Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcome to cheating all the time. Glad you
Speaker 1: are here. Let's get into this next crazy sheet. The
Speaker 1: first night had happened, I told myself I was imagining things.
Speaker 1: Oh maybe I thought I was half dreaming, not entirely awake.
Speaker 1: When I opened my eyes to that thin, slicing glow
Speaker 1: beneath the bathroom door, it was so late to thick
Speaker 1: blue block two thirty in the morning, kind of late.
Speaker 1: Our bedroom was dark as ink except for that pale
Speaker 1: yellow slit. I blinked, adjusting to the quiet, I listened.
Speaker 1: I could hear Lucas. His voice was hush, whispering, sometimes urgent,
Speaker 1: sometimes dropping low, some muffled. I couldn't make out single word.
Speaker 1: I lay there, flat on my back, hot, taking away
Speaker 1: a little faster than usual. When the door eased open,
Speaker 1: loocas his face was outlined in that strange ghost light
Speaker 1: from his phone screen. He stepped soft into the room.
Speaker 1: His silover slept to his side of the bed, and
Speaker 1: he paused. I let my eyes stay just barely open,
Speaker 1: wishing I hadn't woken up at all, because there was
Speaker 1: something about his body tents wound up. No, not the
Speaker 1: easy way. He moved when he thought I was asleep.
Speaker 1: Then the blue white light gloat against his chest, and
Speaker 1: I saw the way he scanned the notifications is brow creasing.
Speaker 1: For a fraction of the second. When he noticed me, stirring,
Speaker 1: his whole posture, snatch shut screen, tilting down, thumb pressing
Speaker 1: the side button. Phone slid subbenly under his pillow. He
Speaker 1: mumbled something just work stuff, nothing interesting, but everything in
Speaker 1: his body language said otherwise, the way his shoulders round
Speaker 1: in his throat bobs as he swallows. He didn't look
Speaker 1: at me, I said nothing, head turned away, But as
Speaker 1: he lay next to me, much stiffer than usually, I
Speaker 1: stole a glance backward. A notification pulse from beneath the
Speaker 1: pillow lit up his jaw, and all I caught before
Speaker 1: it vanished was a single name I didn't know, and
Speaker 1: he saw my eyes. Couldn't sleep, he asked, quite cautious,
Speaker 1: and then he turned away, leaving both of us suspended
Speaker 1: in the thinnest space, close as breath and yet suddenly not.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize until the next day that this was
Speaker 1: the third night in a row. It almost seems impossible
Speaker 1: now to think of a time when I didn't suspect anything.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in moments of grief, the old scenes weaply, so
Speaker 1: vividly that I almost convinced myself everything is normal again.
Speaker 1: Talk safely behind the glass before all the cracks. Lucas
Speaker 1: and I met at a friend's party, or rather we
Speaker 1: met in the hush between jokes, Ice rattling in my
Speaker 1: glass and him rolling his eyes at the playlist. We
Speaker 1: bonded right away over stocky comments about the whole subsession
Speaker 1: with Vinyl, but also over movies, strange little art films,
Speaker 1: stories that didn't know how to wrap up needy. Lucas's
Speaker 1: laugh was this warm, deep thing that made me smile reflexively.
Speaker 1: He was gentle, genuinely interested, quick to spot quite discomfort
Speaker 1: and see herus some were safer. We fell into rhythm
Speaker 1: with a nise I'd never known. Our one bedroom apartment
Speaker 1: was a nest of shared Sunday breakfast pancakes scraped onto
Speaker 1: the same plate, the radiostatic blending with Lucas's humming. He
Speaker 1: poured my coffee first, even when he really needed it more.
Speaker 1: We made each other laugh until we couldn't breathe. Over
Speaker 1: dumb ti V shows and lazy We came brunches at
Speaker 1: the old spot around the corner, though, of the inside jokes,
Speaker 1: like the time Lucas pretended to propose with a ring
Speaker 1: shaped posted and noodle at dinner for arthur anniversary. He
Speaker 1: planned the surprise we ken away at that lakeside, and
Speaker 1: I'd only mentioned oftened and there it was so perfectly arranged,
Speaker 1: the room with the balcony, the right wine, even a
Speaker 1: playlist Heep put together for us. We had our routines
Speaker 1: after work. We cooked together, me dicing, Lucas stirring, sometimes
Speaker 1: binning me, and slowed downs to half remembered song from college.
Speaker 1: We decked all day dumb memes, or ye'd like this
Speaker 1: weird guy on the elevator, or guess which of my
Speaker 1: meeting has just got canceled. There were nights with lawn
Speaker 1: rambling talks, everything from career dreams to childhood fears. When
Speaker 1: the lights were low, if one of us had a nightmare,
Speaker 1: the other was already reaching across the sheets. He was
Speaker 1: my sturdy place. He always said what was on his mind,
Speaker 1: or so I believed. Whenever I doubted myself, Lucas was
Speaker 1: there with his easy Hey, it's going to be fine,
Speaker 1: And somehow I trusted him. Our friends would tease that
Speaker 1: we were the old married couple, the safe pair, the
Speaker 1: anchor for the group whenever other couples fell apart. I
Speaker 1: was proud of what we'd made, solid, respectful, never flash.
Speaker 1: When Lucas got his promotion last winter, I remember hugging
Speaker 1: him so hot I nearly knocked him over. He'd worked
Speaker 1: for it, and we celebrated well into the night. I
Speaker 1: never dreamed the promotion would turn the earth under our feet,
Speaker 1: that a new title could come with such shadows. After
Speaker 1: Lucas's promotion, the shift was so subtle at first, I
Speaker 1: could almost convince myself nothing was different. He started coming
Speaker 1: home later than he used to, first den I, then
Speaker 1: to trailing apologies about last minute deadline's iron strategy calls
Speaker 1: that just won't quit. I told myself it was normal.
Speaker 1: We were adults with real jobs. The new roll came
Speaker 1: with more pressure, more responsibility. But Lucas, who had always
Speaker 1: been casual with his phone leaving its face up unlock
Speaker 1: lying around in any room, started changing little things. He
Speaker 1: said in his green locky iron. I saw him tap
Speaker 1: away notifications before I could glance over his shoulder. Message previews,
Speaker 1: which once flashed up freely, were suddenly off. The first
Speaker 1: time it really made me uneasy was at dinner, a
Speaker 1: place we'd gone for years for our quarterly just us,
Speaker 1: no friends evenings. Lucas was distracted from the start, fingers
Speaker 1: toying with his fork, scanning the door every time he clicked.
Speaker 1: Half Way through his burger, his phone buzz against the
Speaker 1: table top. That was new too, He used to silence
Speaker 1: it during dinner. He glanced at the screen. I was clouding,
Speaker 1: and then he looked at me, quickly, forced a half smile,
Speaker 1: and slid the phone off the tib into his lap. Sorry,
Speaker 1: he said, getting up abruptly. I just realized I forgot
Speaker 1: to answer something for work. Give me a sec. He
Speaker 1: disappeared to the bathroom. Gone so long. Our waitress refilled
Speaker 1: my coffee twice and gently asked, with the raised eyebrow
Speaker 1: if I'd like to see the dessert menu alone. When
Speaker 1: he finally came back, his eyes darted around the room,
Speaker 1: shoulders tight, He apologized, said he was just totally fry.
Speaker 1: I ask sedley, because that's who I was with him.
Speaker 1: Are things okay? You just feel so far away lately?
Speaker 1: Lucas smiled, thin and tired, said something about end of
Speaker 1: quarter reports and squeezed my hand, but there was a
Speaker 1: distance in his grip. I couldn't explain. One morning, I
Speaker 1: absent mindedly picked up his phone from the kitchen counter,
Speaker 1: the way I always had. He was in his home office,
Speaker 1: coffee mug in hand. But the moment he heard the
Speaker 1: faint buzz, he startled, Could you not? His voice was
Speaker 1: sharper than I'd ever heard it. I've private project files
Speaker 1: on there now. I put the phone down, embarrassed, half
Speaker 1: wanting to apologize, half wondering when privacy had blown into secrecy.
Speaker 1: That's spring turned murky. Lucas's late night popped up on
Speaker 1: the calendar with increasing speed, first Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays,
Speaker 1: always with the reason. He texted him in night swamped,
Speaker 1: don't wait up the first time I offered to swing
Speaker 1: by his office for takeout. I'll just drop it in
Speaker 1: the lobby, I joked, trying to keep things light. His
Speaker 1: reply was oddly cold, buildings locked after ires anyway, and
Speaker 1: probably about to leave soon. Don't worry about it. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like him at all, and his face when he
Speaker 1: got home had a hard to pin satisfaction mixed with
Speaker 1: something nervous at the edge. One Sunday, I found a
Speaker 1: strange perfume, sweet powdery, expensive, clinging to the lapel of
Speaker 1: his gray jacket. When I went to hang it up,
Speaker 1: it didn't match anything I owned. I held it up
Speaker 1: to him, laughing, trying out a new scent. Lucas rolled
Speaker 1: his eyes. Kara from HR borrowed it as a jokes
Speaker 1: on crisis was spilled coffee. She wanted to see if
Speaker 1: my jacket fit. Crazy day. He shrugged it off, and
Speaker 1: something in his flippant tone made me press, but he deflected.
Speaker 1: He always had an answer, a story, a party with
Speaker 1: our friends. Things boiled over in my mind. Lucas was
Speaker 1: on his phone almost the entire night, texting intently, tapping
Speaker 1: back replies as if the room had faded away. He
Speaker 1: laughed absently our friend's jokes, then excused himself outside, full
Speaker 1: and pressed to his ear. He stood in the dim light,
Speaker 1: stoop pacing. I caught scraps of conversation. Laughter softened to no,
Speaker 1: I want to I'll stay as long as I can.
Speaker 1: When he came back inside, he was flustered, cheeks ready.
Speaker 1: I asked who it was, and he brushed me off.
Speaker 1: Just work, stuff, don't start. His defensiveness was new bertle heavy,
Speaker 1: not the gentle self i'd always known. Every time I
Speaker 1: asked more detail of questions, where he'd gone, who he
Speaker 1: was with, when he'd be home, he stiffened, Sophie, you're overthinking.
Speaker 1: Nothing's changed except my eyres. But everything had changed between us.
Speaker 1: Our intimacy, once an easy dance of shared words and
Speaker 1: late night comfort, grew stilted. Lucas came to bedlet, always
Speaker 1: showering first, sometimes sleeping, angled away from me. When I
Speaker 1: reached for him, he'd respond briefly, then pull back. I
Speaker 1: asked if we could talk, and he'd just sigh, I'm exhausted,
Speaker 1: give me time, please. His style changed too, inside our
Speaker 1: home and out, new shirts, sharper cut, fancier shoes. I'd
Speaker 1: never seen him brows before. My boy says I should
Speaker 1: dress for the roll, he explained when I mentioned it.
Speaker 1: But I found the tax expensive bututique, not anything Lucas
Speaker 1: would have bought for work without telling me. And then
Speaker 1: the receipts one I found in his pocket when folding laundry.
Speaker 1: Did offer to at a place with white tablecloths and
Speaker 1: a price tag that stunned my lower lap. We'd never
Speaker 1: have gone there, not together. I found another in our
Speaker 1: shared email, a reservation confirmation for a rooftop bar. The
Speaker 1: date was a Friday, wan and he told me he'd
Speaker 1: spent at the office. I tried to plan it. We
Speaker 1: can get away the way we used to do, suggesting
Speaker 1: we escaped to the countryside. Lucas was evasive, promising nothing,
Speaker 1: I have to check with the new schedule. Maybe next
Speaker 1: month or maybe after this quarter wraps, he said, every
Speaker 1: suggestion slipping through my fingers. I started noticing more and
Speaker 1: more little eyes about where he was. Law meeting downtown,
Speaker 1: he claimed, but friends would send Fortress from bars. Lucas
Speaker 1: in the background, laughing, sitting with people I didn't recognize.
Speaker 1: Once he said he'd be at client dinner, but his
Speaker 1: location taged him at a bob about show across town.
Speaker 1: If I asked, he'd smile, thin, noncommittal, as if I
Speaker 1: was asking about the way. I felt myself shrinking, holding
Speaker 1: my questions in my chest, letting them not and twist.
Speaker 1: The apartment started to feel cold at the edges. The
Speaker 1: worst was the night at home in early May, after
Speaker 1: Lucas left for work drinks. I was folding our laundry,
Speaker 1: finding a ticket stub half burned in his jean's pocket.
Speaker 1: The kindy keep when you want to remember a night.
Speaker 1: It was for a romantic movie, the same one I'd
Speaker 1: begged Lucas to see weeks before, but he told me
Speaker 1: what would keep him late. The date was when I
Speaker 1: went home to visit my mother. The scratch of dread
Speaker 1: beneath my skin was so strong, and I had to
Speaker 1: grip the edge of the bed. I tried to tell
Speaker 1: myself I was being paranoid. I'd always trusted him. He'd
Speaker 1: earned it, surely, but trust, I realized isn't just given.
Speaker 1: It's built brick by brick, and lately every answer carried
Speaker 1: a crek. One night, Lucas's phone buzzed while he was
Speaker 1: in the shar The screen flashed up with a hard
Speaker 1: emoji beside a single name, Jenna. I'd never heard him
Speaker 1: mention her. The message preview was cut off, but bright
Speaker 1: and intimate in a way that made my stomach town.
Speaker 1: When Lucas re entered toweling his hair, I tried to
Speaker 1: say it lightly. Some One named jennimessaged you. She sent
Speaker 1: her arts for work projects now. He frowned confusion, a
Speaker 1: bit too practice, and said, oh, probably a spam thing.
Speaker 1: Ignore it. He shut off his phone and changed the subject,
Speaker 1: launching into a story about a hardware malfunction at work. Later,
Speaker 1: when tidy in the living room, I found a charge
Speaker 1: attacked deep inside his messenger bag. We only had one
Speaker 1: charger between us. Neither of us had a spare form,
Speaker 1: at least not one. I knew about. My thoughts raised
Speaker 1: inventing explanations, none of which made sense. The next Friday,
Speaker 1: Lucas told me he'd be out late with clients. It
Speaker 1: had been a rough day for me, a fight with
Speaker 1: the coworker, a panic attack in the bathroom at work.
Speaker 1: I just wanted him home. But when I tried to
Speaker 1: call his office line for comfort the night God answered
Speaker 1: and sounded confused, No, ma'am, there's no events to night.
Speaker 1: The officer's close at nine. My heart dropped out of
Speaker 1: my body. That weekend I found the jewey store recech
Speaker 1: tucked him with his dry cleaning slips. I'd never seen
Speaker 1: jewelry from him, not in years, not since that first
Speaker 1: silly ring shaped pasta joke. My head spun with details
Speaker 1: each piece its own puzzle. I sat down at our
Speaker 1: kitchen table in silence. Every sound in our apartments suddenly
Speaker 1: ludder than ever before. Desperate, I went into his web
Speaker 1: browser history when he left for a networking brunch. He
Speaker 1: was fastidious, but not flawless. I found several searches from
Speaker 1: weeks before anniversary we can get away ideas a Roman
Speaker 1: to give suggestions for her. They were all dated before
Speaker 1: I'd suggested reply a trip back when Lucas said he
Speaker 1: was just too busy to get away, And yet there
Speaker 1: was nothing, no plans, no outings with me, no new
Speaker 1: jury or weekends await that I was in on. I
Speaker 1: needed to know. I had to know. So the next
Speaker 1: Friday night, when Lucas texted that he would be late
Speaker 1: because of another urgent work meeting, I nodded, calmly, kissed
Speaker 1: him goodbye at the door, and counted down the seconds
Speaker 1: after it closed. My hand shook as I grabbed my
Speaker 1: keys and jacket. Breath held the way you do before
Speaker 1: a plunge. I drove the twenty minutes, drew city lights,
Speaker 1: rein streaking a windshill to his downtown office. His car
Speaker 1: wasn't in the building, law I circled until I spotted
Speaker 1: it tucked down the block, beside a trendy little restaurant,
Speaker 1: one we'd walk past a hundred times, the kind where
Speaker 1: people go to toast new love. My pulse hammered so
Speaker 1: hard in my is that I could barely I parked,
Speaker 1: ducked inside a doorway across the street and stared through
Speaker 1: the fogging glass. The restaurant was glowy candlelight, and Lucas
Speaker 1: was there so clear I could see the smug dimple
Speaker 1: in his chin at a certain angle, and across from
Speaker 1: him her Janna. She was striking, dark hair aloft that
Speaker 1: let her face, her hand tracing circles just inches from
Speaker 1: his own. Lucas leaned in, whispering into her ear, his
Speaker 1: whole expression soft in away I had seen in months.
Speaker 1: I watched them, my stomach frozen dread as they ordered
Speaker 1: a bottle of wine, their heads close together, hands brushing now,
Speaker 1: and then at one point, his hands slid out, gently,
Speaker 1: clasping hers for just a moment, thun tracing her palm.
Speaker 1: He smiled, And it was the Lucas from Lonego, of
Speaker 1: the Lucas who used to look at me that way
Speaker 1: after we made up from an argument. I wanted to
Speaker 1: look away, but I couldn't. After dinner, they walked into
Speaker 1: the street. Her coat draked over his arm, both of
Speaker 1: them laughing at some seeker jerk. He wrapped his arm
Speaker 1: around her waist, squeezed her, and they stood in the
Speaker 1: light rainfall, speaking close close. When she started to walk away,
Speaker 1: Licas tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear,
Speaker 1: then hugged her tight, before watching her disappear down the block.
Speaker 1: I took Photo's hands, trembling, barely able to keep the lensteady,
Speaker 1: just in case I had ever come to doubt what
Speaker 1: I'd seen with my own eyes. Prue felt cold, metallic
Speaker 1: in my hand, like it belonged to some one else.
Speaker 1: When I drove home, I was in every part of
Speaker 1: me hollowed out. I barely remembered pulling into our corroach.
Speaker 1: The next morning, I sat at our kitchen table, trying
Speaker 1: to gleim myself back together. I could hear Lucas singing
Speaker 1: the first lines of an old song in the shower,
Speaker 1: voice sweet and distant. I opened my laptop and searched
Speaker 1: for Jenna on social media, heart pounding. It wasn't hard.
Speaker 1: She was tagged with Lucas and a dozen photos, office events,
Speaker 1: rooftop parties, even a day trip to the Botanical Garden.
Speaker 1: Always his hand strayed to her shoulder, al waist, smiles,
Speaker 1: broad eyes, locked in a world apart all the team
Speaker 1: events Lucas had claimed not to remember, each one perfectly,
Speaker 1: time stamped next to evenings I'd spent alone, I messaged
Speaker 1: Jenna on impulse. Hi, I saw you tagged with Lucas
Speaker 1: and some folders. How do you know him? It was
Speaker 1: the most innocuous note I could manage. She rebied within
Speaker 1: half an hour. Ha ha, yep. We met at the
Speaker 1: Big Klein pitcher Cup months ago. He's amazing, right, I
Speaker 1: actually think he's single. We've been seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: each other. Are you two friends? My breath left me
Speaker 1: in a single burst. I started matching up text time
Speaker 1: stems from Lucas's late night excuses with Jenna's photos, concerts, pause,
Speaker 1: fairy rides, and every story Lucas had told me. Dissolved.
Speaker 1: The evidence so clear, so binding, there was no confusion,
Speaker 1: not any more. Maybe, I screamed, Maybe I just shook,
Speaker 1: leaking slow tears into my sleeves. I don't remember. I
Speaker 1: only know that every safe thing I thought I had
Speaker 1: everything I'd built myself around, suddenly felt like inside joke.
Speaker 1: I was the last to get, and the worst was
Speaker 1: still to come. I sat there, staring at Jenna's profile picture,
Speaker 1: her face so familiar now, the settings in her photos
Speaker 1: searchingly recognizable, and thought about how much I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I thought about the lefter i'd heard behind the bathroom door,
Speaker 1: the softness in Lucas's voice when he thought I was asleep.
Speaker 1: I thought about the way his hand so tender on
Speaker 1: Jenna's waist, had felt leaden and absent when it found mine. Lately,
Speaker 1: I scrolled back through their photos, each knew image, and
Speaker 1: not a little pimprick against my skin. The two of
Speaker 1: them cuck close at concert, wineglasses aloft that some rooved
Speaker 1: up a van Lucas's arm always around her, his smiles pride,
Speaker 1: as I remembered from our first summer together. A coal
Speaker 1: clarity took hold of me, a strange surgical detachment that
Speaker 1: made it possible to keep breathing, to carefully piece to
Speaker 1: get the timelines to open every tax exchange and bank
Speaker 1: stemon and stray receipt. I could find, not even anger, yet,
Speaker 1: just a calm before the real storm and need to
Speaker 1: be absolutely certain. I counted up the nice Lucas said
Speaker 1: he was tied up at work and matched them to
Speaker 1: concert tickets. Checked the ten stumps on every ilve this
Speaker 1: night that Jenna had posted, and held them up to
Speaker 1: Lucas's might be late sorry text to me. So many
Speaker 1: little lies, so many details, bun like silk across the
Speaker 1: months between us. My hands shook as I gathered every
Speaker 1: scrap approof of my phone, the print outs from Jenna's
Speaker 1: social media, the ticket stubs and receipts, screenshots of search
Speaker 1: histories and texts, even the faint perfume I could still
Speaker 1: smell on his jacket. I made a pile at the
Speaker 1: center of the kitchen table. It was messy, but it
Speaker 1: was enough. All of it was enough to annihilate doubt.
Speaker 1: All day, I played out the confrontation in my mind,
Speaker 1: never really able to settle on what exactly I would say.
Speaker 1: My heart loop through stages devastation, a sharp shame, sharp anger,
Speaker 1: then cold numbness. At some point, Lucas texted picking up groceries,
Speaker 1: need anything? I answered no, almost dizzy with the fact
Speaker 1: that a week ago this would have been an ordinary
Speaker 1: loving message, all the while my mind reeled from the
Speaker 1: new reality of overhead sneers, stolen touches, careful delutions. He
Speaker 1: got home half past six. The apartment was gray in
Speaker 1: this slanting light, the table set stage like, with every
Speaker 1: fragment of evidence placed carefully in the center. Lucas walked in,
Speaker 1: slipping off his shoes, humming as though nothing in the
Speaker 1: world was wrong. He stopped short in the kitchen, taking
Speaker 1: in the stacks, photos, notes, tickets, my face pale and
Speaker 1: still on the other side. He didn't speak at first.
Speaker 1: I could see in that second the calculation behind his eyes.
Speaker 1: He was reeling, sifting for plausible stories, just like he
Speaker 1: had for weeks. His instinct was to close off. I
Speaker 1: could see it instantly, the blank face, the shallow breath, Sophie,
Speaker 1: he said, voice trembling ever so slightly. What is all this?
Speaker 1: I wrapped my arms around myself, told myself to keep breathing.
Speaker 1: I need you to tell me the truth, because about Jenna,
Speaker 1: about all of this, I gestured to the pole between us.
Speaker 1: Don't lie, just tell me, he tried at first. Of course,
Speaker 1: the way people do when the first shot is not
Speaker 1: as direct as they feared. If Jenna's just a colleague,
Speaker 1: he said, almost breezy. We've been working on this new project.
Speaker 1: You know, things have been crazy. His eyes flickered to
Speaker 1: the photos, the social media prints, the restaurant receipt, treating
Speaker 1: the evidence in real time. Seeing his careful wall of
Speaker 1: stories humble, I nodded, So you're telling me nothing's going on.
Speaker 1: You expect me to believe that. My voice cracked because, Lucas,
Speaker 1: I know where you were last night. I know what
Speaker 1: perfume was on your jacket. I know what's on your phone.
Speaker 1: You were with her. Jenna thinks you're single. She's posed
Speaker 1: dozens of photos with you. I've matched the times, the DIDs.
Speaker 1: Every time you said you were at work, you were
Speaker 1: with her. Your lies don't work any more. He stared
Speaker 1: at me, looking so defeated, mouth working soundlessly. When he spoke,
Speaker 1: it was as if he dropped some great, heavy thing
Speaker 1: he carried too long. It wasn't supposed to get this far, Sophie.
Speaker 1: I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't plan any
Speaker 1: of this. I swear to god. It just happened with Jenna.
Speaker 1: I've felt seen there's been so much pressure at working.
Speaker 1: She she just got She made me feel alive again.
Speaker 1: The word carve fresh wounds. So what you just forgot?
Speaker 1: We exist? He just forgot our life. I could feel
Speaker 1: he flush at my throat. How Aunt, Lucas, how long
Speaker 1: has this been happening? He looked at his shoes. Since March,
Speaker 1: the pitch team trip, after the promotion. Everything felt off,
Speaker 1: And then I met her and I messed up. I
Speaker 1: swear to you, I didn't mean for it to happen.
Speaker 1: My hands were fists at my sides. You chose her
Speaker 1: every single time you walked at that door, every time
Speaker 1: you lie to my face. Was I just practiced for
Speaker 1: this for when things got hard. He shook his head,
Speaker 1: tis brimming in his eyes. Now, no, Sophie, No, you're
Speaker 1: everything to me. I just I got lost. I was
Speaker 1: stupid and selfish. I'm so so sorry. The fight in
Speaker 1: me cracked. All I could manage was a horse. He
Speaker 1: broke us. Nothing you say fixes that. He tried again,
Speaker 1: vers rough with the motion. Please please, let's talk. We
Speaker 1: can fix this. We can see someone. I'll do anything,
Speaker 1: end it with her, whatever it takes. You're my life.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean for any of this. I can't lose you, banger.
Speaker 1: Filled my chest, crowding out grief for a moment. If
Speaker 1: she's not, how come she knows more about your week? IDU,
Speaker 1: why did you spend our anniversary? We kenned with her
Speaker 1: instead of with me. How do you say you love
Speaker 1: me and raise me? At the same time, his mouth
Speaker 1: opened closed. There was no answer he could give that
Speaker 1: would patch all these torn seams. I gathered as much
Speaker 1: of my shatter dignity as I could and stood up.
Speaker 1: I need you to leave for the night. I can't
Speaker 1: see you right now. I need space. Don't call me,
Speaker 1: don't text. He started to reach for me, but I
Speaker 1: stepped away, shaking go Lucas Cisco. He left in silence,
Speaker 1: the front door soft, quick, echoing through the rooms. The
Speaker 1: sound was the full stop at the end of our
Speaker 1: life as I'd known it. I called so, my closest friend,
Speaker 1: before the first real sobs would come. Can I stay
Speaker 1: over to night? I managed, voiced. Tiny arms were in
Speaker 1: tied around myself in the dark. She must have known
Speaker 1: something was horribly wrong from the way asked, the way
Speaker 1: the words trembled. Of course, off, come here whenever you need.
Speaker 1: I stuffed a change of clothes and my two percent
Speaker 1: of bag, eyes dry in a way that almost scared me.
Speaker 1: As I left the apartment, my hands pressed the keys
Speaker 1: so hard I could feel metal bites. I didn't allow
Speaker 1: myself to lie back and Zoey's I sat on her couch,
Speaker 1: under the hush of a blanket, surrounded by the gentle
Speaker 1: clutter of her living room, photos from college, all textbooks,
Speaker 1: the scend of cinnamon from her candle. I told her everything,
Speaker 1: the whole time line, all the ways I caught myself rationalizing, doubting,
Speaker 1: hoping this would just go away. Soey listened and then
Speaker 1: unexpectedly let out a small, choking sob oh soft. There
Speaker 1: were times I wondered if he was pulling away. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to say anything, just in case I was wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, I cried then, in heaving ugly fit's
Speaker 1: shame and shock and sadness rolling through me. I was
Speaker 1: angry at Lucas, angry at Jenna, angry at myself. For
Speaker 1: every moment I'd believed his lies. I thought back to
Speaker 1: all the times I defended him, the stories I told
Speaker 1: myself about how WorkStress explained everything wrong between us. Every
Speaker 1: private moment now felt contaminated, like some one else had
Speaker 1: been quietly, invisibly present, shadowing us from the beginning. Lucas
Speaker 1: texted the next morning, again and again. I left my
Speaker 1: phone face down, unable to read his words. He called twice.
Speaker 1: I didn't answer. Please, Sophie, I'm sorry. Tell me what
Speaker 1: to do. I'll do anything. I'll leave Jennet to day.
Speaker 1: Let's talk. Please, I can't sleep. Did you eat? Let
Speaker 1: me come see you. I understand if you hate me,
Speaker 1: but I love you. I didn't love him back, not now.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even sure who he become. The day passed
Speaker 1: in fog, I tried to work, filing reports, half blind,
Speaker 1: watching the clock stumble forward. I sat in a shower
Speaker 1: for ages, letting the hot water from overskin that felt
Speaker 1: like paper. I tried to remember what it felt like,
Speaker 1: just a month ago, to be jerking with Lucas about
Speaker 1: what Peter Hopkins to order. The biggest worry in the world,
Speaker 1: the state of our spy Strawer. I confided him my
Speaker 1: parents only after several days passed before strembling hands, gripping
Speaker 1: the phone so hard it nearly snapped my mother card openly.
Speaker 1: My father's voice was gentle, full of old disappointed love.
Speaker 1: Both told me. I was not to blame their trust
Speaker 1: when earned is never the fault of the trusting. Even so,
Speaker 1: Shane sat cold in my chest. I hated the idea
Speaker 1: of being seen as the one left behind, the one
Speaker 1: whose partner looked elsewhere. Luke has offered to move out,
Speaker 1: his voice small and broken over the phone. I'll go.
Speaker 1: If it's what you need, I'll find my own place.
Speaker 1: I still want to try counseling. If there's any chance, soft,
Speaker 1: I'll do anything you ask. For a moment, I'll let
Speaker 1: the idea settle in my heart, the possibility of repair,
Speaker 1: of looking through the pain. I told him, I think
Speaker 1: about it, not because I really believed we could find
Speaker 1: our old selves again, but because the wholework could have
Speaker 1: loss was so loud. I wanted anything, even a shout
Speaker 1: of comfort, to fill it. We tried talking in fits
Speaker 1: and starts over the next few days. The conversations were stilted.
Speaker 1: Every smile forst every word weighed down by what was unsaid.
Speaker 1: We circled round and round, what do you want? Why
Speaker 1: did you do it? Where did I go wrong? Lucas
Speaker 1: had no answers that ever soothed me. He apologized again
Speaker 1: and again and confessed his confusion and regret, but nothing
Speaker 1: he said could make me believe we could repair what
Speaker 1: he broken. At night, lying in Zoe's gas bed, I
Speaker 1: replayed every memory our third anniversary, the slow dance mornings,
Speaker 1: the paint flecked afternoons which spent making our apartment iOS.
Speaker 1: Each one felt retroctively altered, dampered with, the color leached away,
Speaker 1: until I was left with the nutline. I kept looking
Speaker 1: for the moment Old tipped, the split second, his love
Speaker 1: at first splut intwo. Eventually even ZOWI had to go
Speaker 1: back to her routine. I promised her I'd be okay,
Speaker 1: though every word was a lie. I returned to the
Speaker 1: apartment alone, shivering as I unlocked the door, feeling like
Speaker 1: an intruder in the life I'd built. Every object stared
Speaker 1: back at me. I shared mugs, the furrow blanket, Lucas
Speaker 1: brought home, the faded Forteuzan, the fridge, a whole life
Speaker 1: scattered in. Now almost criminally quiet. Lucas waited for me
Speaker 1: most evenings that week, always hopeful, always apologizing again, always
Speaker 1: trying to brush against my hand the way he used to.
Speaker 1: I never let him closer than the edge of the couch,
Speaker 1: not even once I asked him point blank to pack
Speaker 1: his things. It's time, I said, the last shreds of
Speaker 1: my voice, warm thin. This can't be home for both
Speaker 1: of us any more. He said about it, slowly, almost virtualistically.
Speaker 1: He sorted his books and kept glancing up, as if
Speaker 1: quietly hoping I'd changed my mind. I didn't. The last
Speaker 1: box he sealed up, he did with trembling hands, tears
Speaker 1: prickling and shed at the corners of his eyes. I'm sorry, Sophie.
Speaker 1: He stood there in the foy becks slung over his shoulder,
Speaker 1: keys dangling between his fingers. I was an idiot. I
Speaker 1: know you'll never believe me, but I never stopped loving you,
Speaker 1: not even once. I looked at him, the man I'd
Speaker 1: once trusted with every part of myself, and I shook
Speaker 1: my head more sad than angry. Now that's part of
Speaker 1: the problem, Lucas. Maybe you think you love me, but
Speaker 1: you loved what you got from me. You loved yourself here,
Speaker 1: not me, not really. I know who you are now,
Speaker 1: that's all I need. He nodded, mouth trembling, and then
Speaker 1: he left the door closed with a small final sound.
Speaker 1: The silence rung along afterward, almost wholly in the way
Speaker 1: it pressed itself around me. What followed was not Catharsis,
Speaker 1: nor any sudden, triumphant sense of freedom. It was slower, building,
Speaker 1: gentle as bruises fading. Some days I went to work
Speaker 1: and smiled and felt almost normal, only to crumble in
Speaker 1: the quiet of the supply closet. Other days I was
Speaker 1: angry at Lucas adjenna, at myself, at the accident of
Speaker 1: trust that set the whole thing spinning. I discovered painfully
Speaker 1: that healing was not straight line. Some mornings I made
Speaker 1: coffee and nearly made his cup to habit, tripping over
Speaker 1: memory before I caught myself. I forced myself to pack
Speaker 1: up his remaining things, sorting through old anniversary cards, our
Speaker 1: horde of movie stubb photos from weekends away. For every
Speaker 1: soft memory, another wave of anger rose, all those ignore
Speaker 1: warning signs. Although small eyes, I smoothed away because I
Speaker 1: believed in him in us. I cleaned the bathroom under
Speaker 1: the sink, wiping up the last droppers of a lawn
Speaker 1: expired cologne, and lingered there, thinking of every secret conversation,
Speaker 1: every shadow behind the lock. I started to journal, searching
Speaker 1: for a way to understand it all, if there was
Speaker 1: a meaning in all this pain, if there was an
Speaker 1: answer for a while of even the most careful and
Speaker 1: intent love can be so porse and uncertain. I searched
Speaker 1: for new rituals, slow, steady, breakfast with myself, flowers bought
Speaker 1: just for their color, long walks with music I used
Speaker 1: to love before all. I tried to forgive myself tentatively,
Speaker 1: for every moment I had extended trust in good faith
Speaker 1: to a man who could not return it. Lucas texted
Speaker 1: just a handful more times, mostly practical questions and insurance form.
Speaker 1: Here are forgotten, charge it there. The last time he wrote,
Speaker 1: he said he hoped I'd find peace, that he was
Speaker 1: sorry every day. I never answered again. There was nothing
Speaker 1: left to say. On the day he moved out for
Speaker 1: the last time, A cleared space, a ritual of reclaiming.
Speaker 1: I put away a cast iron pan we'd fought over.
Speaker 1: I ed out the sheets, opened every window so the
Speaker 1: spring air, sweet and brisk, could come rushing in. I
Speaker 1: stood at the window and remembered how just a year
Speaker 1: ago Lucas had pressed and behind me, arms around my waist,
Speaker 1: cheek pressed to my hair. The memory hut, But only
Speaker 1: for a minute. I was the woman in that memory anymore.
Speaker 1: That evening, I sat on the living room floor, sorting papers,
Speaker 1: old letters, keys that no longer knocked anything I wanted.
Speaker 1: For the first time in weeks, I let the quiet
Speaker 1: be evidence not of absence, but of possibility. The next morning,
Speaker 1: I packed up the loss of Lucas's things, stacking each
Speaker 1: box neatly by the door. I made breakfast alone, two acs,
Speaker 1: toast coffee, just how I liked it, letting sunlight pour
Speaker 1: over the table. When Lucas arrived to pick up the
Speaker 1: final load, he paused at the door, looking smaller than
Speaker 1: I remembered, apology painting every part of him. If I
Speaker 1: could take it all back, Sophie, I would, he said,
Speaker 1: almost whispering. I shook my head. I don't need your apology.
Speaker 1: I know who you are now, That's all I need.
Speaker 1: He left. I closed the door, sat in the new quiet,
Speaker 1: not yet comfortable, but bearable. There will be more hard days,
Speaker 1: I know, night when truss feels too expensive, mornings when
Speaker 1: I miss the sound of some one else's footsteps in
Speaker 1: the hall. There will be reminders everywhere, in the scuff
Speaker 1: paint of the bathroom door, the faint scent of his
Speaker 1: shampoo in the hallway. But those things are echoes their fate.
Speaker 1: What remains is me, the woman who trusted too long
Speaker 1: may be, but who will not drun in the betrayal
Speaker 1: of another. I cannot control who lets me down, only
Speaker 1: how I get up again. Before noon, I stepped out
Speaker 1: into the city, letting the streets fill with possibility. The
Speaker 1: air was bright and sharp and new. I wasn't free
Speaker 1: of hertbury Keeling isn't as easy as a single decision,
Speaker 1: But I was finally and truly my own. The shadows
Speaker 1: that one stretch from screens and doorways head receded. I
Speaker 1: was here. The future, when it came, would be mine
Speaker 1: to choose, and nothing, not love, loss, not lies, not
Speaker 1: even grief, could keep me from it. The days have
Speaker 1: followed the final closing of our shared apartment door blurred together,
Speaker 1: a limbo of sorting, cleaning, and learning to live with
Speaker 1: a new kind of empty. Every room in the apartment
Speaker 1: still held pieces of Luke, even as his boxes slowly disappeared,
Speaker 1: Even as his presence receded from the landscape of my days,
Speaker 1: the cutlery was still the mismatch, said we'd bought together
Speaker 1: at the second hand store. His favorite mug, the one
Speaker 1: with the faded Greek island on it, sat in the
Speaker 1: dish rack, and for a full week I couldn't bring
Speaker 1: myself to move it. The sofa saget where we'd sat
Speaker 1: together for countless movie nights, but now it was only
Speaker 1: me in the cushions, culled beneath a blanket that somehow
Speaker 1: seemed to begin his absence. Friends checked in, Some came
Speaker 1: by bearing flowers or takea or offers to come with
Speaker 1: me tiocre others texted at odd Eyre's little reminders that
Speaker 1: I wasn't alone, even while I felt so singularly isolated.
Speaker 1: At first, I was grateful for the distraction, letting myself
Speaker 1: get swept up in other people's stories, letting their lives
Speaker 1: press up against mine like a kind of insolation. But then,
Speaker 1: once the initial storm of sympathy passed, the world seemed
Speaker 1: to lose interest in the specifics of my grief. People
Speaker 1: went on about their days, and I could sense in
Speaker 1: their gentle questions, their hesitations, their discomfort my heartbrek caused them.
Speaker 1: I knew I would have done the same in their place.
Speaker 1: A break up was expected to run its course, tidy
Speaker 1: and streamline, mind contained to a reasonable window of sadness
Speaker 1: before the person in question is expected to move on.
Speaker 1: Except this wasn't a straightforward break up. It was as
Speaker 1: if someone had detonated a mind beneath all my beliefs
Speaker 1: about love, trust and safety and left me to collect
Speaker 1: the shrapnel piece by jagged piece. Some night I barely slept.
Speaker 1: I'd lie awake listening to the faint hum of the refrigerator,
Speaker 1: the ticking of pipes, phantom footsteps in the hallway outside.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I've replayed the timeline in obsessive detail, of the promotion,
Speaker 1: the new coves, the extra charger, the confessions Lucas dripped
Speaker 1: out in the wake of my confrontation. Sometimes I rehearsed
Speaker 1: all the things I never got to say, all the
Speaker 1: bitter retorts I had left and said for the sake
Speaker 1: of composure, all the questions he never properly answered. Other nights,
Speaker 1: exhaustion felt me early dark, dreamlessleep, heavy and absolute. In
Speaker 1: the mornings, I'd wake with the burning in my chest,
Speaker 1: a sire after taste of morning that made even breakfast
Speaker 1: feel burden. Some yeah, I did it. I made my coffee,
Speaker 1: I wrote in my journal. I swept the floors, took
Speaker 1: out the trash, wrote emails. There was a strange comfort
Speaker 1: in ordinary chores. They tethered me to reality, reminding me
Speaker 1: that my hearty cann't stop the world from turning. At work,
Speaker 1: I stumbled through routines, desperately hoping no one would notice
Speaker 1: a stilted edge to my voice. With the way I
Speaker 1: sometimes blinked hard at my computer screen, trying to banish
Speaker 1: the memory of Lucas's laugh as he bent his head
Speaker 1: close to Jenni's. I became a muster, redirecting conversation before
Speaker 1: it could settle on my personal life, still the office grape.
Speaker 1: When eventually caught up, a coworker cornered me by the
Speaker 1: coffee machine. Hey, Sophie, haven't seen nugas around you? Guys? Okay?
Speaker 1: I managed a small, brittle smile. Oh, you know, things change,
Speaker 1: That was all I could say. On my lunch breaks,
Speaker 1: I walked, no destination, just moving, letting my feet pound
Speaker 1: out anxiety along the city sidewalks. There was a kind
Speaker 1: of power in choosing a direction and going wherever I pleased.
Speaker 1: In these brief moments, I wasn't waiting for anyone's call.
Speaker 1: Was the scanning streets for a familiar stride. Wasn't checking
Speaker 1: my phone for notifications. It was just me in motion,
Speaker 1: breathing air that felt prickly and full of distant possibility.
Speaker 1: Every so often, a flash of acute humiliation punctured my surface,
Speaker 1: the thought that Jennie still didn't know my never know
Speaker 1: the foscope of what Lucas had concealed from her, or
Speaker 1: worse that some day she'd learn and'd have to sift
Speaker 1: through the same debris of trust. I fantasized about warning her,
Speaker 1: sending one last searing message, laying everything there, But I
Speaker 1: stopped myself. Some lessons are not mine to teach. My
Speaker 1: responsibility ended at my own threshold. Lucas voice appeared, and
Speaker 1: text messages every few days, sometimes logistics about lingering items.
Speaker 1: Did I leave my headphones under the bed? Sometimes longer
Speaker 1: at borings, apologies, protestations of pain, admissions that he'd started therapy,
Speaker 1: that he wanted to become better. I read every message slowly, dispassionately,
Speaker 1: the way you'd examine a relic from a life he
Speaker 1: barely remembered. Living on impulse, I even opened an all
Speaker 1: playlist Lucas had made for us the sound truck of
Speaker 1: our road trips and lazy sundays. But the voices, once warm,
Speaker 1: felt paper, then now haunted by the sharpness of betrayal.
Speaker 1: I closed out quickly, hot, racing for tight, then sat
Speaker 1: in cold silence for a long time, letting tears slip
Speaker 1: down without resistance. Times slid by. I tried to set
Speaker 1: new rituals in place of the ones we shared. Flowers
Speaker 1: on Fridays, a tradition borrowed from a coworker who swore
Speaker 1: by the mood boosting properties of fresh lilies and culips.
Speaker 1: I found small pleasure in arranging them by color and height,
Speaker 1: watching the petals open as if answering some secret urge
Speaker 1: for renewal. Some mornings I lingered over breakfast reading instead
Speaker 1: of scrolling, letting the luxury of attention to myself stretch out.
Speaker 1: I sent postcards to friends, to my parents, to cousins
Speaker 1: who had quietly offered support from afar. When grief pressed
Speaker 1: in too closely, I journal some days, the pages filled
Speaker 1: with angry at looping sentences slashing at Lucas's face in
Speaker 1: my memory. Other times I wrote to myself, gentle, apologetic,
Speaker 1: affirmations that I was not weak for trusting that my
Speaker 1: love had not been wasted, only misplaced. I tried out forgiveness,
Speaker 1: first for myself, then hessitantly for Lucas, a tiny way
Speaker 1: of extracting his shadow from my daily consciousness. On rare occasions,
Speaker 1: the apartment itself seemed to capitulate, as if admitting it
Speaker 1: was ready for the change. Sunlight hid the walls differently,
Speaker 1: sitting light in the kitchen while I made coffee. The
Speaker 1: old couch, once a throne for two, welcomed just me
Speaker 1: and a book for a few quiet hours. I replaced
Speaker 1: the sheet with the set in a bowl, deep bluestmol
Speaker 1: declaration of identity amid the rubble. When friends came by,
Speaker 1: they commented that the space scene maued Sophie done before.
Speaker 1: I smiled, excepting a compliment as a sign that I
Speaker 1: was in tiny increments coming into something more like my own.
Speaker 1: As summer warp into fall, Lucas's presence in my life
Speaker 1: grew more sporadic. Our mutual friends with gefo. Some reached
Speaker 1: out separately, wanting to make sure I'd still join group
Speaker 1: hangouts or dinners, others gently implying they to keep him away.
Speaker 1: The only person who seemed unable to fully let go, ironically,
Speaker 1: was Lucas himself. The last time we spoke face to
Speaker 1: face was about a month after he moved out. He'd
Speaker 1: come for the remainder of his books, bracing himself in
Speaker 1: the intraway with an air of polite defeat. I was
Speaker 1: careful to meet his eyes, to set the boundaries I needed.
Speaker 1: I don't have anything else to say. Please don't contact
Speaker 1: me unless it's about bills or other practical stuff. He nodded,
Speaker 1: looking for a moment as if he might cry, but
Speaker 1: then just shrugged, loaded his box into the hallway, and
Speaker 1: left with a saw goodbye, Sophie. The word was strange
Speaker 1: in his mouth, final, in a way no apology could be.
Speaker 1: After that, the apartment felt light, a little and metaphorical
Speaker 1: exhale the worst all traces of heartbreak, of course, a
Speaker 1: flick of remembering how he tuck his head behind his ear,
Speaker 1: the way he'd hum in the shower, at the particular
Speaker 1: cadence of his footsteps. But with time even these things
Speaker 1: faded into the background hum of memory, replaced with new habits,
Speaker 1: new joys. Some changes were smaller, rearranged bookshelf I knew
Speaker 1: for a pillow the scent of a candle he'd always
Speaker 1: claimed irritated his sinuses. Others were larger. I started Pellais,
Speaker 1: met with colleagues for after work drinks, took myself out
Speaker 1: for solo dinners with a notebook and a good novel
Speaker 1: as my only companions. I felt vulnerable, yes, but also
Speaker 1: proud of surviving, proud of building something sustainable when the
Speaker 1: wreckage felt total. Late one night in October, after a
Speaker 1: brisk walk in the city center, I let myself stop
Speaker 1: at the wine bar Lucas and I had always meant
Speaker 1: to try, but never did. I sat at the counter
Speaker 1: with a glass of deep red journal, open people, watching
Speaker 1: my shoulders less tense than they'd been a month's I
Speaker 1: watched two couples flirt, and a man proposed to his
Speaker 1: girl friend at the opposite window, and for the first time,
Speaker 1: I wondered what it would be like to beild trust
Speaker 1: again with some one knew. Not soon, not yet, but
Speaker 1: some day, when my heart felt less fragile, more forgiving,
Speaker 1: I remembered something my mother told me when I was
Speaker 1: a teenager and heartbroken for the first time. You cannot
Speaker 1: choose how others love you, Sophie, you can only choose
Speaker 1: how you love yourself. Again that then I barely understood it.
Speaker 1: Impatient for pain to end, for a resolution to come
Speaker 1: in a neat, tidy, lesson. Now, wading through the fallout
Speaker 1: of truss and oversight, secrecy and pain, I saw what
Speaker 1: she meant. There is no control in how someone will
Speaker 1: fail you, only what you do with the fragments still
Speaker 1: leave behind. In the process of clearing out our old memorabilia,
Speaker 1: I came across the box of cards would written for
Speaker 1: each other on anniversaries, holidays, our Tuesday nights, when words
Speaker 1: worries are written than spoken. I reread them one by one,
Speaker 1: Lucas's looping scroll, full of inside jokes and promises that
Speaker 1: now rang hollow or cruelly naive. I cried, sometimes softly,
Speaker 1: sometimes racked with bitterness, but then set the cards aside,
Speaker 1: not in the trash, but in a box marked past.
Speaker 1: Not everything needed to be destroyed, just set safely at
Speaker 1: a distance, fault honed, the city golden and fresh, air
Speaker 1: port and crisp and free. I let myself lean into
Speaker 1: the season, buying apples from the market, piling sweaters on
Speaker 1: my bed, lighting candles before dusk. The rituals of living
Speaker 1: alone became aim, a kind of medicine. I was proving
Speaker 1: each day that I could build a life with just
Speaker 1: myself at its center. Of course, there were stumbles. Sometimes
Speaker 1: grief would sneak up while doing the most fatal things,
Speaker 1: changing a light bulb, hearing a song in a coffee shop,
Speaker 1: seeing a couple wrapped in laughter at the grocery store.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I let myself feel every inch of loss, Let
Speaker 1: the tears sit hot and thick, let the egg flood me.
Speaker 1: But more and more I found those moments were fewer
Speaker 1: and farther between where Paine once lived. There were now
Speaker 1: spaces for peace, for possibility. My parents visited in November,
Speaker 1: bringing home it soup and awkward loving energy. My mother
Speaker 1: insisted on helping me re arrange the living room, her
Speaker 1: way of establishing a fresh start with tangible changes. My father,
Speaker 1: quieter but warm, fixed as squeaky bathroom door and echo
Speaker 1: of the old late night conversations look as used to
Speaker 1: have behind it. We shed laughter, reluctant tears, and something
Speaker 1: I hadn't recognized in Mont's genuine gratitude for the love
Speaker 1: I still had, even when romance fell away. With their encouragement,
Speaker 1: I started a new project, something just from myself. I
Speaker 1: took a photography class, wanting to see the world differently,
Speaker 1: to capture the waise, light and shadow shit parts of
Speaker 1: our lives. Even when we underware my classmates were a
Speaker 1: mix of ages, backgrounds, heartbreaks. I listened to their stories
Speaker 1: hesitantly out to my own, and slowly began to see
Speaker 1: myself not as a victim, but as someone with new skills,
Speaker 1: new eyes, new futures to imagine that winter. So we
Speaker 1: got engaged to her long time partner. I celebrated, dance,
Speaker 1: toasted until my cheeks hear teeven as a small part
Speaker 1: of me felt melancholy watching her move confidently towards something
Speaker 1: I used to believe was forever. But I didn't begrudge
Speaker 1: her happiness. Instead, I cherished it, let it remind me
Speaker 1: that joy had not vanished from the world just because
Speaker 1: my own trust had collapsed. Around New Year's a card
Speaker 1: arrived from Lucas. He'd written that he hoped I was well,
Speaker 1: that therapy was changing him for the better, that he
Speaker 1: regretted everything and wished me peace in the future. He
Speaker 1: didn't say he missed me or ask for another chance.
Speaker 1: For that small mercy, I was grateful. I put the
Speaker 1: card in the same box as the old letters, no
Speaker 1: longer needing answers, only closer. By early January, Arli's came up.
Speaker 1: I debated about moving, whether to leave all shared memories
Speaker 1: behind and make a clean escape, or stay in fully
Speaker 1: claim the space myself. In the end, I chose to stay.
Speaker 1: Some part of me wanted to prove that this life,
Speaker 1: this apartment, this city belonged to me as much as
Speaker 1: it ever had to the two of us. Staying put
Speaker 1: was an act of power, deciding not to let someone
Speaker 1: else's betrayal of aake me from a herm I loved.
Speaker 1: One day, as I saw to drill a lost batch
Speaker 1: of old photos, I found Polaroy from our first summer together,
Speaker 1: Lucas and I motorcycles behind us mid laugh the city
Speaker 1: skyl'mblazing behind. I studied it for a long time. For once,
Speaker 1: it didn't trim me to look at it. Instead, I
Speaker 1: realized how much I'd grown That version of me, the
Speaker 1: one who believed love was enough if he worked hard
Speaker 1: and communicated well. Wasn't foolish or weak, just hopeful. I know,
Speaker 1: I'd mourn the loss of that innocence. I didn't need
Speaker 1: to hate it. I could take the best pieces of
Speaker 1: that form of self and bring them forward, force me
Speaker 1: by the fires of heartbreak. I wrote to myself in
Speaker 1: my journal of practice, I'd kept going faithfully sis Lucas left.
Speaker 1: I rode of loneliness, but also of resilience. But the
Speaker 1: shock and shame, but also the slow burn of gratitude
Speaker 1: that my friends, my family, even my own stubborn will,
Speaker 1: had carried me back from the air. I wrote of boundaries,
Speaker 1: of learning to say no, to trust my gut instead
Speaker 1: of silencing it out of fear of being difficult or paranoid.
Speaker 1: I rode of beginnings, sometimes late at night, that familiar
Speaker 1: it would return, the longing for the safety I used
Speaker 1: to feel falling asleep beside someone warm. I'd missed the
Speaker 1: smell of Lucas's shampoo, his arm tossed over my waist,
Speaker 1: the feeling of home that only comes from shared history.
Speaker 1: But I'd remind myself none of that was worth accepting. Secrecy, dishonesty,
Speaker 1: with annoying dread of never knowing the full truth. No
Speaker 1: comfort was as valuable as peace of mind. One spring morning,
Speaker 1: a year after the first tremors of doubt had chattered
Speaker 1: my confidence. I walked into the kitchen making coffee just
Speaker 1: for me. Sunlight streamed through the window, catch in the
Speaker 1: edges of my new blue tea kettle, the one I
Speaker 1: bought on a whim without thinking what would Lucas like.
Speaker 1: For the first time in years, the apartment felt love
Speaker 1: lived in and not at all haunted. My phone buzz
Speaker 1: and I picked it up automatically. It was a group
Speaker 1: text from friend's plans for a trivia night, suggestion to
Speaker 1: meet at the same old bar Lucas and I had
Speaker 1: once frequented it. For a moment, I lingered on the memory,
Speaker 1: the two of us laughing about bad answers and singing
Speaker 1: along to the Duke Box. Bittersweet, yes, but less sharp.
Speaker 1: Now with certainty, I type back, count me and see there.
Speaker 1: As I culled into the corner of my sofit at night,
Speaker 1: a feeling crept into my awareness, something like hope, something
Speaker 1: like pride. The worst had happened, love trusted and hum
Speaker 1: had been appended, dissected, interrogated, But here I was still standing, changed,
Speaker 1: certainly but not broken. I finally understood what it meant
Speaker 1: to rebuild on scoach ground, to live, to risk even
Speaker 1: after betrayal. I might trust more selectively, now look a
Speaker 1: little closer before surrendering my whole heart. But I also
Speaker 1: knew that devotion and openness, with strengths not flaws. Lucas
Speaker 1: has betrayaled and divined me. My resilience, some husband from
Speaker 1: grief and growth, and an unwillingness to be smaller because
Speaker 1: of someone else's failings was what remained. One night, quiet
Speaker 1: warm thor was unlocked and windows open to the city
Speaker 1: ere I stepped out onto the balcony, wrapped in a
Speaker 1: switer tea cradled in my hands. Down below, people moved
Speaker 1: through the streets, laughing, arguing, starting their own stories, full
Speaker 1: of hope or heard, or some blend of both. I
Speaker 1: leaned in the railing, breathing in the promise of so
Speaker 1: many possible to Morrow's, and felt soft relief the darkness
Speaker 1: beneath doors, the secret light of a fawn's green at
Speaker 1: two thirty a m. The trembling sense of faith misplaced.
Speaker 1: These would always be chapters in my story, but they
Speaker 1: were not the ending. The ending, if there even was one,
Speaker 1: was the choice to wake up to move forward, to
Speaker 1: keep loving myself in the world around me, no matter
Speaker 1: how many times trust had been correcked. Eventually I didn't
Speaker 1: think about Lucas every day my life filled up with work, friends, laughter, art,
Speaker 1: the welcome silence of a whome that was mine alone.
Speaker 1: I don't fool myself into thinking I'll never risk again,
Speaker 1: never hurt again. But I do know the difference between
Speaker 1: secrecy and privacy, between the shadow of something wrong and
Speaker 1: the clear even go of honest love. When grief visits
Speaker 1: me again, as it surely will, I will greet it
Speaker 1: as I would any honest guest, acknowledging its pain, welcoming
Speaker 1: its wisdom, and then letting it go to make room
Speaker 1: for something new. And as I closed my general on
Speaker 1: that spring evening, I wrote one last note to myself
Speaker 1: before bed, You have survived betrayal and lived to love
Speaker 1: yourself altemore. The future, whatever it brings, is yours alone
Speaker 1: to claim. With that, I turned out the light. I
Speaker 1: slept peacefully, no headns greens, no whispers in the night,
Speaker 1: only the hush of my own breathing and the soft
Speaker 1: promise of mornings. Return. For the first time in a
Speaker 1: long while, I slept for until sunlight found me naturally
Speaker 1: peeking across my pillow, with no grogy confusion, just the
Speaker 1: gentle insistence of a morning that asked nothing of me
Speaker 1: but to rise, No anxious inventory of Lucas's side of
Speaker 1: the bed, cold or warm, no weight in my chest
Speaker 1: at the prospect of another day walking on glass. Only
Speaker 1: my own heart beat, slow and steady, guiding me back
Speaker 1: into the quiet routines I've claimed. The spring birds outside
Speaker 1: my window were loud that wee, crowdy, and ashamed of
Speaker 1: their own existence. I liked to think they were celebrating
Speaker 1: with me, each chirp and scorable, a tiny marker of
Speaker 1: life's persistence. I potted into the kitchen, toes cold on
Speaker 1: the tile, and reached for the blue kettle to make coffee,
Speaker 1: measuring out the grounds a little more generously, without needing
Speaker 1: to account for anyone's preference but mine. There was something
Speaker 1: delicious about that, about taking up space, making things just
Speaker 1: how I liked them. After breakfast, I caught upon emails
Speaker 1: and browsed apartment listenings, not because I really planned on leaving,
Speaker 1: but because I enjoyed imagining new lives, new spaces, even
Speaker 1: if just for a few minutes. That day, a message
Speaker 1: popped through in my inbox. It was Zwi inviting me
Speaker 1: over for rooftop drinks after work to celebrate her new job.
Speaker 1: The only if you're up for it soft, no pressure
Speaker 1: at all, but I'd love to see you. For a moment,
Speaker 1: I hesitated, remembering how only a few months ago the
Speaker 1: idea of facing friends and making small talk felt interomundable.
Speaker 1: But I replied yes, smiling at my own reflection in
Speaker 1: the black surface of my coffee, I was ready, or
Speaker 1: at least willing enough to try. At the office, things
Speaker 1: felt normalish, projects coming jew I knew, in turn nervously
Speaker 1: shadow in my every move. Coworkers gathered in little clumps
Speaker 1: by the copy discussing summer travel hopes. At lunch, my
Speaker 1: manager asked how I was settling into the latest version
Speaker 1: of life and squeeze my shoulder gently when I told
Speaker 1: her things were better lately. It was true, and saying
Speaker 1: it a love crystallized it further proof in a sense
Speaker 1: that transformation was possible, even when I feared it would
Speaker 1: never arrive. That evening, as I walked a Zolways apartment,
Speaker 1: I caught glimpses of my old haunts, corners and shops
Speaker 1: that used to sting with memory, now slowly softening around
Speaker 1: the the park where Lucas and I had argued about
Speaker 1: pink colors, the bakery with a bitter cocoa rougeillat she hated,
Speaker 1: and I loved, ordinary places that were returned into just
Speaker 1: being locations in the story of my city, not trigger
Speaker 1: points for heartbreak. So is roofed up a sweat in
Speaker 1: that golden blue twilight, the city buzzing and twinkling beneath
Speaker 1: us like a living thing. We sit gin and tonics
Speaker 1: and laughed about our mutual lack of a green from
Speaker 1: her tomato plant dying yet again despite her best efforts,
Speaker 1: my succulent army of watered and extinction. Other friends joined
Speaker 1: old and new layer in casual affection and the warmth
Speaker 1: of people who'd witnessed your struggles and hadn't flinched. There
Speaker 1: were moments of vulnerability, laughter so intense a brought tears,
Speaker 1: and the easy comfort of not having to explain my
Speaker 1: absence from a couple centric plans or why my phone
Speaker 1: never buzz would check ins anymore. I listened to this
Speaker 1: door as promotions and dating app wars in the kinds
Speaker 1: of minor heart bricks that felt safe to have in
Speaker 1: public for the first time, and ages. I felt not
Speaker 1: apart from the world, but returned to it a participant,
Speaker 1: not just an observer. As the evening drew to close,
Speaker 1: so he leaned over and hugged me, lips near my ear.
Speaker 1: You're really coming back to yourself, saw, I can see it.
Speaker 1: You should be proud, I nodded, swallowing a lump of emotion.
Speaker 1: The kindness in her voice wasn't pity but affirmation. I
Speaker 1: didn't have to be defined by what had happened, didn't
Speaker 1: have to carry Lucas's betrayal as the most interesting thing
Speaker 1: about me. I left the roof up, walking lighter, my
Speaker 1: steps a little easier, my chest not quite so compressed.
Speaker 1: On my way home, I found myself humming a song
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought of in years, and stopped, amused at
Speaker 1: the simplicity of my own pleasure, how full life could feel,
Speaker 1: and fleeting half accident aways. Back at my apartment, I
Speaker 1: let myself luxuriate in the quiet, the proud to see
Speaker 1: the belonging. I took a long shower and pulled on
Speaker 1: soft pajamas letting the day's joy sink into my pores,
Speaker 1: washing away all traces of sir. Later, sitting cross legged
Speaker 1: on the living room rug, I picked up my journal
Speaker 1: and found myself writing not about pain or questions of
Speaker 1: the past, but about hope projects. I wanted to try, places,
Speaker 1: to travel, things I wanted to learn, just because I could.
Speaker 1: One page led into another, being flowing faster as I
Speaker 1: let plans bill out without censoring them. I wrote a
Speaker 1: list of qualities I wanted to nurture in myself curiosity,
Speaker 1: compassion for others, but also for myself, courage to try things, humor, integrity, patience.
Speaker 1: I didn't write anything about love, not for any one.
Speaker 1: Knew at least that would come in its own time,
Speaker 1: or maybe not, and neither way felt fine. For now.
Speaker 1: Loving my own company was enough. Days stretched onward, each
Speaker 1: one a little less marked by grief. I donated some
Speaker 1: of the last things Lucas had left, the books I'd
Speaker 1: never read, the sweat I bored once and never liked much.
Speaker 1: With every box out the door, the space felt increasingly
Speaker 1: my own. I rearranged the art in the walls. I
Speaker 1: bought a plant, just one, and resolved to keep it
Speaker 1: alove for at least a month. I invited my parents
Speaker 1: for dinner, cooking a meal from scratch and serving it
Speaker 1: at the table where Lucas and I had once fought
Speaker 1: and laughed and then so quietly, slowly drifted apart. They
Speaker 1: complimented the changes to the department and listened to my
Speaker 1: stories of work, friends and my new photography hobby. My
Speaker 1: mother asked gentle questions and didn't prod when I skirted
Speaker 1: around deeper Paine. My father took a photo of the
Speaker 1: three of us, framed it, and sent it to me
Speaker 1: the next week, a small gesture that filled me with warmth.
Speaker 1: The week after, while running errands, I ran into an
Speaker 1: old acquaintance I hadn't since before Lucas's promotion, the starting
Speaker 1: point of everything unraveling. She was warm and cheerful, and
Speaker 1: after the usual pleasantries, she asked, and how's Lucas doing.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen him pop up on your socials in
Speaker 1: a while. There was a sting, but it faded quickly.
Speaker 1: We broke up last year, I said, steady and unashamed.
Speaker 1: It wasn't easy, but I'm okay. She nodded, sympathy flickering
Speaker 1: across her face. But didn't pry. We talked a few
Speaker 1: minutes more about books, about work, about what we learned
Speaker 1: in the past year that surprised us. After she said
Speaker 1: good bye, I stood on the busy sidewalk, realizing I
Speaker 1: felt not embarrassment or loss, but a curious kind of pride.
Speaker 1: I'd survived something dissolving and remained something whole that was
Speaker 1: worth holding on to. Autumn tapped into another winter. My
Speaker 1: journal filled with evidence of resilience, stubborn and bray. There
Speaker 1: were holidays, quiet and sometimes lonely, but not hollow. There
Speaker 1: was work, sometimes stressful, sometimes in degrading though when new
Speaker 1: friends met in unexpected place, as a coworker who loved hiking,
Speaker 1: a neighbor who dropped by with homeide bread. One evening,
Speaker 1: checking my email with a cup of tea, I saw
Speaker 1: a message from Luca's. The subject line was just my name.
Speaker 1: For a moment, I debated deleting it unade, but curiosity
Speaker 1: was stronger. It was brief. He wrote that he hoped
Speaker 1: I was well apologized yet again for what he'd done,
Speaker 1: and wrote that he'd learned hard lessons about honesty about himself.
Speaker 1: He didn't ask for a reply, He only wished me
Speaker 1: peace genuinely and confessed he'd never stop wishing things had
Speaker 1: ended differently, but respected that they hadn't. A year before,
Speaker 1: the words would have spun me back into ruminating, compiling
Speaker 1: old evidence and arguments, replaying conversations for hours. Instead, I
Speaker 1: suck quietly, letting them land in me without reaction, simply
Speaker 1: a piece of my old life, reaching out for acknowledgment
Speaker 1: to handschick at the border between before and after I
Speaker 1: closed the message, arkuev did and went on with my evening,
Speaker 1: And that smolat was a combination of so much of
Speaker 1: heart break endured, of lessons learned. In the absolute terms,
Speaker 1: only betrayal can teach, though, was still a trace of grief,
Speaker 1: old scar tissue called forth by memory. But now when
Speaker 1: pain rose spake greeted, hovercom I see you, I would think,
Speaker 1: but you do not run the show any more. When
Speaker 1: spring finally came in full, the city burst into floor
Speaker 1: or caase, trees blooming on every block. The ethic was
Speaker 1: sent and possibility. I took my camera out on wekens,
Speaker 1: getting up early to capture dawn on the river, experimenting
Speaker 1: with exposure, finding happiness in the simplest compositions, light filtering
Speaker 1: through leaves, the stranger with a dog posing to let
Speaker 1: it sniff. The morning at two friends laughing on the
Speaker 1: stoop at the market one Saturday, arms full of tulips,
Speaker 1: I bumped elbows with a man in line for coffee.
Speaker 1: We exchanged pologies, then two sentences about the weather, then
Speaker 1: a couple more about living in this neighborhood, how the
Speaker 1: bakery had the best course, as if he got there
Speaker 1: before nine. There was nothing electric, nothing swooning to simple connection.
Speaker 1: Soon after I realized I'd walked home smiling to myself,
Speaker 1: recognizing that the well was not empty of surprise, or
Speaker 1: promise or kindness. That night, on my balcony, surrounded by
Speaker 1: the bloom and hush of early spring, I reflected on
Speaker 1: how far I had come. There were still nights when
Speaker 1: I looked at the place and the sofa Willikers used
Speaker 1: to throw his legs out, still mornings when I reached
Speaker 1: for a second coffee cup out of habit. But more
Speaker 1: and more I was finding my own rhythm, my own contentment,
Speaker 1: to kind of wholeness dim by disappointment, I reminded myself
Speaker 1: that loving deeply, even when it leads to pain, is
Speaker 1: not something to regret. That the version of myself who
Speaker 1: trusted Lucas was not naive or blind, but earnestly human,
Speaker 1: hopeful equality. I would not trade for guardedness or cynicism.
Speaker 1: If some day I chose to love again, I would
Speaker 1: bring that samefulness, but reinvented, stronger in my boundaries, humbler
Speaker 1: in my expectations. Eventually I heard through zuweit at Gen
Speaker 1: I had moved to another city in Lucas, according to
Speaker 1: mutual friends, kept mostly to himself, working, volunteering, trying to
Speaker 1: shape his life into something more thoughtful. There was no
Speaker 1: dramatic twist, no confrontation or closure beyond what had been said.
Speaker 1: Life and spull forward as it does, careless of past pain.
Speaker 1: We all went on One Sunday afternoon, sunlight streaming into
Speaker 1: the kitchen, I paused to mid making a pot of
Speaker 1: soup for myself and a friend. I caught my reflection
Speaker 1: in the glass, hair whiled round, my face, cheeks flushed
Speaker 1: and alive. I saw not a woman whose story ended
Speaker 1: with heartbreak, but one whose stories simply kept going, chapter
Speaker 1: after chapter, sometimes uncertain, sometimes brightly lit. I set out
Speaker 1: balls mismatched and full the aft of ginger and God,
Speaker 1: a culling through the apartment that had become mine alone.
Speaker 1: As we sat at ate, laughter spilling out between spoonfuls,
Speaker 1: I realized with quite certainty that home was not a
Speaker 1: person or a shared secret, but the willingness to embrace change,
Speaker 1: to lean into growth, to give myself wanting and welcoming arms.
Speaker 1: The lesson that emerged slowly with time and reflection was
Speaker 1: not how to never be heard again, but how to
Speaker 1: trust myself to recover, to rebuild, to gather each piece
Speaker 1: as tenderly as I could. Loving Lucas had not been
Speaker 1: a mistake. Losing him, or rather losing the version of
Speaker 1: him I believed in, simply made room for other kinds
Speaker 1: of love, friendship, self respect, gentleness, curiosity. Nights I still
Speaker 1: sometimes laid awake, remembering flashes of our old life. The
Speaker 1: edge is soft and blurred with time, but I no
Speaker 1: longer let memories to take my present. Instead, I honored
Speaker 1: them and moved gently beyond their echo, and when lost,
Speaker 1: felt shop again at the side of couple's arm in
Speaker 1: arm on summer nights, or coming across an olden's I
Speaker 1: joke talked in the pages of a book I breathed
Speaker 1: deep and reminded myself and the one who gets to
Speaker 1: decide how the story continues. No one else's betrayal could
Speaker 1: erase the goodness I'd shown, the trust I had offered,
Speaker 1: or the future I still had to write. My worth
Speaker 1: did not rest in some one's constancy, but in my
Speaker 1: own ability to begin again. With each summrise, the light grocer,
Speaker 1: the heir gentler, my own voice deadder, and day by
Speaker 1: day I moved forward, unafraid into what was next. And
Speaker 1: that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I
Speaker 1: will see you in the next one.