Speaker 1: It was still dark when Vanessa slid out of bits
Speaker 1: so carefully, so quietly, she barely rustled the sheets where
Speaker 1: my arm had rested. I woke to the mutic click
Speaker 1: of the bedroom door shutting. At first, I stayed still,
Speaker 1: listening for her soft tread on the howyboards, holding my
Speaker 1: breath away you do when you've been startled awake in
Speaker 1: the dead of night. But all I heard was the
Speaker 1: hush of the house, the furnace sigh, a distant or
Speaker 1: of a car some way down on our street. She'd
Speaker 1: left a note on my nightstent. That part stuck with me,
Speaker 1: not a text, not a whisper good bye in the
Speaker 1: half light, but posted in her even almost formal handwriting
Speaker 1: cycling group, see you by noon, Love You. I sat up,
Speaker 1: blinking cycling group. She'd only ever joked half heartedly about
Speaker 1: joining one of the neighborhoods morning where I cruised, nothing serious,
Speaker 1: just casual envy of the matching jerseys and catheen rituals
Speaker 1: before we'd head to our own thing at the tennis club.
Speaker 1: She'd never left before sunrise like this, not without looping
Speaker 1: me in, not without at least dressing noisily and asking
Speaker 1: if I was sure, Really, I didn't want to cobbload
Speaker 1: and brave the licro tribe. Her closet was open. One
Speaker 1: of the folding doors never closed, right a casualty of
Speaker 1: our last a Qui Assembly marathon. My eyes drifted there
Speaker 1: these stacks of tennis skirts, folded towels, bright sports brows.
Speaker 1: Her racket in its carrying case leaned against the far wall,
Speaker 1: shoes lined up under the low shelf. The cycling shorts
Speaker 1: went next to her running staff, but her tennis gear
Speaker 1: hadn't moved. Nothing about the closet looked as stout except
Speaker 1: for one missing sports tank. I rubbed my eyes, checked
Speaker 1: the clock, five thirty seven a m. This used to
Speaker 1: be our time, the one morning we both stayed in
Speaker 1: bed late let in the city around us rush off
Speaker 1: to farmers markets or dog parks while we dozed to
Speaker 1: read news ladder. If we were ambitious, made elaborate breakfast
Speaker 1: plans that rarely materialized. Saturday mornings were always sacred. Vanessa
Speaker 1: said that after a childhood of relentless extra curriculus, what
Speaker 1: she wanted most as an adult was a weekend that
Speaker 1: didn't feel scheduled down to the second. Usually we protected
Speaker 1: it even the tennis meet ups only started at nine thirty,
Speaker 1: with plenty of time for laziness beforehand. I lay there
Speaker 1: trying to decide if I was being waged to notice
Speaker 1: the detail about the closet. She could have worn her
Speaker 1: cycling stuff out under her coat. Maybe it was a
Speaker 1: new group, Maybe it was something she'd meant to tell me,
Speaker 1: just forgot to mention. I padded to the kitchen. No
Speaker 1: trace at breakfast, but a sticky note on the fridge,
Speaker 1: Coffee's set for you, love out early sea by noon.
Speaker 1: The second line is slighted endum, like she wanted to
Speaker 1: clarify or reassure beneath it her usual looping heart, the
Speaker 1: V at the center a little too sharp when I
Speaker 1: compared it to how she used to doodle my initials
Speaker 1: in hers when we first moved in three years back.
Speaker 1: I tried to shake it off, the feeling that I
Speaker 1: was searching for something more in the note. The odd
Speaker 1: time I made coffee, worked a pseudoku at the kitchen island,
Speaker 1: and by eight I'd managed to convince myself she just
Speaker 1: needed her space. Still sad ad it felt strange without her.
Speaker 1: By noon, as promise, I heard the front door key's
Speaker 1: rattling in the lock. I glanced up from my laptop,
Speaker 1: expecting the familiar greeting, the run down of rout and ride,
Speaker 1: a neighborhood gossip. But Vanessa slunk in head down, sung
Speaker 1: luss is still on despite the muted light outside. She
Speaker 1: dumped her bag by the door, shoved out of her jacket,
Speaker 1: and looked anywhere but at me. Hey backhurly. I tried
Speaker 1: for normal men, legs or toase. She gave a tired
Speaker 1: approximation of a smile, not quite meeting my eye. I
Speaker 1: watched her cross at the whole bathroom, the good shower,
Speaker 1: not the main one we usually used. She shut the door,
Speaker 1: twisted a lock, and the spray came on. She used
Speaker 1: to always ask me to hang out while she washed
Speaker 1: up after tennis, inviting me into the steamy, chaos plotting
Speaker 1: brunch menu. As comparing battle wounds to day, she didn't
Speaker 1: call out for advil or her favorite eucalyptus wash. I
Speaker 1: heard only silence, the strain of pipes, the rattle as
Speaker 1: she opened what sounded like the medicine cabin. She emerged
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes later, her hair pulled back, wet, face flushed
Speaker 1: and dropped onto the couch with a soft groan. I
Speaker 1: noticed she kept her nast thrown to her chest, arms
Speaker 1: wrapped around them. She thumb distractedly at her frown, flipped
Speaker 1: through magazine without seeming to read a word. I offered
Speaker 1: to make us eggs, but she shook her head, said
Speaker 1: she just wanted water. I brought her a bottle, set
Speaker 1: it on the end table, and she smiled tight over polight.
Speaker 1: Saturday's slow energy was gone. We moved through the kitchen
Speaker 1: and living room as if performing beside one another, not with.
Speaker 1: Vanessa kept glancing out the window, then back at her
Speaker 1: until the familiar ding of a text brot the QoI.
Speaker 1: I checked my own phone reflexively, not Then a new
Speaker 1: message blinked on Vanessa's lockscreen. She let it sit for
Speaker 1: a beat before responding, then tucked the device between the
Speaker 1: couch cushions. Minutes later, it mind buzzed Carley. I unlocked it,
Speaker 1: thumb hovering, expecting some tennis gossip or dinner planning for
Speaker 1: next week. No tennis today, Carle's message read, must be
Speaker 1: Carley's habit. She always added Moji's, this time a winking racket.
Speaker 1: I stare for a second I type back keep, meaning
Speaker 1: to try Vanessa's new cycling madness I didn't know ness
Speaker 1: finally joined she always bails on our rides, came Carley's reply,
Speaker 1: Then nothing more. I pocketed my phone, glanced over at Vanessa.
Speaker 1: She was scrolling through something with far more animation than
Speaker 1: she chruan since walking in. She caught my look and
Speaker 1: flashed a smile so wide and even it looked pasted on.
Speaker 1: I wanted to believe her. For years believing each other
Speaker 1: had never been work. If she said cycling, cycling, it was.
Speaker 1: But the note the closet, Carley's texts her withdrawal from
Speaker 1: our usual tennis crowdful. These tiny puzzle pe didn't fit.
Speaker 1: I thought about how she used to beg me to
Speaker 1: try her interests. Two merged hobbies, merged lives, marriage, everything
Speaker 1: but the laundry baskets. Why was the cycling group, if
Speaker 1: it even existed, it so emphatically not for me. For
Speaker 1: the rest of the afternoon, I couldn't shake the sense
Speaker 1: of a riddle and solve living between her and me
Speaker 1: in a quiet space where trust should have been six
Speaker 1: years of marriage, and in that moment I felt strangely
Speaker 1: like we were back at phase one. Two people circling,
Speaker 1: valiating gamesmanship, brewing beneath the surface. It's ridiculous, I thought,
Speaker 1: not your business to police. One Saturday morning. We're allowed
Speaker 1: private things, but all day Vanessa's conversation was a careful
Speaker 1: down to her answers, too brief, her attention drifting. When
Speaker 1: our friend Robert called to talk about an upcoming double date,
Speaker 1: Vanessa let it go to voicemailand later told me to
Speaker 1: set up whatever you want. Time wiped out. Her tone
Speaker 1: was neutral, but in a way I'd only hurt when
Speaker 1: she was bracing herself for what I couldn't say. I
Speaker 1: busied myself at Charles Playlists, an online chess match that
Speaker 1: ran much longer than usual because I kept miscalculating my
Speaker 1: next move. By the time the sunset, I'd replate every
Speaker 1: step of the morning so many times. It all felt
Speaker 1: faintly ridiculous, the way your mind looked back to her
Speaker 1: sticking point. After an argument that night, we went to
Speaker 1: bed wordlessly. Vanessa curled away from me, the faintest edge
Speaker 1: of them, familiar perfume lingering on her pillar. I watched
Speaker 1: the ceiling, listening to the evenness of her breath, wishing
Speaker 1: for the familiar warmth and ease. I had always counted
Speaker 1: on the nerves or doubt, crept in sleep when it
Speaker 1: came brought no relief. I dreamed in riddle, cycling past
Speaker 1: the doubled, back to the start to tennis rallies, where
Speaker 1: every bull mist a lins by inches. Vanessa's face blurred
Speaker 1: out of focus, always drifting out of reach. Our story
Speaker 1: didn't begin in confusion. If anything, we were built on
Speaker 1: finding each other in nausey, crowded spaces. I first met
Speaker 1: Vanessa to denver hack, then wedged between a sponsored table
Speaker 1: and a white word smudged with bad pseudo coat, both
Speaker 1: of us eyeing the other's approached to a silver bug.
Speaker 1: She dared me right then to solve it before she
Speaker 1: did a challenge, neither of us one, but which, as
Speaker 1: she later said, with that impishtilt of her chin, I
Speaker 1: was the clearer runner up. Crush, I like the wish.
Speaker 1: She argued, all quick logic, no mercy for some excuses,
Speaker 1: but always grinning, letting the sharpest land safely. We worked
Speaker 1: for different start ups, compared Techorus stories. Ended the evening
Speaker 1: on a curb outside Union Station, with the burrito and
Speaker 1: the mutual confession out of dating in tech feels like
Speaker 1: another unpaid gig. By spring, we'd merged Saturday tennis matches,
Speaker 1: rare Sunday summits, joined friend circles. Vanessa dragged me hiking
Speaker 1: in the fretills when I preferred city trails. I introduced
Speaker 1: her to the slow meditation of classic films, arguments about
Speaker 1: cubric versus Spielberg, which of us had more embarrassing exes?
Speaker 1: Who won at beer Palm. We started running together, only
Speaker 1: to discover we both hated running. Completed the boulder, try, eat, drink,
Speaker 1: eat again once, still claiming athleticism for the photos. Our
Speaker 1: marriage was built on collaboration, little rituals, sharing the New
Speaker 1: York Times crosswords, scolding each other for late night slack replies,
Speaker 1: put in groceries by who could find the most of
Speaker 1: Keokombocher weekends were mostly for us O our Motley Crewe
Speaker 1: tennis or doubles at the public, Court's prunch with Vanessa's
Speaker 1: local college buddies, or impromptu dinner parties where she held court.
Speaker 1: Vanessa was the social catalyst, always group texting, calling people
Speaker 1: found joking about running Denver's friend economy. I trailed behind,
Speaker 1: but lock that she never left any one out, not
Speaker 1: even the odd engineer who couldn't finish a conversation without
Speaker 1: glancing at server. Work kept as busy. Vanessa to saw
Speaker 1: S Company, where drama spark daily, me tucked into the
Speaker 1: diff side of a robotics ferrem. Her office burned bright
Speaker 1: and fast, people moving up or burning up. When she
Speaker 1: started coming home heavier quiet. I tried harder, joked, plan vacations,
Speaker 1: reached out to her friends as much as my own.
Speaker 1: We'd promised after her last bad product launch and my
Speaker 1: new team lead roll that we'd pick up the load
Speaker 1: for each other. No pride allowed. Family was a background track.
Speaker 1: Her folks left twenty minutes across town, but we seldom
Speaker 1: visited in ever much knee, both of us allergic to
Speaker 1: family drama, ChIL free by design. We loved our friends kids,
Speaker 1: but babies had rarely just enough to be invited to
Speaker 1: both days and escape before meltown hour. Vanessa sometimes with
Speaker 1: Drew Burron behind a book a podcast, snapping at me
Speaker 1: to stop with fixing her moods. I felt the sting
Speaker 1: of being left before after a string of shallow post
Speaker 1: college relationships in one near marriage, the vaporized weeks before
Speaker 1: the date. I sometimes have vernalyzed. Vanessa sometimes ran to privacy.
Speaker 1: For year, we survived this meeting halfway forgiving each other's
Speaker 1: weak moments, stoock in the fire every time the routine
Speaker 1: got too thick. Lately, she was restless, her job winding
Speaker 1: her tight. She had admitted to crying in work bathrooms,
Speaker 1: hating her boss, killed for not grinding harder, then gild
Speaker 1: again for letting worker in her weekends. Our promise was mutual.
Speaker 1: If it gets too much, speak up, don't vanish, don't
Speaker 1: go it alone. Yet here we were on this Saturday,
Speaker 1: Vanessica Cundon's silence after a supposed cycling may mind mapping
Speaker 1: the cracks I couldn't explain. Sunday morning, I waited for
Speaker 1: her to suggest brunch or hike anything. Instead, she seen content,
Speaker 1: tinker with laundry, scroll her phone, anser basic work emails.
Speaker 1: That evening, I texted dinner plans to both our groups.
Speaker 1: She vetoed both too, tired, Babe rainshack. During these stretches
Speaker 1: of quiet, I pictured her at that cycling group, the
Speaker 1: one I had never seen, never been invited to, never
Speaker 1: even glimpsed on her calendar. I wondered if there was
Speaker 1: some cord between us coming untied, or if I was
Speaker 1: just haunted by the ghosts of old failures, spinning a
Speaker 1: story from shadows. But Vanessa's eyes, when I caught them,
Speaker 1: seemed shuddered in a way I hadn't felt in all
Speaker 1: our years. The next weekend, she announced casually, too casually,
Speaker 1: that she'd be up early again. Cycling girls were starting earlier,
Speaker 1: getting the jump on the morning heat, she said. Lacing
Speaker 1: her shoes at the door, she fiddled with her phone,
Speaker 1: face illuminated by some last minute group chat. Don't wait up,
Speaker 1: I might get coffee after need a few hours just
Speaker 1: for me, O K, I hesitated, I could join. They
Speaker 1: could a double date on wheels. She paused, then laughed,
Speaker 1: Trust me, babe, this crew has hardcore, nothing but stravedrama
Speaker 1: and buck jargon. You'd last ten minutes. She was still
Speaker 1: laughing when she left, but the sound grated, brittle edged
Speaker 1: as her car faded down the street. I registered how
Speaker 1: she'd stop encouraging me to say yes altogether. When she returned,
Speaker 1: she did not seem exhausted, just brighter. She sang in
Speaker 1: a shower, then came out in a silk robe and
Speaker 1: scull through messages, her feet tapping an impatient rhythm against
Speaker 1: the hardwood floor. I watched as she shifted through her
Speaker 1: social account's locking posts, uc having photos, tagging me on
Speaker 1: an old Fourth of July group shot from three years ago.
Speaker 1: In a move that made no sense, she avoided the
Speaker 1: recent tennis club brunch photo altogether. Carly texted when as
Speaker 1: nest coming back to doubles, the court needs its bottomless
Speaker 1: Moses queen with a string of emoji, the stun of
Speaker 1: old comfort now just slightly out of reach, I thumbed back,
Speaker 1: maybe next weekend, thinking hard it was that none of
Speaker 1: Vanessa's less cycling friends overlapped with our regulars. That night,
Speaker 1: as she declared herself completely spent and turned down and
Speaker 1: by for Marguerita's with Carley and Jess, I found her
Speaker 1: not dozen on the couch, but deeply moused in her
Speaker 1: Poham face light with the glow occasionally should smiled to herself,
Speaker 1: type lock the screen, then unlock it to start again.
Speaker 1: I dipped into the laundry basket, out of habit. Vanessa's
Speaker 1: cycling shoults at the top seemed oddly crisp. Her tank,
Speaker 1: a knee on turquoise was pristine. Pulling out the shoes,
Speaker 1: I noticed the soules were spotless, as if they'd never
Speaker 1: seen the outside. The helmet's tag was still attached, no
Speaker 1: sweat marks on the liner. I paused, pressing my nose
Speaker 1: to her sleeve. A faint, fragrant note, suddle, floral and new.
Speaker 1: It's nothing. I told myself, people buy new fragrances. But
Speaker 1: this didn't match her usual nilla and cidrus. For someone
Speaker 1: notorious for blending sense and never content with a single bottle,
Speaker 1: the constancy of this new note on the day she
Speaker 1: cycled stood out. A few days later, at lunch with Robert,
Speaker 1: I brought it up innociously. Have you ever seen Vanessa
Speaker 1: out with one of those downtown cycling groups. Robert tilted
Speaker 1: his head. Honestly doesn't ring a bell. She usually invents
Speaker 1: excuses to skip the morning ride's Carly Hoss says she
Speaker 1: hates how mitt harmore than life itself. They thought Ness
Speaker 1: mostly stuck to tennis on weekends. I nodded, careful not
Speaker 1: to let on anything more, but my mind pained back
Speaker 1: to the untouched cycling gear, the unused water bottle on
Speaker 1: the counter of the full bottle of gate read in
Speaker 1: the fridge two days after her epichride. Vanessa had always
Speaker 1: been meticulous about refilling and washing her bottles. Leaving one
Speaker 1: full was unlike her that night when she said she
Speaker 1: was headed out early and managed, are you trying any
Speaker 1: new routes? Maybe I can map them for you, help
Speaker 1: plan the most scenic eater. Half joking but watching closely,
Speaker 1: she stiffened, no need ethan, It's it's just my thing.
Speaker 1: O Ka, just let me have this. No smile, no
Speaker 1: self deprecating banterer. Her voice was alma sharp, oddly final.
Speaker 1: That week, I noticed new small bearers falling into place.
Speaker 1: Vanessa was careful with her phone, turning the screen downward,
Speaker 1: slipping out to the whlwitch pick up calls. One evening,
Speaker 1: how laptop's calendar notification popped up for a group ride
Speaker 1: at the time, she told me she had a one
Speaker 1: on one with her bus. When I glanced over, she
Speaker 1: closed the windows so quickly the cusa left a ghost
Speaker 1: image on the screen. Social media postscrouse barse. She locked
Speaker 1: down Instagram so only a subset of friends could see
Speaker 1: anything recent. For practice, shed marked influencers for just a
Speaker 1: month before I got tagged only on old throwback pictures,
Speaker 1: never knew group shots. It made me feel, in a
Speaker 1: strange digital way, like I'd been given and edited, highly
Speaker 1: real of my own marriage. I tried not to keep score,
Speaker 1: so many years of therapy and marriage workshops tell you
Speaker 1: not to. Still, Vanessa's accounts showed no signs of the
Speaker 1: cycling group, no equipment shots, no Sunrise visas, none of
Speaker 1: her famous sweaty, grimacing selfies. Bank transactions began to puzzle me.
Speaker 1: I'd always been the budget nerd of the pair, but
Speaker 1: we shared them on board and the odds breadsheet. Why
Speaker 1: One morning I noticed a string of entries and overpriced
Speaker 1: coffee shop across town. One neither of us frequented a
Speaker 1: pair of charges On Saturday mornings, there was a florist
Speaker 1: on colfax which was near and of Vemmo payment labeled supplies.
Speaker 1: I clicked through the cender a profile pick of a
Speaker 1: guy songdusses and a mountain tag. No mutual friends, no clues.
Speaker 1: The next Sunday, my restlessness boiled over. I checked Vaness's
Speaker 1: bick in the Garoche bow ties slightly deflated, the chain
Speaker 1: looking dry, no new scuff marks or dirt. Her cycling
Speaker 1: shoes still had that weird plastic odor to a tread sharp.
Speaker 1: I found her helmet in the storage bin, the inside
Speaker 1: band and touched. There was no sign she'd been anywhere
Speaker 1: nearer morning Peloton on a muddy spring trail. That night,
Speaker 1: as I packed a lunch for myself, Vanessa came in
Speaker 1: radiant from a shower. Her raptite. I tried one more time,
Speaker 1: which trail did you guys do? I saw those Instagram's
Speaker 1: stories from the south Platte looked brutal. She hesitated just
Speaker 1: long enough for me to notice. On Sloan's Lake, mostly flat,
Speaker 1: but we pushed hard. Strawba says I did sixteen miles.
Speaker 1: Her phone was in her hand, but she she didn't
Speaker 1: offer to show me her ARP history, as she had
Speaker 1: once done for every jog. I nodded, hiding my skepticism.
Speaker 1: I could point out the contradictions, the full water bottle,
Speaker 1: the dry chain, her quickness to change topics, the digital
Speaker 1: bread combs, the mysterious charges. But whenever I got close,
Speaker 1: some old wind flared. I remembered how Vanessa recoiled from accusations,
Speaker 1: always claiming I was inventing problems. That week, our routines
Speaker 1: continued decaying in small but steady increments. Sunday evenings, once
Speaker 1: spent prepping meals or mapping out, the week passed in
Speaker 1: lonely silence, Vanessa ducking out for errands that went undescribed.
Speaker 1: She stopped joining friend Groupfred's, replying only to side messages.
Speaker 1: The tennis called joke slowed to trickle. One night, I
Speaker 1: suggested we watched the last season of The Expanse, one
Speaker 1: of our comfort shows, but Vaness claimed she was behind,
Speaker 1: so I ended up watching alone. Her attention now occurred
Speaker 1: only for her phone, never for me. I tried resentering
Speaker 1: myself with work, but I found myself distracted, jumping whenever
Speaker 1: a message pinned on Slack, scanning my fees for any
Speaker 1: sign of what Vanessa was doing, my cove quality slept,
Speaker 1: my team lead ust if I was taking care of herself,
Speaker 1: using the overbright tech concerned tone that always felt more
Speaker 1: algorithmic than real. Yet some part of me wanted to
Speaker 1: dismiss it all. Maybe Vanessa really just needed space. Work
Speaker 1: was intense, her anxiety was up, and I'd always struggled
Speaker 1: with giving her privacy. But even as I repeated this.
Speaker 1: The evidence stacked up. Two weekends later, I made a comment,
Speaker 1: almost accidentally about how the feign cherry quickly was shockingly scenic.
Speaker 1: Thisier then offered a blayful as possible to join if
Speaker 1: her crew wouldn't mind. Vanessa, normally quick to welcome me
Speaker 1: to anything, snapped, why do you have to intrude on this, Ethan,
Speaker 1: can't I have one thing that's just mine? She tossed
Speaker 1: her jim back on to the couch a froze, momentarily
Speaker 1: embarrassed for even suggesting it. She saw me blanche. Her
Speaker 1: shoulders fell and she exhaled shakily. Sorry, I just get overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: sometimes said silly. It's not silly, I said, quietly, It's
Speaker 1: just you're usually the one inviting me in. Her face
Speaker 1: twisted as she shuffled to the bedroom, closing the door
Speaker 1: behind her, muffling her next words. I stood there for
Speaker 1: a long minute, the neat geometry of her neat domestic
Speaker 1: cabot's feeling as foreign at a stringer's house. I wound
Speaker 1: up doing the grocery run solo the next morning. At
Speaker 1: check out, the floors charged from her account, niged at me.
Speaker 1: It would have been nice in another life to have
Speaker 1: her bring home flowers, just because when I came home
Speaker 1: she was on a call, her lofter lower than usual.
Speaker 1: She ended the conversation. As I entered the room, the
Speaker 1: phone flipped onto its face. Monday, at lunch, I decided
Speaker 1: to get direct. I called Carley let the conversation when
Speaker 1: it's way to cycling in tennis. Then asked, who's leading
Speaker 1: the group these days? Ness never says much about them,
Speaker 1: Carley paused, Honestly, she never does come out with us.
Speaker 1: The one time she tried the group ride, she baked
Speaker 1: off at the last minute. Remember said she'd rather brunch
Speaker 1: than ride in a pack, claim she hated like a woodgi's.
Speaker 1: Her giggle was familiar, only a little forced. I figured
Speaker 1: you two had your own thing going on, hiere, I managed,
Speaker 1: guess we do. I felt my stomach twist. That only
Speaker 1: thing felt more like a wall than a tie. Between
Speaker 1: those conversations with Colly and Robert, Patton established herself none
Speaker 1: of our mutual friends knew about the second group, just
Speaker 1: as they didn't see her on the weekend right, nor
Speaker 1: had she shown up to the usual tennis matches she
Speaker 1: used to beg me to join on social she was
Speaker 1: nowhere to be found in other people's candidates. The following Saturday,
Speaker 1: I got up early, the way I used to for
Speaker 1: our own tennis lessons. Instead of heading to the courts,
Speaker 1: I waited in the kitchen. Vanessa came out, her face
Speaker 1: already set for battle, cycling shorts and jacket, pristine as
Speaker 1: ever beg ride to day, I asked, She shrouded, dumping
Speaker 1: her back by the door. I don't wait up, she said,
Speaker 1: not looking at me. I watched her leave, tracked her
Speaker 1: car down the block. My hands aged to follow, but
Speaker 1: I stayed rooted, fixated on the impulsibility of it, all,
Speaker 1: the gay at the schedule, the sudden secrecy. Hours later,
Speaker 1: as usual, she returned bee line for the shower, offer
Speaker 1: nothing but attired I'm dead, then faded back into the couch.
Speaker 1: By now, the weekends felt like a stage set for
Speaker 1: a play. I'd never auditioned for a drama in which
Speaker 1: I was the only one who didn't know the script.
Speaker 1: Over breakfast the following day, I decided to Bush, if
Speaker 1: you want, I could map a new route for you,
Speaker 1: something shady and flat, for next week. I kept my smile, casual.
Speaker 1: She blinked, then gathered her hair into opponent hail. Honestly, Ethan,
Speaker 1: I wish you'd let me do this my way. I
Speaker 1: need something for my own head. She glanced out the window.
Speaker 1: You don't have to solve everything, I could have pointed out.
Speaker 1: The love language of our marriage had always been solutions, invitations,
Speaker 1: the merging of all things. But as hollowed my protest
Speaker 1: at work, my focus splintered. Vanessa's phone calls increased, stepping
Speaker 1: out of earshot, texting in rapid secret bursts. Even her
Speaker 1: work calendar, always clotted but transparent, grew vague. Out of
Speaker 1: office a personal time, I started checking our shared account
Speaker 1: more often. Another coffee shop charge. Two separate Vemo payments
Speaker 1: due Lucas are labeled simply supplies and a note they
Speaker 1: weren't much twenty thirty dollars, but the fact of them
Speaker 1: brew further unknees. I opened the browser on her laptop
Speaker 1: that evening, looking for something anything. Her tabs were as usual,
Speaker 1: a mess, news slack, a half completed Amazon order, a
Speaker 1: document titled RYE group rules. I clicked on that one.
Speaker 1: It was blank, but for a few bullet points respect privacy,
Speaker 1: no group tax, no public photos, no guess unless cleared
Speaker 1: with admin. The sloppiness knacked at me, but I had
Speaker 1: no proof, only a tightness in my chest and yawning jealousy.
Speaker 1: I despised him myself. That week, Vernessa began declining Sunday
Speaker 1: plans completely. No brunches, no hikes, not even her favorite
Speaker 1: lazy coffee couch of ritual. By eleven m she'd be
Speaker 1: asleep on the living room floor, surrounded by Sunday's endless
Speaker 1: folded laundry, a tableau that once would have gotten her
Speaker 1: to laugh, now just the back view of someone shutting
Speaker 1: out the world. Friend invitations went and acknowledged. I started
Speaker 1: getting private messages. Everything cool with Nests. She's dodging my calls.
Speaker 1: I told them she was swamped. It's just work, I said,
Speaker 1: or Chabin's back. I found myself lying as automatically as
Speaker 1: she did. I called Robert the Thursday, pretending to need
Speaker 1: help with the girl for our annual block party. As
Speaker 1: we wrapped up, he ventured so random. But last weekend
Speaker 1: I thought I saw Vaness in irreunion station. She was
Speaker 1: talking to some dude. Looked like a work thing. Wasn't
Speaker 1: sure if I should say HI, figured she was on
Speaker 1: a cycling break or whatever. My hand froze on the spatchelor.
Speaker 1: She said she was outriding the platrail with her group,
Speaker 1: I managed. Robert sounded surprised. Oh, pretty sure. I spotted
Speaker 1: her near the First Avenue coffee place, not too far
Speaker 1: from the station. Maybe she was grabbing a snack. I
Speaker 1: kept my tone light. Good bee, she's been hitting up
Speaker 1: new places lately. After the call, I sank down onto
Speaker 1: the back porch steps, the weight of every dangle in contradiction,
Speaker 1: pressing at my lungs. Later, as we tied it up
Speaker 1: after a rare jointed dinner, vanesz To stripped the table worthlessly,
Speaker 1: stacking plates, avoiding my gaze. I said, Rob mentioned seeing
Speaker 1: you down on last weekend. Was that after the rye?
Speaker 1: Vanessa stiffened slightly, hands frozen above the sink. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: group ended near downtown. I wanted a nice coffee. The
Speaker 1: words tumbled at too fast, her gaze locked on the faucet.
Speaker 1: I pressed gently, pretty early, for coffee, isn't it? She smiled, brittle.
Speaker 1: You know my keaffine obsession. It was hot, needed the energy.
Speaker 1: I nodded, forcing myself not to ask further. Questions, even
Speaker 1: as every inch of me screamed at the incongruity. I
Speaker 1: wondered if Vanessa was consciously lying, or if the reflex
Speaker 1: had become muscle memory. The pattern repeated. Friday night, she
Speaker 1: went to bed earth we're charging for Saturday. I lay awake,
Speaker 1: cycling through theories, work, stress, new friends. The private cursis
Speaker 1: the obvious one in a fair hovet like the flavory
Speaker 1: can't quite name, just present enough to poison all the rest.
Speaker 1: The house filled with tiny dissonances. Her old books vanished
Speaker 1: from the coffee table, replaced by new titles she never discussed.
Speaker 1: Her playlist shifted tom familiar acts, songs about longing, about silence.
Speaker 1: She stopped listening to a favorite on wine podcast, the
Speaker 1: one about rescue animals. We used to joke was a
Speaker 1: couples therapy for petless note. When she did talk, it
Speaker 1: was about surface things, recipes, party logistics, what new plant
Speaker 1: might outlive our string of murdered succulents. Every attempt at
Speaker 1: vulnerability slid off an invisible shell. One day, she was
Speaker 1: late coming home, blaming a work emergency. An hour later,
Speaker 1: her calendar showed to bike meet up. I searched the
Speaker 1: group tag on Facebook, but found nothing. Every avenue for
Speaker 1: proofelt like it ended in a window where paque chatdowed
Speaker 1: with my own reflections staring back. I toyed with picking
Speaker 1: a fight, just to break the tension, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: risk the accusation being all in my head. I'd been
Speaker 1: burned before by paranoid projections, and I could hear my
Speaker 1: therapist ole voice cautioning me, not everything is about you.
Speaker 1: Not every cloud means rain. Still, when Vanessa did finally
Speaker 1: return that evening, she spoke to me from the Haley
Speaker 1: instead of sinking next to me on the couch. I'm
Speaker 1: wiped in a shower, made crash early, Okay, I hesitated.
Speaker 1: You want company or a foot rop? You look like
Speaker 1: you could use one, She almost smiled, almost maybe later, honorable,
Speaker 1: just brain fried. Later, I thought there wasn't going to
Speaker 1: be a lader. There was only ever. Now, out of options,
Speaker 1: I tried dropping into a suppose whirl. Saturday morning, I
Speaker 1: woke first telling her truthfully that I had narrowly culled
Speaker 1: about the sprint, then made an elaborate shure of prepping
Speaker 1: coffee in the kitchen. Then Neess appeared in already in
Speaker 1: her cycling get up tight windbrickers at helmet hanging from
Speaker 1: her fingers. Hope your call goes fast. Same bride's safe,
Speaker 1: I said, She nodded, didn't hug me. After a car
Speaker 1: pulled away, I counted a sixty, then jobbed to the garage,
Speaker 1: opened her trunk. No byke incided, just a yoga mat
Speaker 1: and tennis racket. I returned to the living room, stirring
Speaker 1: at her cycling shoes by the door, lumpy clean, the
Speaker 1: liner's sharp. Why. I returned to the bank's statements, this
Speaker 1: time printing out every transaction over the last six weeks,
Speaker 1: all mapped to roughly the same two venues, the distant
Speaker 1: coffee shop and the separate charge at the florest de
Speaker 1: Venmos supplies se Lucasar send up a flare. Unable to focus,
Speaker 1: I circled every detail on the print out, highlighting the
Speaker 1: recurring payment time. I phoned Carley, hoping for some slip
Speaker 1: from her. It is Vanessa ever mention you riding, butters,
Speaker 1: she's all in on the bike life now, Carly laughed, Ha,
Speaker 1: she's never at any group rides. Maybe she goes solo.
Speaker 1: At least she's busy. Miss Jets at her, I miss
Speaker 1: your brunch game. I let her sign off, shaken, I
Speaker 1: stared at the receipts, wondering if I'd crossed some boundary
Speaker 1: between skepticism and full blown obsession. Back in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: Vanessa's water bottle filled the night before hadn't been used,
Speaker 1: the level hadn't shifted, her helmet set beside. It was
Speaker 1: as immaculate as ever. And yet when she returned that day,
Speaker 1: cheeks flush, she said, we push so hard to day
Speaker 1: I'm dead. I want to task. Where's your town line?
Speaker 1: Wire your hands clean? How does the tire troad on
Speaker 1: your bike look new? But I played along, because that's
Speaker 1: what you do when you're almost sure but not quite.
Speaker 1: Saturday and I followed. Our mutual friend Robert brought up
Speaker 1: another chance, siding the sil Vanessa downtone again. As she
Speaker 1: was talking to some guy looked heated. She didn't see me.
Speaker 1: I figured you would both at for lunch or something.
Speaker 1: He waved it away, but I heard him. I nodded,
Speaker 1: forced to laugh. Probably just coffee, I said, Inside my
Speaker 1: body felt hollow, A minor note ringing some way low
Speaker 1: and constant. They're mutual friends, the ones who'd always included
Speaker 1: us as a unit, had started texting only me never
Speaker 1: a year inness, our Sunday routines dissolved. Vanessa rose early,
Speaker 1: slept the afternoon, and by evening was quick to bail
Speaker 1: on me in every way but logistics. She left me
Speaker 1: grocery lists, paid her share of the bills, but she
Speaker 1: didn't touch me, didn't confide, didn't invite. The following Wednesday,
Speaker 1: with my nerves shot and nothing working in coder in life,
Speaker 1: I brewed a stronger than usual coffee and found myself
Speaker 1: staring at the kitchen wall. I resolved to test our
Speaker 1: next right story. That Friday, I searched famous Denver cycling
Speaker 1: ruts and mentioned off hand at dinner saw somebody raving
Speaker 1: about the South Platte Loop. He'd love it. Vanessa snapped,
Speaker 1: you're obsessing. Please just let me have this. You never
Speaker 1: gave a shit about cycling before. I don't get why
Speaker 1: it's suddenly so interesting. I flinched at her anger. Rare's sharp.
Speaker 1: I'm just interested in you ness, that's all. She bit
Speaker 1: her lip, looked away. I know. I'm sorry. It's just
Speaker 1: my stuff and handing it. Late that night, she stayed
Speaker 1: up working, or so she said, I saw the light
Speaker 1: from her phone shimmering beneath the crack in the bedroom door,
Speaker 1: her feet tapping in a nervous staccato. For the first
Speaker 1: time since we met, I felt like a stranger in
Speaker 1: my own home, a witness to performance whose pot I'd
Speaker 1: never consented to. The pressure built our Daetanta then Britalies.
Speaker 1: I stopped in a shating watched Vanessa through the careful
Speaker 1: saf curiosity. If someone cataloging the final days of an
Speaker 1: endangered thing beautiful, if he didn't look too close aching
Speaker 1: if he did. I didn't know how long I could
Speaker 1: live like that. But each new detailed, every empty lie,
Speaker 1: every concealed transaction, etched deep of the question I refused
Speaker 1: to answer, What exactly was she hiding? And who, if
Speaker 1: not me, was she bringing into this contained, quiet, invisible ritual.
Speaker 1: The following Saturday, I tried an experiment, not sneaky, not
Speaker 1: even plan, just pure reaction to the erosion between us.
Speaker 1: Vanessa padded quietly into the kitchen at dawn, already zipped
Speaker 1: into that same coral and black cycling jacket. I poured
Speaker 1: my own cup beside her, forcing us man neither was
Speaker 1: believed in Hey, I said a bit too lightly. Need
Speaker 1: your tie pump. Mine's actually working again. If you want
Speaker 1: to swap. She looked up, startled, mug in hand. That's okay,
Speaker 1: she said, instantly guarded. We co ordinated in the corpole.
Speaker 1: It's easy if I just take what they're used to.
Speaker 1: Her voice was chirpy, overdone. I reached for a banana,
Speaker 1: peeling it as if it were a tiny olive branch.
Speaker 1: Sounds efficient. You shore there, your speed, I feel like
Speaker 1: you'd smoke anyone out there. I made my tone teasing,
Speaker 1: but there was a catch in it. One she caught
Speaker 1: because her hand paw was over her protein bar. She
Speaker 1: tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. It's
Speaker 1: not a race, it's just a thing good for anxiety anyway,
Speaker 1: got to run a traffics annoying if you're late. She
Speaker 1: slung her back over her shoulder, light not weighed down
Speaker 1: by much of anything from the look of it, and
Speaker 1: nudged a screen door open with her toe. I followed
Speaker 1: her outside, the chilly air, waking me up in a way.
Speaker 1: No caffine. Could hey want to do ramen? Tonight? Rain
Speaker 1: supposed to come in, I offered, hoping to draw even
Speaker 1: the single thurdive routine back through a tangled mess. She
Speaker 1: hesitated back, half turned. Her face was calm, unreadable in
Speaker 1: the blue pree down light. Maybe, she said, after a
Speaker 1: long moment, I'll let you know. Then she ducked into
Speaker 1: her car, not the old hatchback with the roof racks,
Speaker 1: but her work, said an the one that had never
Speaker 1: once hauled a muddy tire or a jam gearshift. I
Speaker 1: waited to hear anything a casual could buy a last
Speaker 1: minute detail. Instead, I listened to the engine's daughter into
Speaker 1: the street, dissolving quietly into the neighborhood's morning hush. Something
Speaker 1: in the way she left the day, how completely she
Speaker 1: shut the door behind her, feltl like the smallest, sharpest cut.
Speaker 1: She was gone for nearly four hours. I filled the
Speaker 1: time badly, half assinghaw was playing for useless de bigging
Speaker 1: in my mind, glancing compulsively at the empty driveway. Aloham
Speaker 1: ran through me, nervous and steady. By noon, Vanessa returned
Speaker 1: in the same pristine gear, no sweat at the collar,
Speaker 1: no high color in her cheeks, just out of a
Speaker 1: careful slump of her shoulders as she unlocked the door
Speaker 1: and dropped her back straight into the bedroom. A moment later,
Speaker 1: I heard the dolph out of her closet door. I
Speaker 1: drifted past, pausing at our share bathroom. I caught her
Speaker 1: reflection in the mirror. She saw me, half smiled. How'd
Speaker 1: I go? I asked, wondering if maybe, just maybe she'd
Speaker 1: offer even a scrap of real detail. She turned, pulling
Speaker 1: the hair tie from her pony tail, a flat tie
Speaker 1: half way out. Spent most of it at a cafe
Speaker 1: with the others griping lame. Honestly, it was so breezy,
Speaker 1: so perfectly rehearsed. I wondered if she practiced in the
Speaker 1: car on the way home. I tried to keep my
Speaker 1: voice mild. Tell Fluck, you want lunch or just coffee,
Speaker 1: I offered, desperate for a shared activity, for routine, to
Speaker 1: patch over suspicion. She gave a quick shake of her head.
Speaker 1: Just need a shower. Didn't get as much sweating as
Speaker 1: I hoped, but I'm gross. I watched her long enough
Speaker 1: to catch the downtown it corners of her eyes, the
Speaker 1: way she clenched her jaw. Then I retreated, and she
Speaker 1: almost automatically closed the door behind me, not slamming, just deliberate.
Speaker 1: For the rest of that afternoon, she looped for routines
Speaker 1: I barely recognized nappings, crawling, texting, alternating between long silences
Speaker 1: and sudden, too loud bursts of laughter when she found
Speaker 1: something amusing online. She declined all my low effort invitations,
Speaker 1: even the ones she normally leap at, throning out for
Speaker 1: a mystery flavor of ice cream or making snarky commentary
Speaker 1: at the thrift store. Then night, when she thought I
Speaker 1: was asleep, she flaked the bedroom ly on, propped herself
Speaker 1: up in bed, and texted on her phone for half
Speaker 1: an hour's off little pins and taps. Her body curled
Speaker 1: into herself like a secret she wasn't sure she could keep.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Sunday, A walked into the garage while
Speaker 1: she was still asleep. I told myself this was a
Speaker 1: simple check, just to ease my mind. Her bike, which
Speaker 1: should have been covered with a fine layer of trail dust,
Speaker 1: was spotless. Even the gears looked barely touched. The front
Speaker 1: tire when I squeezed it was soft, maybe twenty ps.
Speaker 1: I had best to know one is safe for a
Speaker 1: hilly ride. Her helmet was stacked next to her pair
Speaker 1: of gardening gloves, no sweat, no new scratches, and the
Speaker 1: wicking line are still a blinding white. I pulled open
Speaker 1: her cycling bag, hot pounding in a way that embarrassed me.
Speaker 1: Inside were energy chews, a tube of sunscreen, unopened electrodes
Speaker 1: for a fitness tracker. She'd never paid a handful of
Speaker 1: needy packed hand wipes with seals unbroken. I closed everything
Speaker 1: up exactly as I'd found it, then hovered their a
Speaker 1: moment under the cold flicker of the garage light, half
Speaker 1: wishing i'd found motto spent granola wrapper, anything to make
Speaker 1: her story pausible. Later, when she rose and drifted into
Speaker 1: the kitchen, I asked, by still giving you trouble? Arrs
Speaker 1: looked a little low. I tried to keep it playful.
Speaker 1: She bristled, you didn't have to check. I'll take care
Speaker 1: of it. It's really not a big deal. She started
Speaker 1: grinding coffee, the shriek of beans a wall that made
Speaker 1: further questions impossible. Midweek, Carly texted me ness hasn't called.
Speaker 1: She okay? She miss Stuff's birthday too. Hope works not
Speaker 1: melting her brain allow, And at lunch that day, I
Speaker 1: weighed the balance of worry and anger. Suspicion twisted in me,
Speaker 1: now more persistent, tangible ache. I thought about telling Carley
Speaker 1: or Robert everything rolling through my brain, but every time
Speaker 1: I started to type, shame stopped me. What if I
Speaker 1: was wrong? What if Vanessa was simply finally staking up
Speaker 1: ground for herself, something she had only dreamed of in
Speaker 1: earlier years, when work in friendships and a constant dance
Speaker 1: of obligations left her depleted. But the next bank statement
Speaker 1: told its own story. Three purchases at the same boutique
Speaker 1: forests and never brought home more payments to Lucasar, the
Speaker 1: unfamiliar man on Vemmo, The payments skircheons were cheerfully vague extras.
Speaker 1: The group's stuff coffee run. I memorized the name, spinning
Speaker 1: it on my tongue when I was alone. I've reached
Speaker 1: out to Collie again, probing gently about new faces in
Speaker 1: Vanessa's orbit. She only wrote you two doing okay? Nessa's
Speaker 1: worthly distant? Is she mad at me? Lo? All hope not?
Speaker 1: Are drafted and deleted a dozen honest replies. Finally I
Speaker 1: just sent were fine, She's just stress, probably nothing, probably nothing,
Speaker 1: but even to my own ears. It sounded like a
Speaker 1: rehearsal for a conversation I'd never wanted to have. Thursday,
Speaker 1: Venessa came home late here, wind wept, cheeks written not
Speaker 1: from exercise but from the march wind. She kicked her
Speaker 1: shoes off at the door, muttered something about traffic was hell,
Speaker 1: and disappeared into the den. I waited, expecting her to
Speaker 1: pop back out for dinner or to share office gossip,
Speaker 1: but the door stay hut. When I finally entered, she
Speaker 1: was watching videos on her phone, had phones in, eye shining,
Speaker 1: but not a glint from me. Friday night, as we
Speaker 1: sat across from each other eating patai in silence, I
Speaker 1: noticed her hand fidgeting on her phone. Big ride again tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I prompted. Her eyes darted up, then away. Yeah, supposedly,
Speaker 1: not sure if I'll go, might just skip and sleep in.
Speaker 1: It was almost a peace offering. I nodded, grunting in
Speaker 1: what I hope sounded supportive. Cool. If you want company,
Speaker 1: I'm game. Maybe we could try that new breakfast place
Speaker 1: on Colfax. After she bristled, fingers gripping the fork tight.
Speaker 1: It's not about breakfast of company, Ethan. Sometimes I just
Speaker 1: want to be alone. Ye, make it a whole thing.
Speaker 1: I opened my mouth, then shut it again. My instinct
Speaker 1: was to push, then apologize, then chase her withdrawal. This
Speaker 1: time I just ate in silence. The next morning, I
Speaker 1: awoke before me already I heard her shuffle down to
Speaker 1: the kitchen, moving quietly, as if not to wake a
Speaker 1: house guest. When I finally wandered out, she was already gone.
Speaker 1: By then, I'd stopped hoping for explanations. With her absence
Speaker 1: of fixed burden, I occupied myself by prepping for the
Speaker 1: war creek, maintaining tech gear, anything that might make the
Speaker 1: hour shorter. Just afternoon, she appeared, hair dimp from a shower,
Speaker 1: face white clean. She moved through the apartment, as if
Speaker 1: making as little impression as possible, a ghost passing through.
Speaker 1: I asked, good ride. She looked through me. It was fine,
Speaker 1: she said, was flat, and then more softly, I'm exhausted.
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to nap. I held back every cushion,
Speaker 1: tapped down, every angry syllable, threatening to escape. Instead, I
Speaker 1: spent the next hour on the potch re reading old
Speaker 1: texts from the first months of our marriage, looking for signs,
Speaker 1: anything that would tell me how things used to be
Speaker 1: so easy. I grilled dinner that night, setting two plates,
Speaker 1: helping she'd join. She surfaced only after I'd eaten, grabbing
Speaker 1: a cold slice of chicken and sitting across from me
Speaker 1: with a look of apology. She never put words to
Speaker 1: There was something leaping in her, repeating over and over,
Speaker 1: can't talk now, Let's do this later. I'm just wiped.
Speaker 1: Maybe tomorrow, except tomorrow never really arrived. Sunday morning, as
Speaker 1: she was in the shower, her phone buzzed incessantly on
Speaker 1: the dresser. Without thinking, I glanced at the lockscreen, no message, preview,
Speaker 1: just the name Lucas and three hundred notifications. Why pulse hammered.
Speaker 1: I didn't pick it up or even touch it. I
Speaker 1: just stood there, frozen, waiting for her to step up.
Speaker 1: When she finally emerged, tall, raptite, I gestured, Lucas has
Speaker 1: been texting you. She blinked, performance perfect surprise. Oh that's
Speaker 1: just workstaff. We're ramping up a collab with his team.
Speaker 1: He's covering digital assess for next month's campaign. She said
Speaker 1: it too quickly, as if reciting a summary at a
Speaker 1: performance review. I nodded, skeptical, but said nothing. I watched
Speaker 1: as she unlock the phone and carefully consciously to scold
Speaker 1: through the messages I found, moving with measured calm. That evening,
Speaker 1: I come to social feats for any hint of Luca's
Speaker 1: attag A comment alike, nothing, no trace. Every photo was monthsole,
Speaker 1: every tag generic. It was in the small decisions, the
Speaker 1: stories she did chair, the faces she only named under duress,
Speaker 1: the way her friends stopped asking about her presents at events,
Speaker 1: that the true size of the secret began to emerge.
Speaker 1: Next weekend, I again played the roll of support, a
Speaker 1: spouse setting out her favorite electrol I choose in the counter,
Speaker 1: making her coffee, acting as if nothing fested in the
Speaker 1: air between us. But in the garage I found his
Speaker 1: cycling bag and touched from the previous week. The food
Speaker 1: was still there at the gateoray bottleful. That morning, she
Speaker 1: left again, cheerful, as if nothing was wrong. Half an
Speaker 1: hour after her car faded from the block, I checked
Speaker 1: her location on fine eigeh offline. I slammed the garage
Speaker 1: door hard, then I intended, surprising myself, then sat in
Speaker 1: my car with the radio off hand, shaking rage. Temp
Speaker 1: done hard under my ribs. Time passed slowly, the hours
Speaker 1: grinding out as relentlessly as my suspicions. When Vanessa returned,
Speaker 1: she went straight to her laptop, dashing off emails for work,
Speaker 1: then excusing herself to the bedroom. Teresa, I followed, standing
Speaker 1: in the doorway. Did you end up writing with anyone
Speaker 1: new to day? I asked? She hesitated, then dropped on
Speaker 1: to the bed with a defeated sigh. Honestly, Ethan, I
Speaker 1: didn't even go out. I just needed a break. I
Speaker 1: went for coffee, sat and people watched. That's all. It's
Speaker 1: just the group is kind of toxic lately. I didn't
Speaker 1: want drama. It was a plausible answer, as plausible as any.
Speaker 1: But her eyes shimmered with something like fear, and her
Speaker 1: hands twisted in the sheets in a way I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen since our last real argument years ago. I wanted
Speaker 1: to believe her. I wanted this to finally be the
Speaker 1: thread that unraveled the doubt, rather than yankin the whole
Speaker 1: thing apart. So I offered her a truce. Let's do
Speaker 1: something together next weekend. Anything you want. She helped my gaze. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd like that. Her voice cracked just slightly, I leaned in, hopeful,
Speaker 1: but days later that hope bled into more strangeness. Vanessa
Speaker 1: counseled Sunday plans with Jess, sighting bad gramps, but two
Speaker 1: hours later she was dressed and gone. No explanation, no itinerary,
Speaker 1: not even the pretense of a cycling trip. Late afternoon,
Speaker 1: I was straightening up the living room, our digital ecosystem
Speaker 1: of devices and chargers and loose change, when I noticed
Speaker 1: her tablet on the armorst powered down but open. On
Speaker 1: an impulse, I pressed a home button. Her path coord
Speaker 1: was still the same, meaning as comfort. At this point,
Speaker 1: the photos app was open thumbnail VU, and as the
Speaker 1: device flickered to life, I saw a fresh emitt Vanessa
Speaker 1: laughing at a cafe table not far from downtown, facing
Speaker 1: a man I didn't recognize. His back was half turned
Speaker 1: to the camera, but they were close. She was leaning in,
Speaker 1: grinning in that way she used to reserve just for me.
Speaker 1: The time stump was from the previous Saturday, the one
Speaker 1: sheould claim to have spent with her cycling group, suffering
Speaker 1: for a flat tire. I stood there for a long time,
Speaker 1: tablet and blinking in my hands, heart battling itself in
Speaker 1: a storm of dread and relief, relieved to finally see
Speaker 1: what a favor, more real now than any suspicion alone.
Speaker 1: When Finesse came up behind me to collect laundry, she
Speaker 1: barely glanced my way. Moving quietly, I put the tablet downs,
Speaker 1: green darkening to black. For the first time, a newly
Speaker 1: answer to what she had been hiding. Wasn't just a
Speaker 1: secret hobby or a bed of stress. The face of
Speaker 1: the man in that photo, fuzzy in my memory but
Speaker 1: vivid in its implications, would follow me for days. That night,
Speaker 1: I lay awake beside her, listening to her breathing, which
Speaker 1: sounded to my ear as much to measure, much too composed.
Speaker 1: The gulf between us now finally mapped, at least in part,
Speaker 1: the line not one we'd crossed, but one I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen until I was already on the other side. Morning
Speaker 1: arrived with grim clarity. I stared at Vanessa. She made
Speaker 1: her coffee, every movement familiar and deeply foreign in the
Speaker 1: hollow space of our kitchen, the certainty slowly settling in,
Speaker 1: I realized the central question now wasn't whether there was
Speaker 1: some one else. It was how long I could keep
Speaker 1: pretending not to know. I barely slept that night, not
Speaker 1: even that fitful edge of consciousness does that used to come?
Speaker 1: After an argument, My body lay beside Vanessa in the
Speaker 1: two quiet bedroom, my mind ricocheting between the photo of
Speaker 1: her and the stranger at the cafe, the explanation she'd
Speaker 1: half offered, and the certainty finally reeled that I couldn't
Speaker 1: keep pretending. Each creek in the floorboard's felt antagonistic, Every
Speaker 1: shadow cast by the street lights made me imagine them
Speaker 1: there again across the table. Her smiling came reaching dawn
Speaker 1: came like an accusation. I got up first, showered quickly,
Speaker 1: and brew two mugs of coffee out of habit. Vanessa
Speaker 1: powdered into the kitchen in sweatpants and an old hoodie,
Speaker 1: ice puffy but defiant, as if she were daring me
Speaker 1: to challenge her. We exchanged flat helloes. I set her
Speaker 1: mug down in front of her. She kept her gize
Speaker 1: on her phone, scrowling through something thumb in the screen
Speaker 1: so hard I could hear the friction. I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask about the weekend, about the cafe, about everything that
Speaker 1: hung between us, But all that came up was do
Speaker 1: you have anything going on to day? She shook her head,
Speaker 1: hair shrouding most of her face, just errands, she didn't elaborate.
Speaker 1: I bet my tongue, not trusting myself with the next words.
Speaker 1: The silence stretched my skinitch with the urge to act
Speaker 1: to logical, measurable problems, Saul, and yet nothing in me
Speaker 1: could summon the right script. When she finally left the table,
Speaker 1: I heard her keys jingle, followed by the soft funk
Speaker 1: of the front door closing before I'd even finished my coffee.
Speaker 1: That was the moment I knew there would be no
Speaker 1: returning to normal. The lie was alive now, walking and
Speaker 1: talking between us, too heavy for all our polite performances.
Speaker 1: By late morning, I couldn't stand it. I pulled up
Speaker 1: my laptop a cross checked the time stamped Fay photo
Speaker 1: on her tablet against the bank records. Again the transaction
Speaker 1: was there a perfect match. On the Saturday when her
Speaker 1: tir had allegedly gun flat and she'd hung out with
Speaker 1: the group. The receipt even included two drinks, hers and
Speaker 1: presumably his, another match, another lie. Their neatness almost insulting.
Speaker 1: Fueled by nervous energy, I opened Vemo and searched again
Speaker 1: for the lucas Ar whose name kept appearing. This time
Speaker 1: I clicked deeper, staring at his profile photo, bearded, tanned
Speaker 1: about our age, wearing a faded Denver cycling collective tea.
Speaker 1: I scovered public posts for anything linking him to Vanessa.
Speaker 1: There wasn't much, just a faint sense of interaction. One
Speaker 1: generic group photo from a year ago at a launch event,
Speaker 1: with Vanessa tut at the edge. That's all precious. Amid
Speaker 1: the rest of the day, unresolved in growing I barely
Speaker 1: looked up from my screen when Vanessa returned, coroceries cradled
Speaker 1: in one arm, A paper rat parcel from the same
Speaker 1: floors charged to our card clutched in her hand, She
Speaker 1: put it on the counter, not offering it to me,
Speaker 1: then padded away. Dinner was another wordless Ferolene cuisine, each
Speaker 1: eaten at separate ends of the couch. The television played
Speaker 1: old parks and recroruns. No one was watching. Vanessa checked
Speaker 1: her phone, anxiety ridden into the tension of her jawl
Speaker 1: and the flicker of her thumb. Even as she ignored me.
Speaker 1: The invisible line in the sand had turned into a wall.
Speaker 1: At there hard hammering, wondering how long it would last,
Speaker 1: how long the two of us could perform the sad,
Speaker 1: anemic version of what all life had been before one
Speaker 1: of us broke. Work on Monday was a welcome distraction.
Speaker 1: At first, I buried myself in backle of tickets, answering
Speaker 1: endless emails, keeping sluck up just loud enough to drawn
Speaker 1: out my own looping thoughts. Vanessa, too, kept her calendar overflowing.
Speaker 1: She didn't text, she didn't call. We shared a home
Speaker 1: and an empty silence. I asked myself again and again,
Speaker 1: was I going to let it fade? To say? Nothing,
Speaker 1: become rumits who slept in parallel and lied to each
Speaker 1: other every day. But the longer I waited, the further
Speaker 1: I drifted from who I thought I was, from the
Speaker 1: marriage I'd believed. In the next few days bled together,
Speaker 1: Vaness's tension was palpable, her movements robotic, her focus elsewhere,
Speaker 1: her phone more guarded than ever. I saw her slip
Speaker 1: away during dinner, taking hush calls in the whole way,
Speaker 1: her voice a mix of low murmurs and nervous laughter,
Speaker 1: barely contained by the door. Sometimes I caught fragments, and
Speaker 1: now it's fine next time I miss it. But nothing full,
Speaker 1: nothing resolved. Tuesday night, a sharp knock at the door
Speaker 1: startled me from half sleep on the couch. Vanessa had
Speaker 1: already turned in, Confused pul spiking, I opened to find
Speaker 1: Robert facetight, eye searching. Sorry for just showing up, he said, uncertain.
Speaker 1: I I saw Vanessa on Saturday with the guy. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to get any business. But she looked upset.
Speaker 1: He was holding her hand. The confirmation, spoken out loud
Speaker 1: was both relief and vertigo. Thanks, I managed, barely above
Speaker 1: a whisper. Robert grimaced in sympathy. If you want to talk,
Speaker 1: you know, actually talks, not about grilling. Let me know.
Speaker 1: I nodded, closing the door behind him a little too gently,
Speaker 1: afraid even then of making noise, of shattering something already fractured.
Speaker 1: Now there was no scapegoat for doubt. The world outside
Speaker 1: had seen what I'd tried to ignore. I couldn't keep
Speaker 1: floating in ambiguity. That night, after Vaness settled into bed,
Speaker 1: I stood by the window, staring into a small back yard.
Speaker 1: My reflection stayed back somewhe older go in too than
Speaker 1: I remembered, stripped the armor of certainty. The next day,
Speaker 1: as sifted through Vanessa's emails on our shared tablet, normally
Speaker 1: I'd never trespass, but nothing about our normal had survived
Speaker 1: these endless, anxious saturdays. In hers and folder I saw
Speaker 1: mostly were correspondents, but there were a few messages to
Speaker 1: Lucas minxter graphic designed for folios, a few inside jokes
Speaker 1: about the world's worst Lottie art, and varied far enough
Speaker 1: back a thread title to next Saturday with details for
Speaker 1: meet up at the same fe I scold rapidly, heap
Speaker 1: rising to my face. Their banter was personal, intimate, threaded
Speaker 1: with familiarity that doesn't grow in a day. At the bottom,
Speaker 1: Lucas had written last week was perfect. To see you
Speaker 1: again soon. I shut the tablet, breath shallow, every nerve
Speaker 1: ending on fire. I could barely look at Vanessa the
Speaker 1: next morning, even when she stood across from me in
Speaker 1: the kitchen, slicing strawberries for breakfast, humming teenlessly her presents greeted.
Speaker 1: I watched her hands trying to find the tremor at
Speaker 1: the giveaway, though she was waiting to be caught, desperate
Speaker 1: to be freed by confrontation. My own nerves frayed. I
Speaker 1: paced the rooms before work, picking up her tennis racket,
Speaker 1: thum running over the worn out grip. The unspoken history
Speaker 1: between us as palpable as the hollow between strings. We
Speaker 1: built something together once. Now it felt as if only
Speaker 1: one of us remembered. Another late night conversation with Carley
Speaker 1: did nothing to clarify. She was confused too, Che's me ethan.
Speaker 1: She told me she was out of town with you
Speaker 1: last Sunday, but I couldn't get her to say what
Speaker 1: you were doing. I just figured I don't know you
Speaker 1: two were having a rough patch. Yes, I said something
Speaker 1: like that. The next day, Vanessa skipped work blaming a migraine.
Speaker 1: I came home to find her napping, blinds drawn tight,
Speaker 1: bedroom stuffy with the residue of stale air and murray.
Speaker 1: She woke roggy, but when I asked if she wanted
Speaker 1: to get takeout, she declined, said she needed to arrest more.
Speaker 1: She didn't explain, she didn't look at me. The days blurred.
Speaker 1: Our routines devolved into any silence, brief collisions in hallways,
Speaker 1: microwave dinners, punctuated by nervous glances, and half formed questions,
Speaker 1: not knowing what else to do, I focused on the
Speaker 1: few concrete details I could still control. Flowers gone from
Speaker 1: the kitchen table. She never once brought them home. Vankat's
Speaker 1: showing new small transfers to Lucas each week, Vanessa's old
Speaker 1: tennis club dues and paid her once favorite club jacket,
Speaker 1: now discarded in the trunk out of sight. Wednesday night,
Speaker 1: pushing aside the fear of what it would mean to
Speaker 1: finally face the full truth, I texted Robert, did you
Speaker 1: see anything else? Vanessa won't say, he replied fast. They
Speaker 1: were arguing at first, but then hugging. She didn't see me.
Speaker 1: I honestly didn't know what to do. Figured if she
Speaker 1: needed me, she'd call. It was like living through someone
Speaker 1: else's memory, stuck outside my own house. By Thursday, my
Speaker 1: own exhaustion had turned brittle. I told my boss I
Speaker 1: had a family emergency, took a day off and sat
Speaker 1: at the kitchen table, watching the light shift on the
Speaker 1: tiles as I was crawled by. Vanessa's phone buzzed periodically
Speaker 1: in the bedroom. She didn't emerge until past noon. It
Speaker 1: was then over the sound of her moving through the hall.
Speaker 1: That's something in me finally broke. I called her name,
Speaker 1: not loud, but with enough intent to cause her to stop.
Speaker 1: Just beside the kitchen entrance. She turned eyes worried, mouth twitching.
Speaker 1: What's up? I gestured at the kitchen table. My hand
Speaker 1: shook as I laid out her bank statement, A photo
Speaker 1: from her tablet, the venmous green with Lucas's provole. She
Speaker 1: took a step back, defensive before I'd even spoken, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Her voice rose just a hair set,
Speaker 1: I said quietly. She braced herself against the back of
Speaker 1: a chair, but didn't set ethan. Who is he? Vanessa?
Speaker 1: My voice shook but stayed even. I know about the cafe,
Speaker 1: about the payments, about the rides that never happened. I
Speaker 1: know robbers saw you twice. I watched her face cycle
Speaker 1: through shock, annoyance, then a guarded resignation. She faltered, arms
Speaker 1: crossing protectively over her chest, as if cold. Her first
Speaker 1: words were automatic, Ay, he's no one, just a friend
Speaker 1: from work. You're making this into more than eh. I
Speaker 1: cut in, soft but relentless. You lied about everything I found,
Speaker 1: the emails, the photo of the calendar events, he said,
Speaker 1: cycling group, he said, flat tire. You said you needed space.
Speaker 1: But every Saturday you left to meet him? Why? She sagged,
Speaker 1: Then sudden, incomplete, the wall crumbled. She grat the counter
Speaker 1: with one hand, staring at the floor because I couldn't,
Speaker 1: because I was drowning Ethan, Her voice nearly broke, work,
Speaker 1: asked everything, and he started as venting. One day at
Speaker 1: the stupid launch event. I just I don't know, I've
Speaker 1: felt seen it got out of hand. My mouth tasted
Speaker 1: like metal. How long she brushed a stand of her
Speaker 1: out of her face of handshaking a few months? Not.
Speaker 1: It wasn't all at once, and then it was every Saturday,
Speaker 1: sometimes Wednesdays. I tried to stop it. I did, but
Speaker 1: every time I thought about facing you and explaining what
Speaker 1: was missing, I panicked. I press on barely above a whisper.
Speaker 1: Was it physical? Her answer was strangled. Yes, she looked
Speaker 1: her way as tears welled up, spilling rapidly. Not at first,
Speaker 1: but yes, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Ethan. I tried
Speaker 1: to end it. I just he made me feel less,
Speaker 1: like a failure. I wanted to hit something, A failure
Speaker 1: at what she wiped at her tears, frustration sharpening her voice,
Speaker 1: at being your wife, at being a friend, at work,
Speaker 1: at help, at everything. You were so busy, so obsessed
Speaker 1: with the next sprint, the next problem. I felt invisible.
Speaker 1: I started hating myself, hating how I acted around you
Speaker 1: and Lucas just didn't know that history with him. Like
Speaker 1: a rossette. You never let me just rousette Ethan. You
Speaker 1: always needed a solution, a spreadsheet, a plan. The words
Speaker 1: landed in my gut like bricks. So you lied every
Speaker 1: Saturday to protect what exactly, to protect you. I know
Speaker 1: that sounds ridiculous, but I couldn't beare to see you hurt.
Speaker 1: I kept trying to to fix it. I thought, if
Speaker 1: I could just keep the rest of it working, if
Speaker 1: I could keep showing up, I didn't want to wreck everything.
Speaker 1: Her breath hitched. I shook my head. You already did.
Speaker 1: She met my eyes, finally, tear streaking her cheeks. I know,
Speaker 1: I know I did. Her hands clutched the kitchen counter
Speaker 1: so hard her knuckles widened. I don't even know what
Speaker 1: I want to, Ethan. I'm not proud, I'm not looking
Speaker 1: for sympathy to just I just broke. I'm sorry I
Speaker 1: broke you with me. I pushed the photo's papers across
Speaker 1: the table. It's more than just you. You obliterated us.
Speaker 1: This isn't something you get to apologize out of. If
Speaker 1: you didn't energy, you covered it over and over. Vanessa's
Speaker 1: face crumpled, her anger faded to spent resignation. I deserve
Speaker 1: that I do. I don't have any defense left, Ethan.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say any more. I wish
Speaker 1: I could fix this part the way you like to
Speaker 1: fix things, but I can't. I took a long, ragged breath.
Speaker 1: Why am was I never enough? Really? She shook her head,
Speaker 1: hair falling in her face. You were in a way always,
Speaker 1: but I lost myself somewhere. My job, your job, the pressure.
Speaker 1: Lucas was escaped from all of it. Better, just different.
Speaker 1: I know none of that matters now. It doesn't fix
Speaker 1: the lying, It doesn't bring anything back. We stood in
Speaker 1: silence for a long time, framed by the drone of
Speaker 1: the fridge and the muted city outside. I felt numb,
Speaker 1: my anger, gutted by the exhaustion of proof. Finally, she
Speaker 1: spoke voice a husk. I'll grab a bag, stay with
Speaker 1: Calie or I don't know, Lucas, whatever you need, or
Speaker 1: I'll go. I know I can't fix this. No, I said,
Speaker 1: I'll go stay as long as you want. But this,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, whatever we had to can't survive another lie.
Speaker 1: She nodded once, then dropped into the chair, shoulders shaking
Speaker 1: with sobs. She tried to smother. I turn away, resolute,
Speaker 1: the ear thick with the ashes of everything we constructed.
Speaker 1: I moved swiftly, numbly into the bedroom, grabbing the duffle
Speaker 1: I always kept at the bottom of the closet for
Speaker 1: work trips. The motions were automatic, and where jeans the
Speaker 1: dresser at chargers deodorant, old sneakers. I don't linger it,
Speaker 1: didn't pause over anything sentimental. My focus was survival. Make
Speaker 1: it to the door before I broke down or changed
Speaker 1: my mind. In the bathroom, I snagged my tooth brush,
Speaker 1: tossed it in alongside a bottle of I beyproofing. The
Speaker 1: house felt enormous and strange, and its coroner suddenly bare
Speaker 1: of comfort. In the hallway, Vanessa saw crumpled at the
Speaker 1: kitchen table, had in her hands, muffled sobs wrenching her frame.
Speaker 1: Her phone sat face up now notifications from Luca's flash
Speaker 1: she muted on the screen. I pretended not to see it.
Speaker 1: I picked up my keys, a mollah from the entry tray,
Speaker 1: a g if she'd bought me for Arthout anniversary when
Speaker 1: she'd still tease me from misplacing everything, and almost put
Speaker 1: them back down, nearly refix. I pocketed them instead, tightening
Speaker 1: my grip as if they might anchor me to the
Speaker 1: physical world. While everything intangible collapsed At the front door.
Speaker 1: I hesitated only long enough to glance back, taking in
Speaker 1: the tablet of Vanessa Mayde, broken, smaller than I had
Speaker 1: ever seen her. The entire kitchens ended with old coffee
Speaker 1: and lily she'd never given me. Her shoulders shook just
Speaker 1: once as she lifted her head. Our eyes met. She
Speaker 1: didn't speak, and neither did I. The door shut out
Speaker 1: the low light in her grief. Equally, I stepped into
Speaker 1: the coal gray of early evening, walked to the car
Speaker 1: and started the engine without looking back. I texted Klley
Speaker 1: before i'd even pulled into traffic, symbol all the contacts
Speaker 1: she'd knee, I need space dis over. Her reply was swift, nunjudgmental,
Speaker 1: as short, come as long as you want. I didn't
Speaker 1: know if she was angry for me, for Vanessa, or
Speaker 1: simply resigned. It didn't matter. The streets crawled with people
Speaker 1: living their week ends, out for dinner, laughing as if
Speaker 1: no world had ended. In a kitchen a few blocks away,
Speaker 1: my phone vibrated in my lap, message after message from
Speaker 1: friends whose induition was sharper than i'd realized, staf robber,
Speaker 1: even my own mother. I ignored them all. Pulling up
Speaker 1: outside the faded Brook apartment Carly had bought the year
Speaker 1: she divorced, I killed the headlights, sat in the darkness
Speaker 1: for a long while, lighting my pull slow, my thoughts slow. Inside,
Speaker 1: Carley had left a note by the door, if she's clean,
Speaker 1: fridge stock to take the guest key, don't apologize. She
Speaker 1: wasn't waiting up. I appreciated the mercy of privacy, of
Speaker 1: not having to narrate everything not yet digested. I tossed
Speaker 1: my bag on to the spare bed, chucked off my shoes,
Speaker 1: and sat heavily at the edge, head drooping low between
Speaker 1: my knees. The apartment was silent, safe for the traffic
Speaker 1: free falls below. I felt lighter, emptier, and intensely ilne
Speaker 1: rely from lost twine together so tightly I couldn't separate them.
Speaker 1: I lay back letting the ceiling spin until the heaviness
Speaker 1: in my chest aled. The events of the day replayed,
Speaker 1: stopped start, A highlight reel burned into the backs of
Speaker 1: my eyes. Before sleep could clim me, I remembered it
Speaker 1: dim me absently that Vanessa's old tennis racket was still
Speaker 1: tangled in the trunk of my car, a hold over
Speaker 1: from afternoons when laughter always at lasted the match. On impulse,
Speaker 1: I got up, went back out to the parking lot,
Speaker 1: the night shop against my cheeks. My breath fobbed as
Speaker 1: I keeped open the trunk and felt around for the
Speaker 1: familiar grip among the mess of moving boxes. My hand
Speaker 1: closed around the smooth, battered handle. I yanked it free,
Speaker 1: the faded tape her off in my palm. I stood
Speaker 1: with it for a minute, letting the weight register its
Speaker 1: perfectly balanced half, familiar in foreign all. At once, I
Speaker 1: contemplated tossing it in the dumpster, an act of finality,
Speaker 1: then hovered, Unable to commit, I leaned against the car,
Speaker 1: racket in hand, shoulders shaking once. Then still the game
Speaker 1: was done, And yet what remained was this, the shape
Speaker 1: of every rally, every careless boast, now held together in
Speaker 1: a bundle of graphite and memory. The city lights flickered indifferent.
Speaker 1: My grip slipped until the racket rested between two fingers.
Speaker 1: I didn't let go, not yet. I went back up stairs,
Speaker 1: closed the apartment door behind me, and set the racket
Speaker 1: gently by the window to night. That was as close
Speaker 1: as I could get to moving on. I moved the
Speaker 1: tennis racket around in my palm, letting my mind go
Speaker 1: blank for the first time in days. It was neither
Speaker 1: a keats ick nor weapon, just a left over from
Speaker 1: a version of our lives were truss didn't feel theoretical.
Speaker 1: I set it down against the wall this time, as
Speaker 1: if I could shell fall of those years just as cleanly.
Speaker 1: Then stripped off my shirt and crawled under the guest
Speaker 1: blanket with every intention of forgetting. Sleep didn't come exactly,
Speaker 1: but a muzzy twilight did. I let myself drift and murred.
Speaker 1: The next morning, the light in Karli's apartment came too early,
Speaker 1: bleeding in under thin curtains. My eyes opened on a
Speaker 1: world that felt decisively rearranged. Over night, my phone hat
Speaker 1: collected notifications like barnacles and sent messages to Vanessa. Flashes
Speaker 1: of group dext nemssing her digital prisons, A dozen benign
Speaker 1: pings from my manager asking for an update about a
Speaker 1: bug deployment. Every part of my routine pulse through habit,
Speaker 1: ghostly and automated. I brushed my teeth with the wrong hand,
Speaker 1: the way I always did after big life change is
Speaker 1: half on purpose, half muscle memory from the night I
Speaker 1: moved in with Vanessa and made a show of retraining
Speaker 1: the brain. Now movement was just a tick. My mind
Speaker 1: snagged on nothing, refusing to replay the confrontation, refusing at
Speaker 1: last to argue with what had been spoken plain. The
Speaker 1: worst part was how quickly the world reconstituted itself in
Speaker 1: my absence. My fits of rage, humiliation, and credulity, all
Speaker 1: of it condensed now into a simple fact. It was done.
Speaker 1: The things that used to lou monstrous were shrinking by
Speaker 1: the hour, replaced with empty space, cold air, and somewhere
Speaker 1: inside my chest, a hard, clean ache that wasn't quite
Speaker 1: grief or relief. I heard the distant hustle off neighbors
Speaker 1: in the hallway, the side of the coffee maker in
Speaker 1: Carly's kitchen, the real stuff of regular human life, continuing
Speaker 1: with or without my broken marriage. Around mid day, messages
Speaker 1: from both Robert and Stiff filtered in variations on IM
Speaker 1: here if you need anna, let me know what you
Speaker 1: want people to know. I didn't answer. I had no script.
Speaker 1: There would be no single explanation. Our friends were pass
Speaker 1: it as they wanted, some lining up to blame, others
Speaker 1: standing well back. No one quite capable of understanding the
Speaker 1: specific set hadn't done us. Carl came and went quietly.
Speaker 1: A professional at loss management, she stopped the fridge, nodge
Speaker 1: clean laundry into the closet, never once offering platitude or
Speaker 1: pressing for details. Her presence was a gentle thrumb, not
Speaker 1: a pressure. I found myself grateful in a wordless way,
Speaker 1: the kind of gratitude that emerged only when he had
Speaker 1: come far enough through disaster to crave silence over sympathy.
Speaker 1: The hours passed in purgatory. Around three, I stepped out
Speaker 1: for a walk. The coal felt bracing. Electric pedestrians wove
Speaker 1: pass heads lowered, chasing errands and brunches, strangers in a
Speaker 1: city that had absorbed the aftershocks of a hundred other
Speaker 1: break ups, heart breaks, little mutinies. I circled the block
Speaker 1: and returned to Carli's without checking my phone. Comforted by
Speaker 1: motion and the absence of expectation. Back in the apartment,
Speaker 1: I let myself check social media. Vanessa's profiles had already
Speaker 1: begun to shift. Her photo from the hiking summit, gone
Speaker 1: couple shots, arch eyed, post growing sparse, a few mutual
Speaker 1: friends had common to the simple hearts, or nothing at all.
Speaker 1: I saw Lucas and her friendless, now new likes appearing
Speaker 1: on posts I had never seen before. His comments under
Speaker 1: generic group photo was suddenly vis It was like peeling
Speaker 1: the film off a window and seeing a whole, separate
Speaker 1: version of the past couple months hiding a plain sight.
Speaker 1: I didn't flinch. I just clicked the phone screen off
Speaker 1: and put it face down. Late that afternoon, my work
Speaker 1: emailping with a formal transfer. HRD processed my request, moving
Speaker 1: me to Acquiet, a project away from the half dozen
Speaker 1: coss tea meetings they had wanted with Vanessa's company. The
Speaker 1: sense of erosure was almost total. It would be possible,
Speaker 1: I realized to not see her for weeks, maybe months
Speaker 1: if needed. The thought was oddly comforting. Carly texted once
Speaker 1: I told Robert and Jess not to call for now,
Speaker 1: let me know whatever you want to break radio silence,
Speaker 1: no pressure. I had them to thank you and left
Speaker 1: it at that. The sky outside had darkened by the
Speaker 1: time a single message from Vanessa came through, just one line.
Speaker 1: I ended things with lucas I'm sorry for all of it.
Speaker 1: I stared at the screen for a long minute, weighing
Speaker 1: my response. In the end, I said nothing. There was
Speaker 1: nothing to say that when shrink under inspection, nothing that
Speaker 1: would matter more than the fact that I was already gone.
Speaker 1: That night, in the dim quiet, I opened the closet
Speaker 1: to slide the tennis racket away, but found my hand lingering.
Speaker 1: I propped it gently against the wall beside the window,
Speaker 1: not ready to part with it, not ready to claim it.
Speaker 1: The apartment round me. Humb of refrigerator noise, street sounds
Speaker 1: is the murmur of another tenant's TV. Looking out over
Speaker 1: the city, I saw the places we'd love, the corpse cafes,
Speaker 1: side streets we'd wandered after dinner, shrinked pinpricks of meaning,
Speaker 1: visible only in the memory of what trust used to
Speaker 1: feel like. The noise of traffic swept up as I
Speaker 1: let the curtain fall closure and ache share in the
Speaker 1: same quieter I knew then that moving forward make carrying
Speaker 1: the way, not discarding you, And for tonight at least,
Speaker 1: it was enough simply to hold it, to set it
Speaker 1: down at my feet, and let the nie remain painfully,
Speaker 1: honestly mine,