Speaker 1: Monday nights always felt a little magical to me, which
Speaker 1: probably sounds ridiculous, but after eight years of marriage to Dylan,
Speaker 1: I didn't mind finding the magic where I could small
Speaker 1: candle at dinners, the quiet promise of a week warming up,
Speaker 1: the steady pulse of the city reflecting off the kitchen windows.
Speaker 1: Dylan and I, both caught up in the churn of
Speaker 1: city life, made a habit out of wrapping our weeks
Speaker 1: in these little rituals. Trivia Mondays were his, not mine,
Speaker 1: but for a long time it felt like a part
Speaker 1: of us, one of those shared understandings that made our
Speaker 1: marriage feel effortless. That evening, Chicago was in one of
Speaker 1: those deep late winter moods, all olive, gray sky and
Speaker 1: brittle wind pushing in through the old window seams. I
Speaker 1: was slicing up some left over sourdough, listening for the
Speaker 1: rattle of the elevator gears, half expecting him to burst
Speaker 1: in with his usual Trivia night adrenaline, details about the
Speaker 1: weirdest questions, Olivia's antics, the classic bickering over music rounds.
Speaker 1: But when the door finally clicked open, Dylan slipped in
Speaker 1: as quietly as the weather outside, not bothering with cheerful greetings,
Speaker 1: or even teasing me about my record of missing out
Speaker 1: on the glory of the Monday Crew. He closed the
Speaker 1: door gently and didn't look up until he was half
Speaker 1: way out of his coat, eyes somewhere near my shoes.
Speaker 1: You're late, I said, trying for playful, but my voice
Speaker 1: caught on the silence. Win or lose? I'd always asked it,
Speaker 1: just like that. He always had some ridiculous answer. He hesitated,
Speaker 1: mouth curving into a near smile. Weird set to Night
Speaker 1: did a whole section on Chicago author's nobody could remember
Speaker 1: the guy who wrote the Coast of Chicago, Olivia was pissed.
Speaker 1: His laugh was small and his energy lagged. But I
Speaker 1: caught something else, the faintest edge of sharpness on his
Speaker 1: shirt as he moved past me. Not his usual seed
Speaker 1: and laundry mix, a note of something sweet, layered and unfamiliar, powdery,
Speaker 1: and just a shade too floral for this kitchen. My
Speaker 1: brain caught at it, then lost it. Your acting like
Speaker 1: you ran a marathon, not trivia, I called after him,
Speaker 1: as he breezed into the living room, ignoring the bread
Speaker 1: and the wine. Our usual decompression routine. He just waved
Speaker 1: a hand. I'm tired, need a shower, babe. No winding
Speaker 1: into our shared post trivia recap, no gentle ribbing about
Speaker 1: some friends. Melt on over a geography question. I watched
Speaker 1: him as he disappeared, trying to recalibrate. I lingered over
Speaker 1: the sound of the shower, the way he hummed tunelessly
Speaker 1: behind a closed door. Carefree notes, but something about them
Speaker 1: twisted strangely in my chest. I perched on my phone,
Speaker 1: flicking through recipes, half watching the city drift by. When
Speaker 1: my screen pinged a trivia group chat, a whole motley
Speaker 1: collection from Dylan's college days and my art school friends. Olivia,
Speaker 1: as always, had posted a photo. Every One crammed around
Speaker 1: the bars, long for Mica table mugs raised, Dylan in
Speaker 1: the center. I scanned faces, counted heads, No me, of course,
Speaker 1: and no Sam, Olivia's boyfriend either. Olivia's next message, best
Speaker 1: inside joke ever, Dylan, You're on thin ice with a
Speaker 1: wink and the orange heart emoji. No explanation, just a
Speaker 1: spray of laughing emojis from Anna and Alex. I caught
Speaker 1: myself smiling and was about to ask Dylan what that meant.
Speaker 1: When he reappeared in sweats, rubbing his hair, he glanced
Speaker 1: over my shoulder and saw the thread. For a second,
Speaker 1: I thought I saw something pinch at his eyes before
Speaker 1: he looked away. What's this about you being on thin ice?
Speaker 1: I teased, nudging him with my phone. Normally he'd jump
Speaker 1: into the details, half embarrassed, half browed, but he just shrugged,
Speaker 1: settling on to the edge of the couch. Olivia being Olivia,
Speaker 1: you know how she gets. He immediately reached for the
Speaker 1: remote and flipped channels, the blue TV light washing the room,
Speaker 1: making everything look blank and a little impersonal. Let's watch something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't want to unpack the night. He didn't even
Speaker 1: want me in the mix. I sat next to him,
Speaker 1: tense and a little ridiculous, still cradling my phone. Was
Speaker 1: it possible I was making something out of nothing? Was
Speaker 1: he just tired? But as the night stretched and he
Speaker 1: physically pulled away from my side, face slack behind the
Speaker 1: TV screen, I couldn't ignore the loose threads unspooling in
Speaker 1: my mind, that smell on his shirt, the smile that
Speaker 1: didn't quite crack open. The subject switched with prickly suddenness.
Speaker 1: When he saw Olivia's message from the left side of
Speaker 1: the sofa, he tried for easy You're not missing out promise,
Speaker 1: same old crew. I looked back at the photograph, at
Speaker 1: the way everyone seemed a little too happy, eyes bright
Speaker 1: behind pints and trivia cards. It was subtle, the way
Speaker 1: Dylan's arm curled behind us Olivia, the way Anna's chin
Speaker 1: tucked slyly into her mug. But it made me feel,
Speaker 1: for the first time in years, like a tourist in
Speaker 1: my own life. What was I actually missing on these
Speaker 1: Monday nights. Dylan was the reason I'd fallen for this
Speaker 1: whole world in the first place. Before Chicago, before I
Speaker 1: found my footing as a freelance designer with a patchwork
Speaker 1: schedule and a million gig contracts, I've been floating and tethered,
Speaker 1: fresh out of a messy apartment with two friends who
Speaker 1: loved bad wine and worse indie band posters. Dylan had
Speaker 1: breezed into my life during a gallery opening in the
Speaker 1: West Loop, all quick wit and unapologetic confidence, a kind
Speaker 1: of energy that snapped me out of my own jumble.
Speaker 1: He was an architect, tall, animated, never missing a detail
Speaker 1: from the first he had a knack for making every
Speaker 1: interaction feel like a secret, a shared language built of
Speaker 1: jokes that only we could fully decode. My friends noticed
Speaker 1: it immediately. You're funnier with him around, Anna used to say,
Speaker 1: grinning at me over mimosas we built our social life
Speaker 1: around that energy, Weekends brimming with dinner parties and gallery nights,
Speaker 1: brunches that stretched until sunset, friends drifting through our flat
Speaker 1: and never quite leaving on time. My college roommates pared
Speaker 1: off with Dylan's college buddies, and our friend's circles fused
Speaker 1: almost overnight. Even trivia Night, which started as a lark
Speaker 1: Olivia's way of coaxing everyone out, became a fixture on Mondays.
Speaker 1: I'd join if I could, or enjoy the stories if
Speaker 1: I couldn't. We would debrief everything, trading notes on every
Speaker 1: one's funniest answer, the best team name, the way the
Speaker 1: bartender sang along to Bowie. It wasn't about the trivia.
Speaker 1: It was about being part of something large and living
Speaker 1: electric with possibility. Dylan's enthusiasm for sharing was one of
Speaker 1: his best qualities. He was always the orchestrator, the life
Speaker 1: of the group, the first to suggest an after party
Speaker 1: and the first to toast to whatever the occasion was.
Speaker 1: Early on, I gotten a little lost in that swirl.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I worried I was the least interesting at our table,
Speaker 1: an introvert nestled into the edges of a dazzling circle.
Speaker 1: Dylan always brushed it off, tugging me closer with a
Speaker 1: hand on my knee or a passing joke, his eyes
Speaker 1: soft and fond when he got hit on, even by
Speaker 1: our friends. Olivia especially, had always been a flirt. He'd
Speaker 1: raise his eyebrows and shoot me a look that said
Speaker 1: as if I hung on to that. The two of
Speaker 1: us shared everything, silly design projects, at home, cooking experiments,
Speaker 1: even the secret language of other people's relationships. We could
Speaker 1: read friend's tensions across a crowded bar, deconstruct an argument,
Speaker 1: and slide home to bed, arms and legs tangled, full
Speaker 1: of that sense of us against the room. That comfort,
Speaker 1: that mutual knowing was our gravity. But lately the threads
Speaker 1: that made us tighten it felt as if they were loosening.
Speaker 1: My design contracts had multiplied and overlapped. I was working late,
Speaker 1: grumpy at my laptop, missing dinners. Dylan's jobs, too, had
Speaker 1: gotten heavier clients with deep pockets and impossible deadlines, building
Speaker 1: sites with endless issues. I'd notice some nights that we'd
Speaker 1: snap at each other more easily than before. Our affection
Speaker 1: retreated behind routines, the little bump of a toe at midnight,
Speaker 1: the text at three when one of us couldn't sleep,
Speaker 1: Those things faded. Dylan, always a hugger, had started drifting away,
Speaker 1: even from the casual reaches for my shoulder or my hand.
Speaker 1: He defaulted to his phone, burrowed in the kitchen, forgot
Speaker 1: to buy the bread he'd promised. But I chalked it
Speaker 1: up to growing up, to the way work and age
Speaker 1: pressed in on everyone, even the shiny couples. That was life.
Speaker 1: I reminded myself. That was us still here together in
Speaker 1: this overfull city, wasn't it. Two weeks after Olivia's inside
Speaker 1: joke text, I hosted a dinner party. It was Friday,
Speaker 1: the city thawing slightly, our apartment full of warm chatter
Speaker 1: and the cling of red wine on glass. I'd made
Speaker 1: too much pastor, and the crowd, our trivia crew plus
Speaker 1: a couple of outlier friends, spilled from chairs on to
Speaker 1: the floor, shouting about the worst trivia fails, who guessed
Speaker 1: Tennessee as a color, who been dared to flirt with
Speaker 1: the bartender. Olivia, already on her second Negroni and glowing
Speaker 1: as ever, leaned in as Dylan cleared plates. Don't tempt fate,
Speaker 1: dil or I'll tell your wife what happened at trivia
Speaker 1: the other night. Dylan shot her a look, a mix
Speaker 1: of annoyance and something else sharp and loaded. I caught
Speaker 1: it out of the corner of my eye, and, propelled
Speaker 1: by curiosity, prodded, O, K now, I want to know
Speaker 1: what did my husband do? He barely paused. Just dumb
Speaker 1: trivia drama, he said, aiming a smile at Olivia that
Speaker 1: looked more warning than warmth. Trust me, Babe, had to
Speaker 1: be there. Olivia giggled, waving her hands dismissively. Anna, sitting
Speaker 1: to my right, changed the subject to the newest tacco
Speaker 1: place in Loggun Square. Later, the clatter wound down, we
Speaker 1: shewed away the last hangers on washed up together in
Speaker 1: our two small kitchen. I watched Dylan mouth set eyes
Speaker 1: down as he scrubbed a pan that wasn't actually dirty.
Speaker 1: When I tapped his hip with mine, ready to joke
Speaker 1: about his trivia mystery. He glanced at the clock. It's late,
Speaker 1: em His voice was soft, but his posture was retreat.
Speaker 1: He barely brushed my lips when he said good night.
Speaker 1: In bed, I curled toward his back, feeling the degree
Speaker 1: of separation in the space between us. Was I overreacting?
Speaker 1: Had I become paranoid? Haunted by some adolescent suspicion These
Speaker 1: things happened in marriages, I told myself, lulls, stale patches, distractions.
Speaker 1: But as I burrowed into my corner of the blanket,
Speaker 1: the image of Olivia's face, smiling, almost daring, flickered in
Speaker 1: my mind. What really happened at trivia? Over the next month, tiny, inconsistent,
Speaker 1: He's crept in, each more pronounced than the last, but
Speaker 1: always plausibly deniable. Dylan's trivia mondays, once wrapped by ten thirty,
Speaker 1: started stretching later and later. He'd come home long after midnight,
Speaker 1: apologizing in a yawn. Sorry, we went on forever, but seriously,
Speaker 1: it's just the usual. I promise you're not missing much.
Speaker 1: He stopped inviting me along. It's gotten kind of boring. Honestly,
Speaker 1: you probably have better things to do than listen to
Speaker 1: us argue about the capital of Belarus for the sixth time.
Speaker 1: One night, I heard him in the shower, genuinely laughing,
Speaker 1: belly deep, unguarded. I was so surprised. I stood in
Speaker 1: the hallway for a moment, listening when he emerged, wrapped
Speaker 1: in a towel, with a slightly stunned look on his face.
Speaker 1: I asked, what was so funny. His eyes slid away,
Speaker 1: just remembered something Olivia said about Alex's first date. Stupid, really,
Speaker 1: he shrugged, but he wasn't smiling any more. I pressed,
Speaker 1: like what, he stammered, I can't even remember now, Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's late. He retreated before I could ask again. One Wednesday,
Speaker 1: hunting for chapstick in his coat, I pulled out a
Speaker 1: crumpled receipt. The bar's logo jumped out at me. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't their usual trivia spot. This was a cocktail
Speaker 1: bar miles across town, dated last Monday, the very night
Speaker 1: I thought trivia was happening at the regular pub. My
Speaker 1: stomach squeezed, but I told myself it was probably just
Speaker 1: a one off. I met Anna for coffee a few
Speaker 1: days later, both of us frazzled from work, When I
Speaker 1: tried to catch up with her about trivia, she fidgeted,
Speaker 1: stirring her larte, you know the same old trivia's trivia
Speaker 1: em She changed the subject abruptly to her new project.
Speaker 1: Her shoulder was tense, her smile forced. That next Monday,
Speaker 1: Dylan's phone buzzed well past midnight as we lay in bed.
Speaker 1: I glanced over, just a reflex, but he quickly angled
Speaker 1: the screen away, thumb flicking to close the message jap.
Speaker 1: He caught me watching and wordlessly locked his phone. I
Speaker 1: stared at the ceiling, counting the seconds until the light dimmed.
Speaker 1: I went back through the group chat, combing for clues.
Speaker 1: There were sly references to Monday Funday and jokes about
Speaker 1: the gang, but never about me, never asking when I'd
Speaker 1: join again, never referencing anything I'd remember as an inside joke.
Speaker 1: I felt invisible, or maybe forgotten. The next week, Dylan
Speaker 1: forgot our lunch date. He'd been the one to suggest it,
Speaker 1: promising to meet at our favorite Vietnamese place. When I
Speaker 1: called to check in, he answered winded and rushed, shit,
Speaker 1: em works insane. I can't make it. But that evening,
Speaker 1: scrolling through EMIL, I caught a time stamp on a
Speaker 1: meeting wrap up hours earlier. Why lie? Why not just
Speaker 1: say he was too tired? On a chilly afternoon walk,
Speaker 1: I let my mind replay old doubts. A year into
Speaker 1: our marriage, I'd had an uneasy stretch watching Dylan and
Speaker 1: Olivia banter at parties, always just at the edge of
Speaker 1: what friends do, all code and chemistry. He'd noticed my jealousy,
Speaker 1: hugged me from behind and said, Babe, you know you're
Speaker 1: the only one I see. I'd believed him, of course
Speaker 1: I had. But now Olivia herself was acting differently, ducking
Speaker 1: out of gallery invites, sending vague responses to my texts,
Speaker 1: shooting me clipped hope you're well, messages that didn't feel
Speaker 1: like her at all. She'd always been at the center
Speaker 1: of our social orbit. Now it seemed she was pulling
Speaker 1: away too. The final straw came at Alex's birthday party.
Speaker 1: Our whole trivia crew clustered around the patio table, wine flowing,
Speaker 1: laughters sharp and quick. Near the end of the evening,
Speaker 1: I caught sight of Dylan and Olivia on the porch
Speaker 1: a few feet apart, but voices urgent. Olivia's arms were
Speaker 1: crossed tight, Her mascarre smudged at the corners. Dylan's jaw
Speaker 1: was set, eyes narrowed, Their whispers cut across the noise.
Speaker 1: When I walked outside, the conversation snapped off, like a
Speaker 1: light being being flicked. Olivia yanked her bag off the
Speaker 1: bench and left within minutes, barely saying good bye. I
Speaker 1: stood in the kitchen refilling a pitcher, and Anna joined me.
Speaker 1: I forced a neutral tone. Everyone seems on edge to night.
Speaker 1: She took a long sip of water and shrugged too quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so, it's been a weird month. When I
Speaker 1: looked at her for more, she gave me the tiniest
Speaker 1: apologetic smile and hurried back outside. Back in our apartment,
Speaker 1: the gaps in my understanding felt huge. I replayed the
Speaker 1: snatches of conversation, the hurried departures from friends, the silence
Speaker 1: in our group chat that used to buzz with everything
Speaker 1: and nothing. Most hurtful of all was that sense, fleeting
Speaker 1: but unmistakable, that they were all closing ranks, just out
Speaker 1: of my view. The inside jokes weren't for me any more.
Speaker 1: Their laughs didn't include me. I started catching Dylan watching
Speaker 1: me when he thought I wasn't looking quick, anxious flashes
Speaker 1: across the breakfast table, followed by an allmal most relieved sigh.
Speaker 1: If I kept smiling, I wondered sometimes if he was
Speaker 1: waiting for me to ask more, to confront him directly.
Speaker 1: But every time I opened my mouth to push further,
Speaker 1: something fear pride clamp me shut. I began to doubt myself.
Speaker 1: Was I making something out of normal social drift? Had
Speaker 1: I missed some big blow up in the group that
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with me? But then another little
Speaker 1: piece would click out of place. A late night text
Speaker 1: from Olivia, a tense look between her and Dylan. Another
Speaker 1: quiet Monday, with Dylan stumbling home, shirt inside out, smelling
Speaker 1: again of that mysterious perfume. I started to mistrust my
Speaker 1: own mind, my memories. Had I ever really been part
Speaker 1: of their world or just the plus one in the background.
Speaker 1: One Sunday, I brought it up as we did the
Speaker 1: cross word together on the couch, pretending to ignore the
Speaker 1: looming workweek. Can I ask you something? I said, quietly,
Speaker 1: folding my legs under me. Dylan glare danced up. His
Speaker 1: face was unreadable. Of course, you know you can. It's
Speaker 1: just I hesitated. Things feel a little off lately, not
Speaker 1: just between us, with Olivia, with the group? Are you?
Speaker 1: Is there something you're not telling me? He blinked, frowned,
Speaker 1: and then reached for my hand. Em No, God, don't
Speaker 1: do that to yourself. I've just been slammed at work,
Speaker 1: and honestly, the group is getting so cleiquish. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're all growing apart a bit. Don't you feel it?
Speaker 1: I did, and I didn't. Maybe, but Olivia's been weird
Speaker 1: with me and you and she well, I saw you too,
Speaker 1: arguing at Alex's party. My heart thudded. Is there something
Speaker 1: between you two I should know about? He leaned back,
Speaker 1: let his head roll on to the cushion with that
Speaker 1: familiar tiredness. Live blue up at me. She's having a
Speaker 1: rough time at work and took it out on me
Speaker 1: because I was teasing her too much. I should have
Speaker 1: apologized sooner. It's nothing about you, promis. He squeezed my hand,
Speaker 1: and for a moment there was something convincing in his tone,
Speaker 1: almost fragile, as if he really wanted me to believe him.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I haven't been I don't know present I'll
Speaker 1: do better. I really will, I swallowed down the urge
Speaker 1: to keep pushing. He seemed almost relieved. That night, he
Speaker 1: was attentive, ordered our favorite food, chose a film we
Speaker 1: both loved, curled up with me as we watched Joking
Speaker 1: and Easy Again. For a little while, I let myself
Speaker 1: believe that the cracks could be patched. I tried to
Speaker 1: notice the details, his arm curled around my waist, the
Speaker 1: hint of his aftershavee, the way he knew exactly when
Speaker 1: I'd want a reefell on wine. Maybe it had just
Speaker 1: been stress, Maybe I was projecting. But late that night,
Speaker 1: as I tossed a pile of coats into our closet,
Speaker 1: a jacket fell off the hook and something soft and
Speaker 1: pale pink tumbled out. I knelt, feeling almost foolish, and
Speaker 1: lifted the napkin lipstick stained definitely not my shade. There
Speaker 1: in the lower corner our trivia team name scrawled in silver,
Speaker 1: Quiz in my pants, Olivia's old joke. The print was
Speaker 1: a little smudged, but underneath I could make out the
Speaker 1: faint outline of two overlapping finger prints, one berry red,
Speaker 1: one more neutral. I knelt on the floor, the napkin
Speaker 1: trembling in my hand, the afterglow of our easy night
Speaker 1: curdling in my stomach. It was physical, direct, undeniable, a
Speaker 1: loose thread I could follow all the way back to
Speaker 1: somewhere reel. The world tilted still. The next morning, I
Speaker 1: slipped the napkin into my desk drawer. I told myself
Speaker 1: I was overreacting. Make up stains, inside jokes, maybe nothing.
Speaker 1: But I stopped sleeping as easily. I stopped trusting the
Speaker 1: stories people told. I became sharper, more deliberate. I started
Speaker 1: checking the trivia crew's social posts, something I'd never bothered
Speaker 1: to do before. Anna posted a series of candid photos
Speaker 1: one Monday, glasses raised, hands blurred in motion. In one,
Speaker 1: partly cropped, you could just see Dylan Olivia closed together
Speaker 1: at the corner of the table, his hand almost overlapping hers,
Speaker 1: both of them staring at something beyond the frame, smiles
Speaker 1: private and unshared. I scrolled through our texts, my mind
Speaker 1: mapping out logistics and dates. Trivia venues had changed, frequently,
Speaker 1: bouncing between three bars over the last six weeks, always
Speaker 1: matching the late trivia nights. Dylan came home, glassy eyed
Speaker 1: and evasive. I found old location tags in their group messages.
Speaker 1: Realized with a chill that Olivia was always there, even
Speaker 1: if the rest of us were cycling in and out.
Speaker 1: Driven by a kind of nervous heat, I resolved to
Speaker 1: stop waiting for the story to reach me. The next Monday,
Speaker 1: instead of heading home after work, I took the Purple
Speaker 1: Line to Lakeview. Dylan had told me that morning, we're
Speaker 1: at Manny's to night as always, but I recalled seeing
Speaker 1: the Crooked Dog tagged in the crew's chat from last
Speaker 1: week when he'd come home smelling like gin laughter sticking
Speaker 1: to his skin. My fingers shook as I ordered a
Speaker 1: drink and settled at the end of the Crooked Dog's
Speaker 1: long battered bar, trying to blend into the small afterwork crowd.
Speaker 1: Sure enough, thirty minutes later, the trivia booth filled with
Speaker 1: the familiar, all of them but me, Anna, Alex, a
Speaker 1: couple of Dylan's work buddies. Dylan slid in last, Olivia
Speaker 1: practically glued to his side. The two of them whispered,
Speaker 1: heads pressed close, his hands settled lightly on her knee
Speaker 1: under the table, fingers tapping a silent rhythm. I watched
Speaker 1: as he leaned into her, sharing a laugh that seemed
Speaker 1: too intimate for the noise of the room. When Olivia
Speaker 1: saw me, her smile dropped spastically, replaced by a thin tightness.
Speaker 1: Anna sipped from her drink and glanced repeatedly from me
Speaker 1: to the group, her jaw working the banter had a tang.
Speaker 1: No one called down the table to me, no one
Speaker 1: waved me over. I took the opportunity to watch, to
Speaker 1: gather impressions, the slight withdrawal from the rest, the nervous glances,
Speaker 1: Olivia's hands gliding away abruptly. When Sam appeared, Sam, normally
Speaker 1: the most soft spoken, amiable of the bunch, just stood
Speaker 1: beside the booth, face closed, barely acknowledging Olivia. He answered
Speaker 1: a few questions, then left early. Back home. The web
Speaker 1: of betrayal started to connect. I sat on the couch,
Speaker 1: laying out my evidence like a crime scene. The bar receipts,
Speaker 1: the cropped photos, the trivia napkin, the drifting stories, Olivia's distance,
Speaker 1: and Dylan's new edginis. Each little instance, once dismissed as harmless,
Speaker 1: now glowed with the clarity of pattern. Every late Monday,
Speaker 1: a new bar, every group message, an in joke, built
Speaker 1: on my absence. Every overture from me met with retreat
Speaker 1: or some half plausible excuse. I wasn't ready to call
Speaker 1: it what it was, not out loud, not yet. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be wrong, to find a secret that had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with affairs, nothing to do with betrayal,
Speaker 1: that ran beneath our feet. But a new gravity had
Speaker 1: taken hold in the present of absence. Everything Dylan did
Speaker 1: formed a kind of proof. I needed one more piece,
Speaker 1: something beyond implication, before I confronted the crumbling truth. I
Speaker 1: texted Anna asking if she wanted to meet up for coffee.
Speaker 1: I tried to keep it light, just catching up, just
Speaker 1: two friends, splitting a quasser on a cold morning. We
Speaker 1: met on a Thursday, the city half awake. Behind fogged windows.
Speaker 1: Anna looked exhausted, eyes rimmed pink, her usual energy blunted.
Speaker 1: We talked around the edges for a while, work annoyances,
Speaker 1: mutual gossip, and I almost gave up, but the question
Speaker 1: tumbled out before I could stop myself. Anna, are you okay?
Speaker 1: I tried to pitch it gently. You seem off lately.
Speaker 1: I know Trivia's been weird and I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: missing something is there something going on that I should
Speaker 1: know about. She stared hard at her coffee, fingers tracing
Speaker 1: the rim of the mug. EM you're my friend, you know.
Speaker 1: I hate this. I hate even being in the middle.
Speaker 1: Her voice trembled, and for a moment I felt guilty
Speaker 1: for forcing her hand, but her next words hung in
Speaker 1: the air, thick and undeniable. I can't tell you everything.
Speaker 1: It's not my place, but she pressed her lips together.
Speaker 1: You're not crazy. Their's something. Maybe talk to Dylan, O
Speaker 1: kay or Olivia. Give them a chance to explain. My
Speaker 1: skin prickled hot, my heart roaring in my ears. Is
Speaker 1: it Olivia? Is she? Are they? I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to finish the question. Anna wouldn't meet my eyes. EM
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. She picked at her napkin, shoulders hunched,
Speaker 1: a weight settling over her. I'd never seen before. No
Speaker 1: one meant for this to happen. It wasn't confirmation, not outright,
Speaker 1: but it was enough. I stared at her, the scripts
Speaker 1: in my head combusting, and for a moment, all I
Speaker 1: could hear was the city's muffled symphony outside the horns,
Speaker 1: the wheels, life still white without me. But I knew
Speaker 1: then with a dread certainty. It was real. It was here.
Speaker 1: The betrayal wasn't theoretical or distant or fixable with a
Speaker 1: long talk and a bottle of wine. The people I
Speaker 1: trusted most had closed ranks, locked behind a chain of
Speaker 1: secrets I was never meant to find. I walked out
Speaker 1: into the wind, my coffee gone cold in my hand,
Speaker 1: and for the first time in years, the city didn't
Speaker 1: feel like home at all. Part two continues. I kept walking,
Speaker 1: slowing only when an icy gust rattled the chain link
Speaker 1: fence along Fullerton. For a little while, I just let
Speaker 1: myself feel numb. No stories, no rationalizations, no plan, only
Speaker 1: the dead weight of Anna's words ringing in my ears.
Speaker 1: You're not crazy, theirs. Something my phone vibrated in my pocket,
Speaker 1: a mild, persistent presence. For a split second, I almost
Speaker 1: ignored it, but the old habit of checking one out.
Speaker 1: It was a group message. Levia had posted a meme
Speaker 1: something about Monday Funday hangovers and how many trivia answers
Speaker 1: is too many? Underneath Dylan replied with a wink emoji.
Speaker 1: Then Alex chimed in with a string of hash browns
Speaker 1: and a gift of some one in bed. The world
Speaker 1: was still turning, the jokes rolling on, all frictionless and carefree.
Speaker 1: I found myself staring at Dylan's reply longer than I
Speaker 1: should have, wondering, almost academically, how he could be that person,
Speaker 1: the funny, reliable team captain, the man I'd slept beside
Speaker 1: for almost a decade, while carrying something so heavy and
Speaker 1: so hidden just beneath his skin. The street led me
Speaker 1: past a narrow art gallery, its windows fogged and yellow
Speaker 1: with lamplight. My reflection drawn, sharp eyed, mouth pinched, floated
Speaker 1: beside a stack of abstract paintings. I didn't recognize myself,
Speaker 1: and for a flash I understood what Anna must have meant.
Speaker 1: None of us wanted to inhabit this role, to be
Speaker 1: the person who carried someone else's secret, let alone my
Speaker 1: own heartbreak. I circled around the block, watching the head
Speaker 1: lights flicker past, My mind raised ahead. What now, demand answers,
Speaker 1: risk the final blow, Just watch, wait, hope for a
Speaker 1: confession that would never come. Was I detective or witness?
Speaker 1: I missed the time not so long ago, when all
Speaker 1: I'd needed from Dylan was a smile or the comfort
Speaker 1: of his hand. Now I wanted proof, a dreadful, humiliating
Speaker 1: itch for facts that only grew sharper in the absence
Speaker 1: of trust. By the time I reached our apartment, my
Speaker 1: cheeks strung from the cold, I let myself in quietly,
Speaker 1: half hoping Dylan would be gone, half hoping he'd be
Speaker 1: there and so transparently normal that I'd be able to
Speaker 1: laugh at all of this. But the kitchen light was on,
Speaker 1: and I heard the click of his laptop keys from
Speaker 1: the living room. He looked up as I slipped out
Speaker 1: of my coat. His hair must the blue glow of
Speaker 1: the screen washing over his jaw. Hey you're home. Late
Speaker 1: Coffee with Anna run long? His voice had that edge
Speaker 1: of concern, familiar and well worn. I nodded, heart thumping.
Speaker 1: She's stressed, you know Anna. He closed his laptop, slowly
Speaker 1: turning toward me. I could make you tea. There was
Speaker 1: something so pedestrian about the moment that for an instant
Speaker 1: I almost gave in and joined him on the couch.
Speaker 1: I stood by the window, pretending to fuss with the latch.
Speaker 1: I'm fine, just tired. He drifted close, reaching out rough day,
Speaker 1: sleepless night. Maybe I glanced over you sleeping, Okay, these days.
Speaker 1: He shrugged, something flickering across his face. A momentary uncertainty
Speaker 1: quickly smoothed over. Not really work, stuff you know, can't
Speaker 1: turn my brain off. We hovered there. I felt my
Speaker 1: skin buzzing with withheld questions. I thought about Anna's words,
Speaker 1: about Olivia's laughter in every group chat, about the napkin
Speaker 1: in my drawer. Eventually, Dylan let his hand drop, and
Speaker 1: we existed in a silence that felt new and old
Speaker 1: at once. That night, lying next to him in bed,
Speaker 1: I listened to the sound of his breathing. My own
Speaker 1: body was rigid, wrists crossed over my chest. I remembered
Speaker 1: every detail of our first apartment, the floorboards creaking under
Speaker 1: our feet, Dylan tracing made up constellations in the smudged
Speaker 1: paint of the ceiling. I wanted suddenly to ask him anything,
Speaker 1: something so ordinary, about breakfast, or movies or the weather.
Speaker 1: But even simple talk felt risky, as if I'd tipped
Speaker 1: the scales too fast and lose the fragile stasis we'd
Speaker 1: patched together. When I woke around two a m. I
Speaker 1: found Dilner not beside me, but hunched at the kitchen counter.
Speaker 1: Phone lit up, scrolling he didn't see me. I watched
Speaker 1: his features in the pale glow, shoulders tense, brow furrowed.
Speaker 1: He was biting his thumb, an old habit from before
Speaker 1: we'd met, something I'd teased him about for years. When
Speaker 1: I shifted my weight, the floor creaked and he jumped. Sorry,
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep, he mumbled. My mouth went dry. Me neither tea.
Speaker 1: He shook his head, tucking the phone away. Just got
Speaker 1: a little wired. I'll come back to bed. He climbed
Speaker 1: in beside me, not curling close, but lying perfectly, still
Speaker 1: staring at the ceiling. In the morning, he was gone
Speaker 1: before I woke. Mug left on the counter beside a note,
Speaker 1: have a good day, em D. I stared at the signature,
Speaker 1: the curl of his initial, for a long time. The
Speaker 1: next week felt elastic, stretched thin by uncertainty and sharp
Speaker 1: with possibility. I replayed every little shift, every joke that
Speaker 1: had once been innocent, every half glance across the room.
Speaker 1: At a party, the trivia crew group chap buzzed with
Speaker 1: plans for a big trivia night at a new spot
Speaker 1: the next Monday, everyone chiming in except me. Olivia posted
Speaker 1: a note new team tradition come, ready to recite obscure
Speaker 1: nineties sitcom thiemes that left me feeling pushed to the edges, unseerious, excluded.
Speaker 1: I started checking their social media with a kind of
Speaker 1: grim discipline. Anna tagged a post at the Crooked Dog
Speaker 1: trivia legends back in action, Dylan's hand visible wrapped around
Speaker 1: a glass, Olivia's laughter practically audible from the still image.
Speaker 1: Each like and comment echoed with meaning the kind I
Speaker 1: never would have noticed before the bottom fell out. One day,
Speaker 1: I found myself in a neighborhood thrift shop after work,
Speaker 1: Unable to face our apartments quiet, I drifted through the racks,
Speaker 1: hands brushing wool and denim and silk. Lost in memory,
Speaker 1: I thought about times Dylan and I had shopped thrift
Speaker 1: for a theme party for a Halloween get up for
Speaker 1: a picnic by the lake, where he'd insisted on packing
Speaker 1: three kinds of cheese and a stupid floppy hat. My
Speaker 1: phone buzzed, Olivia, Hey, you want to grab drinks this week?
Speaker 1: It was so abrupt I nearly dropped the phone. He
Speaker 1: hesitated the first reflexive share, dying on my tongue. I typed, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe Thursday. Before I could stop myself. Three dots hovered,
Speaker 1: then disappeared. She replied, let me check work's a disaster lately.
Speaker 1: I'll confirm she never did. The truth was I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what I wanted from Olivia. Answers, apology, the brute
Speaker 1: comfort of being heard, or perhaps just the chance to
Speaker 1: see her face when I asked a direct question, but
Speaker 1: she remained at a liminal distance, close enough to be seen,
Speaker 1: but never really reachable. Thursday came and went with no
Speaker 1: follow up. I paced our apartment, clean shelves, sharpened pencils
Speaker 1: that didn't need sharpening. I resisted the urge to check
Speaker 1: Dylan's location or rifle through his bag. What would I
Speaker 1: even look for? Instead? I clicked back through old photos
Speaker 1: on my phone, Dylan in goofy sunglasses, Olivia clinging to
Speaker 1: my arm at a cub's game, Anna pressed between them,
Speaker 1: all of us alive and ridiculous, and possibly even then
Speaker 1: a little bit doomed. I wanted to pinpunt the change
Speaker 1: to date, stamp the fracture, but the more I scrolled,
Speaker 1: the blurrier the edges got. When did partners start to
Speaker 1: become strangers? What new language grew between friends that left
Speaker 1: me off the translation map. Friday night, the Monday Crew
Speaker 1: gathered for yet another trivia championship. I watched Anna's Instagram
Speaker 1: stories with bitter fascination. She posted a boomerang of Olivia
Speaker 1: miming a Mike Dylan pantomiming applause over the speakers. In
Speaker 1: the background. I could just make out the opening bars
Speaker 1: of a song I knew they always used for their
Speaker 1: victory dance, a song Dylan had once taught me in
Speaker 1: our kitchen, spinning me breathless around the tile, I texted Anna,
Speaker 1: looks like you guys are killing it, miss hanging out.
Speaker 1: She replied, we should do coffee next week, Miss you
Speaker 1: two roman twenty? How many times had I heard that
Speaker 1: phrase in a month? Always pasted over a growing silence. Saturday,
Speaker 1: I called my old friend Jess, a graphic designer like
Speaker 1: me who lived on the North Side and whose only
Speaker 1: tie to our trivial world was having met Dylan twice.
Speaker 1: I knew Jess wouldn't have answers, but her voice, tart
Speaker 1: and dry, was a balm. Are you still awake? She asked, audibly,
Speaker 1: sipping wine barely. I'm starting to think I need a
Speaker 1: new hobby, maybe fencing. Something that requires a mask. She snorted,
Speaker 1: you sound weird, weird, weird, not just existentially weird. I exhaled,
Speaker 1: pressing the phone to my cheek. Do you ever feel
Speaker 1: like your friends are deliberately keeping you out of the loop, Like,
Speaker 1: not in a mean way, but there's just stuff you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to know? She laughed. Em have you met
Speaker 1: my office? I'm the only person who remembers birthdays, and
Speaker 1: they'll still leave me out of whiplash wednesdays. But your
Speaker 1: people aren't like that. I went quiet. She sobered. Is
Speaker 1: this about Dylan? Come on, tell me, I hesitated. It's
Speaker 1: maybe nothing. He's just different lately. And Olivia, I don't know.
Speaker 1: She either ghosts or overcompensates. It feels like I'm invisible.
Speaker 1: The words tumbled freer than they'd ever been with Anna,
Speaker 1: or even in my own mind. Jess paused, you want
Speaker 1: me to spy on their group or something? A startled
Speaker 1: laugh burst out of me. No, Jesus, I just I
Speaker 1: don't want to be that paranoued person. But I keep
Speaker 1: finding these little things perfume on his shirt, weirdly late nights,
Speaker 1: group messages that feel like code, and I found a napkin,
Speaker 1: Jess lipstick and all. She took a long breath. You
Speaker 1: trust your gut em but also don't act until you're ready.
Speaker 1: If you decide to burn it all down, you better
Speaker 1: be sure. I lay awake after the call, Jess's words
Speaker 1: clanging around with Anna s You're not crazy. I'm so sorry. Monday,
Speaker 1: I watched Dylan leave for true Rivia. He'd shaved, wore
Speaker 1: the blue shirt he usually reserved for occasions he wanted
Speaker 1: to feel sharp for. He kissed me briefly, the press
Speaker 1: of his lips almost clinical. Back by eleven, I asked,
Speaker 1: not quite managing lightness, should be love you am? After
Speaker 1: he left, I waited fifteen minutes. Then I pulled on boots,
Speaker 1: my hands shaking as I texted Jess, call if I
Speaker 1: don't text back by midnight, just in case I need
Speaker 1: rescuing from Trivia nerds. I tried to cover it with
Speaker 1: a wink emoji, but what I felt was terror sharpened
Speaker 1: by hope. I took a cab to the Crooked Dog.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe i'd back out, but when I saw
Speaker 1: the group glowing through the bar's fogged window, withdrawal seemed impossible.
Speaker 1: Inside the air buzzed with trivia energy and cheap beer.
Speaker 1: I hesitated at the edge of their table, eyes raking
Speaker 1: over faces. Everything slowed, then Anna's half smile the arc
Speaker 1: of Alex's arm. Olivia's startled de faysive laugh as she
Speaker 1: caught sight of me. Dylan, who hadn't noticed me yet,
Speaker 1: was mid whisper to Olivia, his hand on her thigh,
Speaker 1: their heads nearly touching. In that instant, they looked like
Speaker 1: a couple, a total private world of their own. Emily,
Speaker 1: Anna called quickly, too brightly. She scooted over, trying to
Speaker 1: clear space, but the table's energy had already shifted. Alex
Speaker 1: gave me a solid hug, then nearly knocked over his
Speaker 1: drink in his hurry to stand, crashing trivia. Olivia joked,
Speaker 1: her cheeks already flushed. I caught the stumble in her laugh,
Speaker 1: the way her hand jerked away from Dylan's in her lap.
Speaker 1: Jes wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Speaker 1: My voice was thin, but I held on to a smile.
Speaker 1: Dylan looked stricken for half a second, then stood spreading
Speaker 1: his hands. Hey, babe, you should have said you wanted
Speaker 1: to join someone. Get emma beer Olivia jumped up, sliding
Speaker 1: behind Anna, her eyes darting to everyone but me. Anna
Speaker 1: collected herself and slid a fresh menu over. I sat,
Speaker 1: trying to keep my breathing even, and the rounds started again.
Speaker 1: The group's chatter grew choppy, patchworked with nervous laughter in
Speaker 1: every lull. I became acutely aware of Olivia checking her phone,
Speaker 1: Dylan's stealing glances across the table, Anna's half formed sentences
Speaker 1: about work or the band. By round three, Sam had
Speaker 1: turned up. He barely greeted Olivia, sitting as far from
Speaker 1: her as possible, jaw tight as he wrote down an
Speaker 1: answer with a trembling hand. The trivia host read off questions,
Speaker 1: and I pretended to play along. I barely tasted my
Speaker 1: drink through it all, small moments kept catching me. Olivia
Speaker 1: brushing stray hair behind her ear, always looking at Dylan,
Speaker 1: never at me. Dylan tapping answers into the score sheet,
Speaker 1: never missing a beat, but his smile never reaching his
Speaker 1: eyes when he looked at me. Anna fidgeting, trying to
Speaker 1: keep the conversation neutral, eyes brimming with things unspoken. During
Speaker 1: a break, an adjoined me at the bar while the
Speaker 1: others gathered outside for a smoke. I pressed, in voice, low,
Speaker 1: Is this what it's always like now? I tried to
Speaker 1: keep the question open, non accusatory. She bit her lip.
Speaker 1: I wish you'd come more often. Em it's better when
Speaker 1: you're here. She didn't meet my gaze. I wanted to
Speaker 1: scream or shatter my glass, but fear kept me pinned
Speaker 1: to my seat. Is it true? I whispered what I
Speaker 1: think about Dylan and Olivia. She shook her head as
Speaker 1: if fighting off a headache, then quietly, finally, just loud
Speaker 1: enough for the music to hide us. They didn't mean
Speaker 1: for it to go this far, none of us, did.
Speaker 1: Please talk to them, not me. Her words settled on
Speaker 1: me like dust accumulating inescapable, no matter how often I
Speaker 1: hoped to be able to brush them away. When we
Speaker 1: rejoined the table, Dylan's gaze swept the room until he
Speaker 1: found me. Relief and dread clamoring behind his eyes. I
Speaker 1: held his gaze as Olivia started up a conversation with Alex,
Speaker 1: but her voice never again settled on me. For the
Speaker 1: rest of the night. I left before trivia ended, muttering
Speaker 1: something about work. I walked home, my heart careening between anger,
Speaker 1: and devastation, panic and relief. Each image burned in me.
Speaker 1: Olivia's hand on Dylan's thigh, the napkin in my drawer,
Speaker 1: Anna's broken apology. Our apartment felt hollow. I dumped my jacket, then,
Speaker 1: out of sheer habit, checked Dylan's drawer, his jacket, pockets,
Speaker 1: the trash, as if some part of me needed a
Speaker 1: physical relic. I found nothing, and that emptiness felt worse.
Speaker 1: I sat on the bed, phone in my lap, staring
Speaker 1: at the group chat that used to mean comfort. I
Speaker 1: watched the bubbles pop up, Olivia and Dylan trading reactions,
Speaker 1: Alex posting a dumb mem I lingered over the thin
Speaker 1: ice message from before, the way it glimmered with danger
Speaker 1: in retrospect, How did we get here? How did I
Speaker 1: through the wall? I heard a neighbor arguing softly in Spanish,
Speaker 1: The muffled tension, oddly grounding. I thought for a split
Speaker 1: second of simply going next door and borrowing that anger,
Speaker 1: using it to ignite something in me besides terror. But
Speaker 1: all I could do was open the notes app on
Speaker 1: my phone, typing out a list, as if naming it
Speaker 1: all would put it back in my control. Olivia distant Dylan,
Speaker 1: late nights, perfume on shirt, crooked dog, receipt, trivia, napkin,
Speaker 1: Anna avoiding Sam Miserable, inside jokes, group chat, thin eyes, photos,
Speaker 1: hands table, Anna didn't mean for it, Dylan avoiding questions,
Speaker 1: Olivia looking guilty. I stared at the Motley Miserable catalog.
Speaker 1: There it was, my marriage, mapped and itemized, out of reach.
Speaker 1: My old confidence felt like an echo. For years, I
Speaker 1: had prided myself on reading people, the stories beneath their surfaces.
Speaker 1: I could spot a flinch, pase, the weight of a joke,
Speaker 1: detect an undercurrent. Yet here I was blind, in my
Speaker 1: own home, my own circle. That night, Dylan returned before midnight,
Speaker 1: for the first time in ages. I lay in bed,
Speaker 1: pretending to sleep, feeling the mattress list under his weight.
Speaker 1: He reached for me so quietly it almost didn't happen.
Speaker 1: A hand on my hip, a single measured exhale. It
Speaker 1: was a gesture so old, so automatic. I almost turned
Speaker 1: to him, But this time I stayed still. I let
Speaker 1: the distance speak. He whispered so soft I barely heard
Speaker 1: m I love you. I closed my eyes and let
Speaker 1: the words pass through me, empty as air. The morning,
Speaker 1: after Dylan whispered m I love you into the darkness.
Speaker 1: I woke before he did. For once, sleep barely touched me.
Speaker 1: I drifted, at best, flat and hovering somewhere above my
Speaker 1: own bones, waiting for dawn, like something would shift with
Speaker 1: the sun. The city's drone pressed against our windows, barely
Speaker 1: muffling the ache of the previous night. I lay stiff
Speaker 1: for a while, mine split between wanting him to wake
Speaker 1: so we could get this over with and wishing I
Speaker 1: could stay cocooned in this half world where nothing had
Speaker 1: to be said, where the simple knowledge of what he'd
Speaker 1: done wasn't yet loud enough to tear us open. I
Speaker 1: slid out of bed, quietly, avoiding the floorboard that always
Speaker 1: groaned near the closet. I needed ordinary things to put
Speaker 1: between myself and what I'd seen, brushing my teeth, pouring coffee,
Speaker 1: slicing an apple, all hands and habits. I could feel
Speaker 1: the napkin tucked at the bottom of my desk drawer,
Speaker 1: heavy as a bomb, stupid as a party favor. My
Speaker 1: mind kept skipping back to the way Dylan's hand had
Speaker 1: rested on Olivia's thigh under the table, The way Olivia's
Speaker 1: smile had shattered and rearranged the instant she saw me
Speaker 1: standing at the edge of their group. Nothing tragic or
Speaker 1: spark spitting dramatic, just tired collusion, the private choreography of
Speaker 1: people who had something to hide. Dylan emerged while I
Speaker 1: was staring unseeing at the steam rising off the kettle.
Speaker 1: His hair was wild, face puffy with sleep, but his
Speaker 1: eyes searched my face, hungry for clues. Hey, he said,
Speaker 1: voice gravely. Hey, I answered, flatters granite, and set a
Speaker 1: mug on the counter for him. We moved through the
Speaker 1: choreography of our morning, boiling water, pouring cereal, bumping into
Speaker 1: each other at the fridge. Dylan tried once twice to
Speaker 1: catch my gaze. I kept my eyes focused on the
Speaker 1: newsprint on the countertop, tiny smears of jam from another life.
Speaker 1: He cleared his throat, started to say something, then just
Speaker 1: shook out his paper, pretending to scan the headlines through
Speaker 1: the open window. Harn battered the air while I made
Speaker 1: a silent list of everything I would need just in case, wallet, keys, jacket,
Speaker 1: phone charger, charger again, just in case, charger always. My
Speaker 1: phone buzzed, Jess again, you o kay? I turned it
Speaker 1: face down, suddenly, unable to reply. The kitchen began to
Speaker 1: feel impossibly small. Dylan was the first to speak, plans
Speaker 1: to night, want to get dinner. I hesitated just long
Speaker 1: enough for him to notice, Anna wants to meet for
Speaker 1: coffee after work. I lied and saw his jaw flex
Speaker 1: in response, that's good. You should His eyes flicked up
Speaker 1: then away. I should have confronted him right then, ripped
Speaker 1: the bandage off while the words were burning inside my teeth.
Speaker 1: But eight years of marriage wasn't so simple to unspool.
Speaker 1: I needed more. Maybe I needed the possibility of denial
Speaker 1: just a little longer. The rest of the day crawled
Speaker 1: by in a series of half lived hours. I moved
Speaker 1: through calls and e mails, my mind elsewhere. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: wondered if the people in my office noticed the way
Speaker 1: my hands shook over the mouse, the lag between a
Speaker 1: question and my answer. At lunch, I went out alone,
Speaker 1: sitting in the little square by the river, watching strangers
Speaker 1: hustle by in the spring sunlight, and tried to remember
Speaker 1: what it was like to believe in clean explanations. Mid afternoon,
Speaker 1: I scrolled through the Trivia Creuse group chat again. Olivia
Speaker 1: posted a new meal, and in the replies, Dylan sent
Speaker 1: back a joke about Monday Mayhem. I watched the rhythms
Speaker 1: of my old life playing out without me, each new
Speaker 1: message twisting a little harder. At three twenty seven, Anna texted,
Speaker 1: are you OK. I'm here if you need anything. I hesitated,
Speaker 1: thumb hovering over the keyboard, but didn't reply. When I
Speaker 1: got home, Dylan's stuff was everywhere, his shoes blocking the hall,
Speaker 1: the backpack he always said he'd finally empty of receipts,
Speaker 1: blueprints spilling out along the dining table. I stood and
Speaker 1: watched my owner apartment from the hallway for a moment,
Speaker 1: trying to see it like a stage set, highlight the
Speaker 1: peaks and shadows I'd ignored for years. I wished suddenly
Speaker 1: for Olivia's take on our decor, her obnoxious comments about
Speaker 1: Midwest Boho from hell. The thought struck me so hard
Speaker 1: I almost laughed. An hour later, Anna called her name,
Speaker 1: blooming up on my phone, sudden and delicate this time,
Speaker 1: I answered em, I'm sorry, are you? Can I bring
Speaker 1: anything dinner? Just come out for a walk. I considered
Speaker 1: the offer, but the idea of being in public, even
Speaker 1: with Anna, made me feel fragile in the coldest, most
Speaker 1: sickening way. I just my voice broke. I need to
Speaker 1: know how long a ragged silence. A couple months, maybe more,
Speaker 1: Anna said, at last, hushed. Olivia didn't want it to last.
Speaker 1: Dylan kept saying he'd let it go. I think they'd tried.
Speaker 1: I think she stopped, voice dissolving. I'm so sorry. Em.
Speaker 1: If you need me to say it all, I will.
Speaker 1: But I think you know enough already. Her apology recoiled
Speaker 1: in my chest, heavy as stone. After we hung up,
Speaker 1: I sat on the edge of the bed that wait inside,
Speaker 1: settling and changing shape. No more bargaining, no more delay.
Speaker 1: I needed the confrontation, the clarity, the end, or whatever
Speaker 1: passed for it. Dylan was late coming home again. I
Speaker 1: didn't care about his excuses this time. I lined up
Speaker 1: my proofs, napkin bar receipts. My phone opened to the
Speaker 1: picture of their hands cropped together under the table. I
Speaker 1: stacked them on the coffee table and just waited, the
Speaker 1: city outside winding down into the blue dusk. When at
Speaker 1: last he walked in, all city grit and fake nonchalance.
Speaker 1: His eyes widened at the tableau on the table. He
Speaker 1: set his keys down with mechanical care. Em what what
Speaker 1: is all this? I didn't lift my eyes. You know
Speaker 1: what it is. He hovered in the doorway, radiating panic,
Speaker 1: hands twitching at his sides. I don't stop. My chest
Speaker 1: hurt from holding it all in, No more, not to night.
Speaker 1: He slid into the arm chair, face white, jaw working,
Speaker 1: and suddenly I hated the sight of him, how small
Speaker 1: and defensive he'd become, how familiar the way he couldn't
Speaker 1: meet my eyes. So he managed at last, voice cracking.
Speaker 1: You think what that, Olivia? And I I unfolded the
Speaker 1: napkin between us. It's shameful, little pink stain gleaming in
Speaker 1: the lamp light. Spare me, I said, coldly. This the bars,
Speaker 1: the group messages about thin ice, the pictures, Annas. You
Speaker 1: don't need to spell it out, Dylan, Just tell me
Speaker 1: how long and why he slumped, All the air gone
Speaker 1: For a full minute, he was silent, just staring at
Speaker 1: the napkin, as if it might vanish if he willed
Speaker 1: it hard enough. He started to cry, silent at first,
Speaker 1: then reel shaking tears. His palm pressed hard against his eyes.
Speaker 1: He didn't plead, didn't grab for me, just let himself
Speaker 1: break open in front of me, not even trying for dignity.
Speaker 1: I wasn't moved. I wanted explanation, not repentance. His first
Speaker 1: words barely a whisper. We didn't mean for it. I
Speaker 1: swear to God. It was stupid and it got out
Speaker 1: of control. In love with her, I spat before I
Speaker 1: could stop myself. He shook his head sobbing. No, no,
Speaker 1: not like that, Jesus em I needed. I don't know
Speaker 1: something new. Things got so predictable. It started with joking,
Speaker 1: then drinks. Then I felt seen alive almost. I stared,
Speaker 1: hate and pity, warring for space in my chest. Olivia,
Speaker 1: did she chase you? Did you start it? He swallowed,
Speaker 1: refusing the out. Both we joked about the group, about
Speaker 1: you not coming any more. One night we left late justice,
Speaker 1: and it happened after I tried to stop. We both did,
Speaker 1: but we kept finding reasons. Monday was our secret, our dumb,
Speaker 1: little inside joke. I swear I never wanted to hurt you,
Speaker 1: but you did. You hurt every one, me, Sam, the
Speaker 1: whole group. My voice was shaking now, not with fear,
Speaker 1: but a deeper tremor than rage. Did you ever think
Speaker 1: about just telling me. Ever, he shuddered, How could I
Speaker 1: I'd lose everything, you, all of it. My laugh was flat, brittle,
Speaker 1: you already have, he put his face in his hands.
Speaker 1: Please give me a chance. I'll cut her off. I'll
Speaker 1: be better. I'll do anything. You have to know how
Speaker 1: much I love you. I was just lost for a minute.
Speaker 1: I lost track of us. You chose this, I said,
Speaker 1: rising from the couch. Every single week he looked so
Speaker 1: brittle and young. Then nothing left of the man who
Speaker 1: used to drag me on to the dance floor after brunch,
Speaker 1: Only the smallest, most desperate version of some one I
Speaker 1: d once trusted with my life, my future. I went
Speaker 1: to the bedroom, foek clamped tight in my fist, and
Speaker 1: texted Olivia, I know I want to hear it from you.
Speaker 1: The reply came almost instantly, as if she'd been waiting
Speaker 1: for this reckoning. I'm so sorry, em Please call. I
Speaker 1: stepped on to the fire escape, cold air, biting my arms,
Speaker 1: and dialed emotions flickering between rage and wild hurt. Olivia answered,
Speaker 1: already crying, Emily, I've been wanting to say something for weeks.
Speaker 1: I never God, I hate myself for it. Why my
Speaker 1: voice broke thinner than I wanted what happened. I wish
Speaker 1: I had some reason that made it less awful. It
Speaker 1: was stupid. We got carried away every Monday, every inn joke.
Speaker 1: It was about sneaking the thrill. After the first time,
Speaker 1: we both said it was done, but something about lying together.
Speaker 1: We kept circling back. I tried to end it for
Speaker 1: Sam's sake, for you, but Dylan would always He'd text
Speaker 1: the next week. I swear I wanted to stop. You
Speaker 1: both hid it from Sam. The fury in me sharpened,
Speaker 1: her voice shrank. He knows he figured it out weeks ago.
Speaker 1: He confronted me. It's a mess. Anna and Alex, they
Speaker 1: all figured it out. I wrecked everything. I don't expect forgiveness,
Speaker 1: but I'm so so sorry. M I would do anything
Speaker 1: to take it back. I listened for the apology that
Speaker 1: would make it bearable, but nothing she could say could
Speaker 1: reach me. I hung up before she could beg me
Speaker 1: to meet back. Inside. The house was too quiet. Dylan
Speaker 1: was sitting in the dark, hands clasped between his knees.
Speaker 1: He looked impossibly small. I picked up a duffel bag
Speaker 1: and began folding clothes, not at random, not angrily, but
Speaker 1: with precision. I packed enough for days, moving steadily, unbothered
Speaker 1: by his stifled sobs or whispered apologies. It was as
Speaker 1: if enough of me had gone numb to get through
Speaker 1: what I needed to do. I wrote him a brief note,
Speaker 1: I need space. Don't contact me except about logistics. I
Speaker 1: left the napkin on the coffee table and wheeled my
Speaker 1: bag to the door, His broken em wait following me
Speaker 1: into the hall. I texted Jess, I'm coming over. Can
Speaker 1: I stay a few days? The answer from her was instantaneous,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm here. It took only five minutes to
Speaker 1: cross to the elevator and down to the cab. By
Speaker 1: the time I reached Jesse's my eyes were dry. When
Speaker 1: I stepped inside, she wordlessly handed me a glass of
Speaker 1: water and let me fall apart against her shoulder. I
Speaker 1: didn't sleep much again, but for once, my body felt
Speaker 1: my own. The phone lit up through the night, Dylan apologizing, begging,
Speaker 1: then tapering off to nothing as the hours dragged on.
Speaker 1: Olivia too, texting confessions and pleas for some kind of redemption.
Speaker 1: Anna wrote that she was worried about me. Alex sent
Speaker 1: a hesitant We're all here if you need anything. Even
Speaker 1: Sam texted one silent sorry, you're hurt. I collapsed into
Speaker 1: Jesse's spare bed phone face. I wanted nothing more from
Speaker 1: any of them. Let the group chap burn, let the
Speaker 1: Monday jokes die, let the old stories wither behind closed lips.
Speaker 1: I had my own silence, now bare and honest and mine.
Speaker 1: Light broke through her east facing window as I sat up,
Speaker 1: staring at the unfamiliar shapes of her books and banned posters.
Speaker 1: I burrowed into the covers, grateful for the way the
Speaker 1: world had shrunk, small enough to carry for once. I
Speaker 1: wanted only decisions. I could understand a hot shower, a
Speaker 1: clean shirt, coffee dark enough to cut. I texted a
Speaker 1: lawyer friend, practical, measured, no drama. Can you talk about sublets?
Speaker 1: She replied, sure when and I felt the smallest flicker
Speaker 1: of adrenaline, something close to relief. The Trivia crew group chat, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: was a maelstrom, Olivia and Dylan both silent, Anna and
Speaker 1: Alex arguing about blame, Sam leaving, rejoining, leaving again. I
Speaker 1: deleted the group, blocked no notifications, and stared at the
Speaker 1: blank space where all those years of banter and secrets
Speaker 1: had lived. My finger stilled over the phone. Relieved and stunned.
Speaker 1: I called my boss. I need a couple days, I said.
Speaker 1: She didn't ask for explanations, just told me, take what
Speaker 1: you need, let me know how I can help. Jess
Speaker 1: and I walked the city the next morning, hours before
Speaker 1: any one respectable was out. She didn't press for details,
Speaker 1: just let me push my feet over the cracked sidewalks,
Speaker 1: block after block, until my legs burned and my mind emptied.
Speaker 1: When I returned, changed and collected myself, I realized how
Speaker 1: small these practicalities were compared to the emotional crater left behind.
Speaker 1: The logistics would only be the start. The real work.
Speaker 1: The rebuilding would come later on my own time, But
Speaker 1: for now, at least the next steps were mine to choose.
Speaker 1: The thought steadied me. For the first time in nearly
Speaker 1: two months, I felt the burning for a decisive act,
Speaker 1: something physical, outward final. I walked to the lake, bags
Speaker 1: slung over my shoulder, sun beginning to crest over the
Speaker 1: water and scatter the surface with copper. The early city
Speaker 1: felt gentler, softened by the glow. Sitting hard on a
Speaker 1: bench overlooking the water, I pulled out my phone and
Speaker 1: scrolled through years of photos. Birthday cakes, whisky glasses, group shots,
Speaker 1: Dylan at a sketch table, Olivia mid laugh, Anna's head
Speaker 1: thrown back. They looked both close and impossibly distant. The
Speaker 1: life of a woman I barely mapped onto any more.
Speaker 1: With my thumb pressed steady, I deleted the trivia crew,
Speaker 1: group chat, and then one by one removed each photo
Speaker 1: that made my stomach twist. Every snap shot felt like
Speaker 1: letting go of something toxic but vital, a process so
Speaker 1: physical my hands ached. A single moment caught me last year.
Speaker 1: Dylan and me, our foreheads pressed together, the city burned
Speaker 1: gold behind us, both laughing into the same secret joke.
Speaker 1: I hesitated over that one, then pressed delete. There was
Speaker 1: no secret worth keeping any more, not like this. When
Speaker 1: it was done, I breathed, deep and stinging but free,
Speaker 1: the morning light thickened, casting new brightness over the water
Speaker 1: and the concrete and the battered skyline. I stood, shouldered
Speaker 1: my bag and let a small, hard breath out into
Speaker 1: the wind. I felt absolutely emptied out. But there, in
Speaker 1: the quiet stretch before the city filled up and the
Speaker 1: bustle began, I understood something with total clarity. Whatever came next,
Speaker 1: I could face it on my own terms. The wind
Speaker 1: along the lake front was colder than I expected, slicing
Speaker 1: straight through my sleeves as a reminder that despite the
Speaker 1: sunrise bleeding warmth over the water spring in Chicago was
Speaker 1: never as gentle as you wanted it to be. I
Speaker 1: sat for a while, just letting that cold gnaw at me,
Speaker 1: watching early joggers flicker by in threes, the city ringing
Speaker 1: awake behind my back. Somewhere in the mess of deleting,
Speaker 1: of dropping snapshots piece by piece into digital oblivion, something
Speaker 1: in me had broken loose, raw, unprotected, but suddenly unburdened
Speaker 1: by the silence that had pressed so hard for months.
Speaker 1: I let my phone rest in my palm. My hands
Speaker 1: were shaking, not with cold, but with a weird, nauseating
Speaker 1: adrenaline that comes after battle you've lost and won. At
Speaker 1: the same time, around me, the city kept moving. Dogs barked,
Speaker 1: buses side a group of rowers split the water into neat,
Speaker 1: clean lines. Every face was focussed and somewhere else no
Speaker 1: one seeing me at all, And I realized the world
Speaker 1: didn't stop, not even for this. My marriage could rupture
Speaker 1: my friendships explode, all the hidden knots of my life
Speaker 1: come undone, and the city would spin forward regardless, as
Speaker 1: if none of it had existed outside my skull. When
Speaker 1: at last I stood, my legs tingled with cold and
Speaker 1: lack of sleep. A couple blocks from the bednch, my
Speaker 1: phone buzzed Dylan again, this time not begging, but just asking,
Speaker 1: Can we talk? Just once? I owe you that. For
Speaker 1: a moment I considered never replying, but even that silence
Speaker 1: felt like a kind of permission he didn't deserve. I
Speaker 1: needed something, face to face, ugly, as it was a
Speaker 1: last word, not for him, but for myself. It was
Speaker 1: late afternoon before we met. I agreed to meet him
Speaker 1: at a park half way between our apartment and Jess's place,
Speaker 1: a spot with a little privacy out by the whale
Speaker 1: back benches where we'd once nursed beers and talked for
Speaker 1: hours about nothing. The air was brisk, every tree seemed starker,
Speaker 1: a geometry of branches striking the sky. He was already waiting,
Speaker 1: pacing slow circles in a patch of muddy grass, jacket zipped,
Speaker 1: dark eyes bruised by exhaustion, I walked toward him without slowing.
Speaker 1: He froze when he saw me. Every line in his
Speaker 1: face pulled taut em he started. I cut him off
Speaker 1: with a hand. Don't just stand still, He nodded, pressing
Speaker 1: his lips together, swallowing what was probably another apology. For
Speaker 1: a moment, neither of us spoke. I could feel the
Speaker 1: ache in my teeth, a pressure built from crushing things
Speaker 1: too long. Just tell me, I said, quietly. How much
Speaker 1: of this was about me? He looked away, George jutting
Speaker 1: it was not, No, I mean, it was about us,
Speaker 1: about the way things changed between us, how the world
Speaker 1: shrank down to the same circles, the same friends, the
Speaker 1: same routines. I felt small. I felt like all I
Speaker 1: was good at anymore was showing up and pretending we
Speaker 1: were still the couple every one thought we were. He paced, hands,
Speaker 1: jammed deep in his pockets, and fucking Olivia made it better.
Speaker 1: I said, not a question, just a flat recitation. He flinched.
Speaker 1: It distracted me, made me feel alive again, like I
Speaker 1: had a secret life, something that was just mine. I
Speaker 1: know how that sounds, I know it's garbage, but it happened,
Speaker 1: and I'm god, I'm so sorry. I kept waiting for
Speaker 1: a moment to end it, to tell you to pull out.
Speaker 1: But I was terrified every Monday, every message. I hated
Speaker 1: myself a little more. I tried not to let his
Speaker 1: words land, but they did. Anyway, Did you ever love her?
Speaker 1: He shook his head. No, I love you. I'll always.
Speaker 1: His voice cracked, and for a second his eyes pleaded
Speaker 1: childish and desperate. Don't, I said, don't ask for anything back.
Speaker 1: I needed you to say the ugly part out loud,
Speaker 1: that's all. I couldn't muster tears. I was far past that.
Speaker 1: He reached like he might touch my arm, then stopped himself.
Speaker 1: What happens to us now? I stared past him, at
Speaker 1: the duckweed pooling by the edge of the water. There
Speaker 1: is no us, not the way there was. You blew
Speaker 1: that up. I don't know how we figure out rent
Speaker 1: or friends, or who gets which books. That's logistics, but
Speaker 1: the rest, no, that's gone. He covered his face. I
Speaker 1: can't even ask you to forgive me, I said, good,
Speaker 1: because I can't, at least not now, maybe never. He nodded,
Speaker 1: shoulders hunched as if bracing for a blow. I took
Speaker 1: a step back, enough space for both of us to breathe.
Speaker 1: You need to tell the others the truth, all of them.
Speaker 1: No more secrets. I won't do your explaining for you,
Speaker 1: or keep your mess neat. I'm out. The rest is
Speaker 1: on you. He nodded again, eyes spilling hot, silent tears
Speaker 1: that I barely recognized. I'll take care of it, he said, softly.
Speaker 1: Whatever you need, I'll move out. He started to say more,
Speaker 1: but I shook my head. Don't text, don't call. I'll
Speaker 1: have my friend follow up about the apartment. I need air, Dilan,
Speaker 1: I need space to stop hating you. He let his
Speaker 1: hands drop to his sides for a moment, it seemed
Speaker 1: like he might collapse. Instead, he straightened slightly, like he
Speaker 1: could feel the last of whatever we were burning away
Speaker 1: in the slackening wind. I turned and walked, not looking back,
Speaker 1: as the muddy ground sucked at my shoes and the
Speaker 1: city unfolded in front of me, broad and impersonal, honest
Speaker 1: in a way that our marriage had never quite managed
Speaker 1: these last months. I walked until the numbness in my
Speaker 1: body faded into the blur of urban noise. My limbs
Speaker 1: felt heavy, but owned one block, then another, the sky
Speaker 1: overhead flattening with the approach of evening, my phone buzzed
Speaker 1: another apology from Olivia, ignored another group message, Anna posting
Speaker 1: let's just be kind, met with a torrent of silence.
Speaker 1: By the time I got back to jess S, I'd
Speaker 1: blocked Dylan, muted all the group threads, and marked the
Speaker 1: rest of my inbox unread. In the days that followed,
Speaker 1: everything practical began to grind into motion. Jess coordinated lawyers,
Speaker 1: E mails flew about apartment sublets. My old co workers
Speaker 1: sent discreet checkins. There was relief in minushi lists to
Speaker 1: make phone calls to arrange things to put into boxes.
Speaker 1: But the emotional fallout worked differently, unspooling in fits and starts.
Speaker 1: Anger at odd moments, tears in the grocery store for
Speaker 1: no reason at all, a shock of guilt when I
Speaker 1: caught myself humming an old trivia teemed chant while brushing
Speaker 1: my teeth. My world shrank and then began faintly to
Speaker 1: re expand in microscopic ways. Morning coffee with Jess, the
Speaker 1: corner baker's smile, when I paid in exact change, a
Speaker 1: stranger's dog rolling on its back in the park. Each
Speaker 1: moment was proof that I was in fact, still here,
Speaker 1: still functioning, finding my own gravity again, atom by battered atom.
Speaker 1: One evening, as I lay in Jess's spare bed, a
Speaker 1: message arrived from Anna. I'm so sorry for not telling
Speaker 1: you sooner. I was scared to lose you both. I
Speaker 1: hope one day we can talk. I stared at the
Speaker 1: words a long time, not forgiving, not responding, but recognizing
Speaker 1: the complicated truth that some betrayaled a shared complicit, that
Speaker 1: love and friendship and cowardice all live in the same rooms.
Speaker 1: Later that week, Dylan's final note arrived, short typed out.
Speaker 1: The apology now boiled down to something stark and quick,
Speaker 1: moving my stuff out next Tuesday. I'll leave my key.
Speaker 1: If you want me to handle bills or anything logistical,
Speaker 1: just text Jess. I hope some day you find better
Speaker 1: than what I was. I stood on the threshold of
Speaker 1: Jesse's living room, reading it over and over until the
Speaker 1: words lost all edges. I wanted to feel some final
Speaker 1: righteous anger, some grand closure, But all I felt was
Speaker 1: a diffuse emptiness, a space I'd have to learn to
Speaker 1: fill on my own. A week later, after Dylan confirmed
Speaker 1: he'd left for good, I finally went back to our
Speaker 1: my apartment. I walked through each room, fingers grazing the
Speaker 1: backs of chairs, the ridges of book spines, the chipped
Speaker 1: coffee mug, still bearing the ghost of his favorite tea.
Speaker 1: The whole space felt ghosted, spectral, a diorama of some
Speaker 1: one else's life, but also finally truly mine. I packed
Speaker 1: what I needed, placed the rest in boxes labeled for donation,
Speaker 1: and in a fit of automatic grace, dropped the old
Speaker 1: trivia napkin in the trash, worthless as proof, now just
Speaker 1: a relic of all the secrets that had poisoned the air.
Speaker 1: As I left, I took one last look at the
Speaker 1: mirror in the front hall, the place where Dylan and
Speaker 1: I had once checked our reflections before venturing out to
Speaker 1: some one else's party. What I saw now was just me,
Speaker 1: washed out and a little hollow, but standing unbroken outside
Speaker 1: the city. Twilight had deepened. I zipped my jacket, stepped
Speaker 1: into the spring chill, and shut the door softly behind me,
Speaker 1: not bothering to lock it. I didn't look back, and
Speaker 1: that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I
Speaker 1: will see you in the next one.