, cheeky with a
Speaker 1: sudden need. Rare. We build all of this, Mirah, every wall,
Speaker 1: every shelf, every routine. How do you just trade it
Speaker 1: for what? The passing adventure? She shook her head violently.
Speaker 1: I didn't trade it. I was broken. I found something
Speaker 1: else when I should have come to you, and instead
Speaker 1: I ran. I lied, I'm sorry, I am You've no
Speaker 1: idea how much don't I said, voicegun rough. Don't say
Speaker 1: you're sorry. You could have told me any time. You
Speaker 1: still lie. All the color had drained from her face now,
Speaker 1: her arms wrapped around herself, and when she finally started
Speaker 1: to talk, her voice was so small. I had to
Speaker 1: lean in. I loved you, I do, but I started
Speaker 1: to feel invisible in all the stress. And when he
Speaker 1: was kind and curious and not worry, I escaped For
Speaker 1: a while. I hated myself most of the time. I
Speaker 1: kept wanting to stop, but I was selfish. I needed
Speaker 1: to feel wanted or alive of some other word that
Speaker 1: sounds pathetic now. I didn't want to lose this. She
Speaker 1: gestured broadly at our world. But I couldn't stay away
Speaker 1: from him either. When I tried to say something, I
Speaker 1: just couldn't break us, couldn't break you. She wiped her cheeks,
Speaker 1: taking shaky breaths, and for a long moment I couldn't
Speaker 1: look at her. I turned to the window, city like
Speaker 1: sparkling through the grime. The words in my head were
Speaker 1: a fixed, large anger, betrayo, sick, disappointment, a tiny sliver
Speaker 1: of spiteful satisfaction that I'd finally forced her to be honest.
Speaker 1: On the table beside her, her phone buzzed. Neither of
Speaker 1: us moved. The sound was grossly loud in the space
Speaker 1: between us. What do you want me to do now,
Speaker 1: she asked, boy scraping. I'll do whatever you say. I'll
Speaker 1: tell every one I'll move out for a while, anything
Speaker 1: you need. I thought about the days ahead, about our
Speaker 1: social circle curling up under the weight of our collapse,
Speaker 1: about all the parties and projects now infected with secrecy
Speaker 1: and pity. I wanted, for just a second to hand
Speaker 1: the decision back to her, to let her clean up
Speaker 1: her own miss, to walk away from the labor of
Speaker 1: ending things. But she stood there waiting, and I realized
Speaker 1: the only way to proclaim anything dignity may be with
Speaker 1: the right to decide what came next to us. To
Speaker 1: move first, I need you out of the loft for
Speaker 1: a few days, I said voice. Then now I need space,
Speaker 1: not you here, naughty stuff, not reminders. I'll stay at
Speaker 1: Jack's if I have to. But we can't keep trading
Speaker 1: half measures. She nodded, desperately, scrambling to pick up her bag.
Speaker 1: Of course, I can go to Lila's or anywhere. I'll
Speaker 1: let you know where I am. I'm so sorry. I
Speaker 1: wanted to tell her to shut up, to be silent,
Speaker 1: to let me have this one clean misery, but I
Speaker 1: only turned away. I packed a bag of my own toothbrush,
Speaker 1: two days clothes, my best sketch be comprecious little else.
Speaker 1: Mira hover looking at me as if she hoped for
Speaker 1: a reprieve. He should call him, I said, unable to
Speaker 1: keep a bitterness out, let him know it's not secret
Speaker 1: any more. She sobbed, one hand pressed over her mouth.
Speaker 1: Don't as, she whispered, but stopped herself and pressed out
Speaker 1: into the hallway, bag clutched to her chest. I watched
Speaker 1: the door click shut, then stood alone in the rapidly
Speaker 1: cooling space of our home. Even empty, it managed to
Speaker 1: feel over full, suffocating with the evidence of two lives,
Speaker 1: A retrievably entangled, now ruptured outside the city, carried on heedless.
Speaker 1: I'm missus, Jacks. Can I crash for a night or two?
Speaker 1: He replied with a single hard moji, No questions, just
Speaker 1: the address. I threw the loss of my things in
Speaker 1: a Duffel made a half hearted attempt to gather the
Speaker 1: biggest markers of us into a pile photo strips from events,
Speaker 1: her paint stained hoodie, my mugshy chip. On a rainy day,
Speaker 1: my phone vibrated, Mirror another apology, a digital confession. I
Speaker 1: didn't answer. I passed by a calender, noting all the
Speaker 1: gallery events we'd mapped together. Every sheared appointment now shrunk
Speaker 1: into the wordless, color coded ghosts of a different future.
Speaker 1: Each reminded her a bruise. I told the note from
Speaker 1: my pocket and stared at it one last time. Thank
Speaker 1: you for our secret adventure. You make the world new.
Speaker 1: It was never new, I thought, only hidden. The next morning,
Speaker 1: my back packed I swept through the apartment, grabbing brushes
Speaker 1: and sealed tubes of paint, a stack of blank canvasses,
Speaker 1: anything I could move quickly. Mirror was gone, no trace
Speaker 1: but the almoshed mug. Strands of her hair snacked on
Speaker 1: a brush. One shee at a crooked angle by the door.
Speaker 1: I texted her, I'll come back for the rest next week.
Speaker 1: Please stay away until then. My phone buzzed in response,
Speaker 1: but I left it umred as I closed the door
Speaker 1: behind me keep twisting in the lock. I realized how
Speaker 1: much light I felt, not with relief, but with hollowed
Speaker 1: out certainty. The misery was clean edged, now no more
Speaker 1: double meaning, no more puzzles to solve. I trailed down
Speaker 1: the corridor, my footsteps echoing with an unfamiliar finality. In
Speaker 1: the days that followed, word traveled quickly. Leela texted to
Speaker 1: check in a neutral, cautious here if you want to talk.
Speaker 1: Matt stayed silent. Jack's off a beer in silence and
Speaker 1: resent a message. I'm sorry. I knew some It wasn't
Speaker 1: my place. If you hate me, I get it at
Speaker 1: Jack's place. I tried to work, but my hand shook
Speaker 1: whenever I picked up a pencil every stroke. I felt false,
Speaker 1: haunted by the messy color feels me reused in her
Speaker 1: own art, by the evidence of a shared world now
Speaker 1: so obviously divided that it was laughable that I'd missed it.
Speaker 1: Mirror messaged again and again, the apologies all round together.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt you. I'll tell everyone.
Speaker 1: I don't know what comes next. I raced each one
Speaker 1: and put my phone away. A few days later, the
Speaker 1: gallery called Mirror supplies needed to be picked up. Could
Speaker 1: I arrange it? I insisted, on coming by. When she
Speaker 1: wasn't there, I entered through the side door at the space,
Speaker 1: as cold and impersonal as ever. A young assistant handed
Speaker 1: me a box, too polite to ask questions, but curious
Speaker 1: all the same. The walls were being rung for a
Speaker 1: new show. Joana's muril now painted over a few of
Speaker 1: Mirror's canvases stacked in the corner facing the wall. The
Speaker 1: box was heavier than I expected, filled with brushes, unused, tubed,
Speaker 1: a single and finished chemist labeled in blocky letters J Blussim.
Speaker 1: I carried it out in silence. I didn't look back
Speaker 1: back in the loft. I gathered up the last of
Speaker 1: my things, while the space still echoed with the reciue
Speaker 1: of old laughter, of good evenings, of a hum built
Speaker 1: with intentions and alternately carelessness. I cleaned the studio section
Speaker 1: we both crowded so often, her finger prints on every
Speaker 1: knot painflex, smudgest trailing down to the floor. There on
Speaker 1: the wall above the bed hung the sketch mirror, a
Speaker 1: frin not so long ago, a city view in Chai
Speaker 1: and vibrant. She once called it the soul of our home.
Speaker 1: For a long time, I simply stood and looked at it,
Speaker 1: unable to move, aware of the husham weight that now
Speaker 1: lived in its lines. With careful hand, I lifted it down,
Speaker 1: wrapped it in brown craft paper from our supply shelf,
Speaker 1: and laid it gently atop my pat bag, the last
Speaker 1: little cluster of our shared identity, ready to be moved
Speaker 1: and not carried by both of us, but only by me.
Speaker 1: I took one last walk through the loft, kitchen, narrow hall, artnook.
Speaker 1: Each stup was a goodbye, each corner, half finished story.
Speaker 1: When everything I needed was box, stepped or wrapped, I
Speaker 1: checked the locks, folded the note one final time, and
Speaker 1: let my fingers rest on the cold door knob. It
Speaker 1: was mid afternoon, sun streaking and over the brick and
Speaker 1: wooden floor, dappling the space where our parties and routines
Speaker 1: and arguments had played out. I flaked off the final light,
Speaker 1: the bulb whining as it cooled, and stepped out on
Speaker 1: to the landing. I pulled the door shut behind me,
Speaker 1: letting the sound land heavy and sure a small full
Speaker 1: stop at the end of us. I stood for a
Speaker 1: moment in the dim hole outside our door, bag stiff
Speaker 1: in my hands, back pressed to the painted brick, letting
Speaker 1: the sile and shape itself around me, listening for the
Speaker 1: click of anyone coming here, a neighbor, even just footsteps overhead.
Speaker 1: But the building was empty, solemn, and I pressed on
Speaker 1: my steps, echoing all the way down, even the city's
Speaker 1: muffled lay as, failing to break the hush between the
Speaker 1: closed door and what little I dared call next. Jacks's
Speaker 1: place was a walk and two subway stops that passed
Speaker 1: in a blink, a blur of platforms, stale, air hunched commuters.
Speaker 1: Nothing felt real except the manufactured weight of my duffle
Speaker 1: and the ache in my spying from a night without sleep.
Speaker 1: When I arrived, he barely looked up from his laptop,
Speaker 1: sliding beaer across the table, the only offer he knew
Speaker 1: how to make. I mumble thanks, dropped my bag by
Speaker 1: the couch and sat. We didn't talk art or woman
Speaker 1: or any of the things our group had once followed.
Speaker 1: Late into the night, we drank quietly. The cities come
Speaker 1: held at babefore stories of worn brick. When I tried
Speaker 1: to sketch out of habit defense, I couldn't find even
Speaker 1: a line. Instead, I thumbed through my phone for distractions
Speaker 1: and found more messages lighting up. Not just Mir's regret
Speaker 1: stacking on read at the top, but a handful of
Speaker 1: careful thinking of U texts from friends to measure none
Speaker 1: asking for details. That night's sleep was nearly impossible. Jackx's couch,
Speaker 1: small and lumpy, offered no comfort and even less warmth
Speaker 1: the creak of the spring's loudest gunshots. Every time I shifted,
Speaker 1: I watched the blue of my phone's green clock the
Speaker 1: seconds past midnight. Every few minutes. I considered opening one
Speaker 1: of Mir's messages, reading just enough to make anger possible again,
Speaker 1: but I kept not doing it, kept letting the words
Speaker 1: I'm read be artifacts I could still refuse. In the morning,
Speaker 1: after Jack's left for work, I sat awkwardly with a
Speaker 1: mub of his terrible coffee, scrolling through my imocks. The
Speaker 1: gallery had sent another nerd of cold request to return
Speaker 1: mere security fob. There was also one from the local
Speaker 1: co op asking if I still wanted our shap mural
Speaker 1: slot for the summer, a reminder that I would now
Speaker 1: have to entangle our professional life as clumsily as our
Speaker 1: personal One late afternoon, I went back to the loft,
Speaker 1: only long enough to gather there are a few pieces
Speaker 1: and finished canvas, some paints charges from the tangle behind
Speaker 1: the desk. The air was still, the silence of abandonment
Speaker 1: layered over everything. A single mug howllopstick fained on the
Speaker 1: rim stood by the sink. I picked it up, held
Speaker 1: it in both hands, then washed it, drying it with
Speaker 1: the same tea towel we've found three years ago we
Speaker 1: can market faded, now edges fraying. The place wasn't quite
Speaker 1: emptied of her. It wouldn't be, not for weeks, maybe
Speaker 1: not for years. The wall where our notes and invitations
Speaker 1: formed a chaotic map, was now stripped, only for in
Speaker 1: some bleaches in the shape of paper ghosts. I found
Speaker 1: myself tracing one of her magnets, a Gerashchuvener from a
Speaker 1: show we'd hated, and tacked it in my pocket, A
Speaker 1: decision I didn't let myself question. On my way out,
Speaker 1: I checked for mill The only thing in our box
Speaker 1: was a novel of addressed to both of us, a
Speaker 1: wadding invite from a friend in our old circle. I
Speaker 1: nearly threw it away, but a strange imple sent it
Speaker 1: into my bag instead. The city felt more foreign than before.
Speaker 1: I drifted through a couple of streets, letting the crowd
Speaker 1: press around me. A crosswalk, I caught my reflection in
Speaker 1: a pane of glass, the younger, more certain self looking out.
Speaker 1: I tried to reconcile that person with the one whose
Speaker 1: world crumbled so thoroughly without warning, and failed. Back at Jacks's,
Speaker 1: I turned off my messages, silencing every digital ache, and
Speaker 1: stared at the window until dusk. The following day, Mir
Speaker 1: asked if we could meet Neutral Grand in public. I hesitated,
Speaker 1: thum hovering over my screen, but saig yes. She suggested
Speaker 1: a Caffeiti block from the gallery one the quietly clattering
Speaker 1: silverware in Neutral dappled light, a place where neither of
Speaker 1: us pulowned exactly, but where arguments might feel dulled by
Speaker 1: the presence of strangers. I got the early heart racing
Speaker 1: a sketch beck in my bag that I never opened.
Speaker 1: She arrived five minutes late, Looking smaller, he pulled until
Speaker 1: lo nat asraw. She brought no make up, no armor,
Speaker 1: just a battered canvas tote and the exhaustion of sleepless nights.
Speaker 1: We sat facing one another in a corner booth. She
Speaker 1: ordered black coffee. I only nodded at the silver and
Speaker 1: let the cup cool un touched. We spoke at first
Speaker 1: of practical things. The lease are unpaid utilitties, what ought
Speaker 1: needed to be moved. It was a business meeting, stripped
Speaker 1: of subjects, and for a brief savage moment, I felt
Speaker 1: how much easier it was to talk like this, All
Speaker 1: feelings washed beneath logistics. But when the surface was dealt with,
Speaker 1: the other things rushed in. She asked, did Jax tell anyone?
Speaker 1: I shook my head. You'll be able to keep the
Speaker 1: mural slot. I kept my eyes down. She hesitated, then
Speaker 1: forced herself forward. I told him, She whispered, meaning Jonah,
Speaker 1: I said it was over, that it was real, real,
Speaker 1: in a way that wasn't fair to anyone. He's leaving
Speaker 1: at the end of the month. I'm not seeing him again.
Speaker 1: I swear to you it's finished now. That doesn't make
Speaker 1: a difference. I said here in my own voice, with surprise,
Speaker 1: a steady, strange calm. It was only finished because you
Speaker 1: got caught. She blinked back at me, fistfolding. Ah. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know that her throat worked, swallowing. Do you hate me?
Speaker 1: I wanted to say yes. I wanted the conversation to
Speaker 1: be that simple, for hate to be clean and total.
Speaker 1: But I shook my head. Not hate, not yet. I
Speaker 1: don't know what this is, just empty. It was only
Speaker 1: partly true. Hate seemed enormous ill life scaffolding toppled, leaving
Speaker 1: nothing tall enough to house it. We sat in silence
Speaker 1: a while. She toyed with the spoon, circling it endlessly
Speaker 1: against the lip of her mug. I won't fight over things,
Speaker 1: she said. At last, take what you need to the art,
Speaker 1: the furniture, keep it commissions. I don't want the studio.
Speaker 1: I just want you to know I never wanted to
Speaker 1: lose you. You didn't have to lose me, I said.
Speaker 1: You could have come back at any point, but you
Speaker 1: kept building the lie, not just with him, with all
Speaker 1: of them. I felt my voice begin to strain, and
Speaker 1: a crack note ringing out. She flinched. I know her
Speaker 1: voice dropped every day. I wanted to tell you, but
Speaker 1: the secret grew and I kept thinking I could control it,
Speaker 1: keep it from touching you. She shook her head. It
Speaker 1: was cowardice, not romance. Something flickered in her some brief
Speaker 1: attempt apology or explanation, but she let it with unspoken.
Speaker 1: Her eyes flicked to my hands, with the edge of
Speaker 1: my sketchbook jutted from my bag. You'll keep drawing, she asked, tentative,
Speaker 1: as if my art were the last common teather between us.
Speaker 1: I shrugged eventually, But everything feels wrong in my hand
Speaker 1: right now. My thumb traced the spine of the book,
Speaker 1: a nervous dick. I'll move up by the end of
Speaker 1: the month. We don't both have to be ghost in
Speaker 1: the same place. She bit her lip, then nodded with
Speaker 1: a small, defeated sound. Let me know what I can
Speaker 1: do to make it easier. I offered nothing. There was
Speaker 1: a pause, a settling of things left and said, and
Speaker 1: then she drew herself up and tangling her back. You
Speaker 1: can mail me the keys, she said, or drop them
Speaker 1: with Jack's. I don't care. I'll arrange to get what's
Speaker 1: left after you're out, I nodded. She hesitated at the
Speaker 1: edge of the table, one last look, as if wanting
Speaker 1: to memorize me the way people do with paintings they
Speaker 1: know they'll never see again. Then she was gone. The
Speaker 1: bellop of the cafedoor, marking her exit or absence, settling
Speaker 1: more finely than any accusation could. That night at the loft,
Speaker 1: I found myself wandering from room to room, collecting the
Speaker 1: last stray possessions, a scarf she left behind, a half
Speaker 1: empty jar of Jess brittle paint stained rags. The rooms
Speaker 1: were quieter, now, emptied almost at a bone, but not
Speaker 1: entirely free of her. In the studio, I restuck canvas,
Speaker 1: tossed a wart, ones kept only those that meant something
Speaker 1: to me. WoT done before this season of hiding had dauned.
Speaker 1: I paused over the j plossom painting, holding it up
Speaker 1: to the thinning light, searching for answers and layers of
Speaker 1: color that were used to cohere. I snapped it off
Speaker 1: its stretcher, rolled the canvas, and stuffed it into a
Speaker 1: back to return to her. His secret belonged with her now.
Speaker 1: On my last night, I slept on a mattress in
Speaker 1: the floor, surrounded by stack cardboard boxes and the odd
Speaker 1: geometry of absence. I listened for the city noise I'd
Speaker 1: always counted unto lull me, but it seemed fainter now,
Speaker 1: as if even the neighborhood, new to step lightly. When
Speaker 1: morning came, I showered in an empty bathroom, packed the
Speaker 1: final items, my best brushes, the city view sketch sheet
Speaker 1: once called the soul of our home, the single chipmug
Speaker 1: I couldn't quite leave behind. I collected the wedding invite
Speaker 1: from the fridge, and for reasons I couldn't name, tucked
Speaker 1: it inside the front page of my notebook. In the hallway,
Speaker 1: I zipped my bag and glanced around air moved quietly,
Speaker 1: stirring the scent of old painting coffee. I didn't linger.
Speaker 1: As I left, I dropped mirror's last keys through the
Speaker 1: mail slot, one final necessary gesture of division. In the corridor,
Speaker 1: waiting for the elevator, I let the wait of five
Speaker 1: years settle over me, stunned more by the silence than
Speaker 1: by everything said. The city on the edge of spring
Speaker 1: moved on, indifferent and marked by our private collapse. As
Speaker 1: the elevator doors closed with a soft sigh, I faced
Speaker 1: nothing but the cry shape of what came next. No
Speaker 1: explanations left behind, and no way forward but out. And
Speaker 1: that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I
Speaker 1: will see you in the next one.