Speaker 1: The city was still alive under an indigo sky, the
Speaker 1: windows across the skyline glowing like hundreds of scattered lanterns.
Speaker 1: I kicked off my heels in the narrow entrway of
Speaker 1: our downtown condo and let my bag slip from my shoulder,
Speaker 1: the usual welcome of jazz from the bar across the
Speaker 1: street seeping up through our open window. My mind was
Speaker 1: still whirring from the campaign event, my phone buzzing with
Speaker 1: a new message from Geraldine, frantic about a voter list
Speaker 1: gone wrong. But for the first time all day I
Speaker 1: was home. I expected the place to feel empty, maybe
Speaker 1: a little cold. Alex would still be on the construction site,
Speaker 1: a late inspection for the Bellamere project. He always hated
Speaker 1: those wrap around deadlines, especially at night and to night well.
Speaker 1: I tried not to let myself dwell on it. Our anniversary,
Speaker 1: I'd eaten supermarket leftovers, poured a glass of wine, and
Speaker 1: toasted the day. Quietly told myself we'd find a night
Speaker 1: to celebrate, really celebrate. Once the initial craziness of my
Speaker 1: new job and his project started to ebb, the reality
Speaker 1: Alex and I had rescheduled more dinners in the last
Speaker 1: few months than I cared to count. I flicked on
Speaker 1: the kitchen lights, the dimmers outlining the modern minimalism Alex
Speaker 1: had fallen in love with when we first toured this place,
Speaker 1: and tossed my keys onto the marble counter. They landed
Speaker 1: with a practiced clatter, sliding against the stack of mail
Speaker 1: and the thick sketch book Alex used for work. Half doodles,
Speaker 1: half blueprints, spirals curling around business cards, client names, names
Speaker 1: of bars to check out or supplies to order. That
Speaker 1: was when I saw it, a thin paper jutting out
Speaker 1: from the bottom, barely visible under his note book, white glossy,
Speaker 1: with the angled blue font of some expensive place. Automatically
Speaker 1: I reached for it, thumb grazing the logo, the little
Speaker 1: fable that was the kind of restaurant people posted about
Speaker 1: weeks later, small plates, wine flights and impossible to get reservation.
Speaker 1: We'd gone once for my thirty second birthday. Pricey but
Speaker 1: worth it, one of those rare splurges that made us
Speaker 1: feel for a night like real city people. I scanned
Speaker 1: the receipt, more curious than anything. The date and time
Speaker 1: stared at me unwavering. Two weeks prior our wedding anniversary.
Speaker 1: I read it twice, then pressed my lip between my teeth.
Speaker 1: Table for two. A bottle of Barolo too entrays desert
Speaker 1: enough to make it a celebration, not just a client meal.
Speaker 1: My first reaction was irritation. He could have at least
Speaker 1: asked me right. Maybe he did go for work, Maybe
Speaker 1: it just happened to fall on the wrong night, But
Speaker 1: why keep this? Why not mention it? After? Suddenly the
Speaker 1: image of him answering a text as the oven timer
Speaker 1: beaped behind me that night flickered through my mind. The sorry,
Speaker 1: have to check on a sight report, and how quick
Speaker 1: he'd been to kiss my head and dart out with
Speaker 1: his laptop. I pushed the receipt back into the sketch book, deliberately, rough,
Speaker 1: as if resenting it for existing A thousand thoughts. Tried
Speaker 1: to crowd in just work, obviously, just a dinner. I
Speaker 1: told myself, that's all. But I could feel some ingrained
Speaker 1: muscle long dormant twitching in my chest. Still. I wasn't
Speaker 1: about to turn this into something it wasn't, especially not
Speaker 1: to night. I made myself a mug of peppermint tea,
Speaker 1: turned on the living room lamp and told myself that
Speaker 1: to morrow would clarify everything. It's embarrassing now to admit
Speaker 1: how much of my life ran on routines, especially with Alex.
Speaker 1: Routines were a promise, a kind of domestic faithfulness that
Speaker 1: most people didn't even perceive once the initial newness fades.
Speaker 1: In grad school, our schedules rarely overlapped. He'd be at
Speaker 1: his laptop's sketching lines late into the night. I'd get
Speaker 1: up before dawn to read campaign emails, eating cereal in
Speaker 1: the hallway beside the bathroom door so I didn't wake him.
Speaker 1: When we moved in together, we were awkward roommates who
Speaker 1: happened to be in love. I'd label the pantry jars
Speaker 1: and he'd re arrange the living room furniture every three weeks.
Speaker 1: We found equilibrium in chaos. Sometimes those differences felt romantic. Sometimes, honestly,
Speaker 1: they made me want to scream. Now married five years
Speaker 1: together for eight our differences had settled into something comforting.
Speaker 1: At least that's how it felt. After we landed the condo.
Speaker 1: Alex had always wanted something closer to the city's pulse,
Speaker 1: and when I got promoted last fall, it made sense
Speaker 1: to take the leap down town, exposed brick views of
Speaker 1: the water. It felt ridiculous, sometimes, like we were cosplaying
Speaker 1: as the couple we said we'd become. We joked that
Speaker 1: our friend group saw more of the condo than we did. Lana,
Speaker 1: my closest confidant since grad school, and her husband, Colin Jacob,
Speaker 1: Alex's perpetually single college friend, and a rotating cast of
Speaker 1: gallery friends always popping by. We were the unofficial hub,
Speaker 1: hosting gallery nights every third Friday. It was Alex's ritual. Really,
Speaker 1: He'd send out doodle poles rally everyone pick the weirdest exhibitions.
Speaker 1: He was the type who'd order a round of mescal cocktails,
Speaker 1: then disappear into a corner, inevitably coming back with some
Speaker 1: painter's life story or half a dozen ideas for a mural.
Speaker 1: I envied how easily he navigated the room, how quickly
Speaker 1: people warmed to him. Sometimes I felt like I lived
Speaker 1: life one calendar notification at a time, all neat boxes
Speaker 1: and reminders and color coded work chats. Alex, by comparison,
Speaker 1: lived between the lines, which both unnerved and delighted me.
Speaker 1: Of course, the mutual independence had its thorns. I won't
Speaker 1: pretend otherwise. There were moments, usually after some breezy brunch,
Speaker 1: where Alex hugged another one of his magnetic, creative female
Speaker 1: friends goodbye. When I catch a glimmer of something that
Speaker 1: felt raw and juvenile in my chest. Jealousy maybe, or
Speaker 1: just not wanting to compete. But Alex never gave me
Speaker 1: cause to worry. Not really. He had a haphazard way
Speaker 1: of including me in everything, even things that bored him
Speaker 1: to tears. He supported my campaign work, my uptight schedules,
Speaker 1: the nights I dragged him to dreary fundraising mixers filled
Speaker 1: with candidates he barely tolerated. He called me the planner
Speaker 1: and said he never would have gotten this far in
Speaker 1: his career, especially after switching from commercial work to residential design,
Speaker 1: without my stability. I believed him. In some ways. The
Speaker 1: move downtown was a second honeymoon. We'd found a new
Speaker 1: cafe every Saturday for a month, planned friend's birthdays, fallen
Speaker 1: in love with the Central Library's rooftop. Sure, our calendars
Speaker 1: turned sacred, color coordinated, shared, updated religiously, but that was
Speaker 1: just how adults managed their chaos. I liked that I
Speaker 1: always knew where to find Alex at least on paper.
Speaker 1: So when the next morning came and I pressed aug
Speaker 1: of dark roast into his sleep crumbled hand coffee, My love,
Speaker 1: Please don't start the day on adrenaline alone. As I
Speaker 1: said every morning, I decided to ask about his night.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean for it to sound probing, but the
Speaker 1: question lilted in my voice. Did sight inspection end up
Speaker 1: going late last night? Everything okay? At Bellamere he was slow,
Speaker 1: blinking lips curled hair must he shrugged, Yeah, just the
Speaker 1: usual delays. The client rep kept changing their mind about
Speaker 1: floor plans, and I had to juggle permits with the city. Actually,
Speaker 1: he added voice light but oddly evasive. We ended up
Speaker 1: grabbing a late dinner, sort of an impromptu brainstorming session.
Speaker 1: He set the mug down, fingers idly, tapping its rim,
Speaker 1: looking not at me but out the kitchen window. Which
Speaker 1: client I asked, friendly enough, but I knew my desire
Speaker 1: for a clear answer was sharper than intended. It's that
Speaker 1: real estate group, the one with the Mediterranean guy m Luca.
Speaker 1: He brought some analyst who wouldn't stop talking about projection models.
Speaker 1: He gave a soft laugh, almost as if apologizing for
Speaker 1: the dulness anyway, not the most thrilling night. I really
Speaker 1: do owe you a proper celebration. He dropped a quick
Speaker 1: kiss to my temple and moved to grab his phone
Speaker 1: from the charger, more brisk than usual. There was nothing
Speaker 1: overtly wrong. I could recite his teals after so many years.
Speaker 1: Alex got squerily when pressed about work details, especially before
Speaker 1: his second coffee. Still, something about the easy vagueness felt off,
Speaker 1: not wrong, precisely, more outside of our usual rhythm. I
Speaker 1: left the receipt buried in the sketch book. Alex texted
Speaker 1: later that afternoon to say he'd have to skip the
Speaker 1: week end gallery crawl. Sorry babe, hitting crunch time for
Speaker 1: Bellamere and I might just crash at the office. Don't
Speaker 1: wait up. His message was followed by a tiny gift
Speaker 1: of a running penguin meant to be cute, maybe a
Speaker 1: peace offering. I sent back a thumbs up and tucked
Speaker 1: my own disappointment away. I went alone, let Lana and
Speaker 1: Jacob and the rest of the group by me won
Speaker 1: too many essays, and by the end of the night
Speaker 1: I was laughing in a circle of friends, barely thinking
Speaker 1: about the fact that it would have been Alex, usually
Speaker 1: making us all pose in front of the weirdest sculpture.
Speaker 1: When I got home, the space was quiet, but not
Speaker 1: in a peaceful way. Our hallway gallery of us photos
Speaker 1: two decades compressed into frames, Alex's half finished pencil sketches,
Speaker 1: selfies with friends, museum ticket stubs looked a little smug.
Speaker 1: I poured another glass of wine and tried to convince
Speaker 1: myself that I was being, in Alex's word, paranoid. There
Speaker 1: had to be a good explanation for everything. Sometimes, though,
Speaker 1: I would check our shared digital calendar, see blank patches
Speaker 1: in Alex's slots where details should have been remind us
Speaker 1: that had been deleted by owner, odd time blocks marked
Speaker 1: only as sight meeting or networking. I'd flick through our
Speaker 1: joint friend group chat, usually a chaotic tumble of memes
Speaker 1: and plans, Suddenly finding Alex quieter, a little less involved.
Speaker 1: I noticed he d stopped sharing his usual Friday mystery
Speaker 1: cocktail photos. When Lena teased him about it at brunch,
Speaker 1: he just laughed and changed the subject. It was nothing.
Speaker 1: Probably we curated our own narratives, didn't we to keep
Speaker 1: the pulse of trust alive. But the seed was there,
Speaker 1: quietly rooting beneath the surface. I started noticing the scent
Speaker 1: on Alex's shirts when he finally came home late. Not
Speaker 1: sweat or concrete dust, but something floury cologne over floral perfume. Once,
Speaker 1: as he leaned down to unplug his phone beside the bed,
Speaker 1: the scent hit me. Faint, not unpleasant, but utterly foreign.
Speaker 1: Some construction guy's wife must be throwing too much fragrance around,
Speaker 1: he said, forehead wrinkling in theatrical disgust, making a joke
Speaker 1: about how every one in the conference room smelled like
Speaker 1: a perfume counter detonated. Another time, his notifications dinged incessantly
Speaker 1: while we sat on the couch. When I glanced over,
Speaker 1: he flicked his phone face down and grinned, just Jacob
Speaker 1: being a pest. But when I nudged, asking what was
Speaker 1: so funny, he shrugged it off. It wasn't a total
Speaker 1: shift overnight, but little things merged, like how he'd started
Speaker 1: coming in later, blaming uncontrollable sights naffoos, then brushing past
Speaker 1: my offers to bring dinner to the office. It's chaos here,
Speaker 1: you'd hate it. Promise I'll make it up. To you
Speaker 1: soon I'd swallow my disappointment. I didn't want to be needy.
Speaker 1: I knew how it looked for a woman to get
Speaker 1: twitchy just because her husband was busy, worked with women,
Speaker 1: had a life outside of her. I made vows to
Speaker 1: myself early that I would never become that wife. Still,
Speaker 1: I found myself double checking social media for clues, Instagram stories, tags,
Speaker 1: group chats, searching for something, anything that proved I was
Speaker 1: inventing concern. Most of the time, there was nothing. On
Speaker 1: a few occasions, I'd see an old photo of Alex
Speaker 1: and the friend group pop up Jacob's birthday last year,
Speaker 1: Lena's engagement party, reminding me of how integrated, how present
Speaker 1: Alex used to be. Now. Jacob looked away when I
Speaker 1: brought up Alex's late nights, claiming, man, I can barely
Speaker 1: keep up with his new project either. When I asked
Speaker 1: if Alex would make the next gallery crawl, Jacob looked
Speaker 1: at his phone and mumbled, probably buried in concrete dust.
Speaker 1: That Friday, at brunch at Lena's Bistro, I watched Lena
Speaker 1: arch and eyebrow when Alex sidestepped her, ribbing about his
Speaker 1: vanishing act seriously Alexander abandoning us for a construction site.
Speaker 1: What gives? Alex winced theatrically and spun some story about permits,
Speaker 1: which Jacob quickly validated, albeit with none of his usual enthusiasm. Lena,
Speaker 1: never one to back down, grinned, next time, you flake,
Speaker 1: I'm swiping your phone and dragging you out. Alex managed
Speaker 1: a laugh, but deflection sat heavy on his face. The
Speaker 1: friend group noticed, and that worried me more than I
Speaker 1: wanted to admit. One Saturday, Alex claimed he had to
Speaker 1: meet a client for a breakfast. Brainstorm. I spent the
Speaker 1: morning reorganizing our tiny entry closet, my version of meditative
Speaker 1: self care. Mid day, scrolling through my phone, I saw
Speaker 1: Jacob had tagged Alex at a new bar, messy and crowded,
Speaker 1: nothing to do with work. The photo showed them at
Speaker 1: a table ringed with unfamiliar faces. Alex's eyes glassy, smile wide. Oddly,
Speaker 1: he wore the shirt I'd try and failed to compliment.
Speaker 1: The night prior, I tried to text Alex a playful
Speaker 1: how's the client breakfast going, but deleted the message before sending.
Speaker 1: Money too began to raise its hand. Alex and I
Speaker 1: kept a joint card for household and social expenses. Reviewed
Speaker 1: each statement at month's end, I noticed a series of
Speaker 1: charges labeled as p R S I S net working,
Speaker 1: dozens of dollars spent at high end lounges, wine bars,
Speaker 1: spars with names I'd never heard of. Not outright suspicious. Necessarily,
Speaker 1: networking was half his job, But the times didn't add up.
Speaker 1: Some entries appeared at hours no architect would reasonably sign deals.
Speaker 1: Others overlapped with the week ends. He told me he
Speaker 1: was tied up fixing blueprints or finalizing budget proposals. Our
Speaker 1: calenders betrayed small oddities too. He'd block off site visit
Speaker 1: in our shared system. Then hours later I'd see the
Speaker 1: entry disappear, replaced by blanket personal time. Once, when I
Speaker 1: was prepping my own schedule for a busy week, I
Speaker 1: found a whole afternoon labeled gallery A plus guest, then
Speaker 1: saw it grade out deleted. It wasn't something he ever mentioned. Still,
Speaker 1: I checked myself, tried to resist assembling a pattern from
Speaker 1: the chaos. I told myself that architects, especially ones working
Speaker 1: on a project as high pro as Bellamere, could end
Speaker 1: up anywhere at any time. But then came the gallery invite.
Speaker 1: A physical card tucked in the pocket of Alex's wool
Speaker 1: coat on sleek black card stock gold embossed it read
Speaker 1: VIP reception Thursday eight p m. A plus guest I
Speaker 1: hadn't received. One Thursday night, Alex had claimed to be
Speaker 1: stuck in a late client meeting, apologizing for skipping our
Speaker 1: friend crawl through the warehouse district. I tried to let
Speaker 1: it go, but the shapes twisted in my head. A
Speaker 1: casual acquaintance, someone from the last city fundraiser, caught me
Speaker 1: in the lobby of our building that same week. She
Speaker 1: mentioned seeing Alex at a small invite only gallery event,
Speaker 1: laughing over drinks with someone from work. Maybe she said
Speaker 1: it so easily, not as a bullet, but an afterthought.
Speaker 1: I faked a smile and made excuses inside my self.
Speaker 1: Doubt gnawed each moment, growing teeth. Our home, once a
Speaker 1: warm refuge, started to feel more like a waiting room
Speaker 1: for disappointment. Some nights, I'd watch Alex drift through our routines,
Speaker 1: phone glued to his hand, laughter unspooling looser and looser.
Speaker 1: Our conversations grew brief. All numbers and logistics did you
Speaker 1: pay the utilities? Can you send the grocery list? Compliments
Speaker 1: fell away replaced by distracted half smiles. Our shared jokes
Speaker 1: lost their glue. Our signature, Can you believe people actually
Speaker 1: pay for this art? Started to feel like someone else's
Speaker 1: inside joke. It was as if we were slowly outsourcing
Speaker 1: our intimacy to calendars and credit card bills. The accumulation
Speaker 1: of small contradictions finally reached a point where I couldn't
Speaker 1: look away. On a Wednesday, one of those clear, raw
Speaker 1: days where the city felt crisp and weightless, I arrived
Speaker 1: home just after dusk. The first thing I noticed, after
Speaker 1: switching on the kitchen lights was Alex's Jim Bagg deposited
Speaker 1: by the door. I called out, surprised to find him
Speaker 1: home early. He answered from the spare room voice, rough, Hey, sorry,
Speaker 1: just finishing up a call with Tessa. Be right out.
Speaker 1: Tessa had become a fixture in Alex's work life the
Speaker 1: past year. She was a decorator, energetic, creative, perpetually in
Speaker 1: edible lipstick. I liked her, or thought I did, mostly
Speaker 1: because Lena liked her. She decollaborated on a couple of
Speaker 1: Alex's big projects, and I'd always chalked up their closeness
Speaker 1: to the natural grind of creative projects. But something in
Speaker 1: his tone that evening, hurried, slightly breathless, made me pause
Speaker 1: at the bedroom door. He emerged a moment later, cheeks flushed.
Speaker 1: Sorry chaos, he said, waving his phone. Tessa's freaking out
Speaker 1: over paint samples. You want tie tonight. He kissed my cheek,
Speaker 1: then darted for the kitchen. I followed, nerves pulling at me.
Speaker 1: Everything okay with the project, he nodded, too quick, already
Speaker 1: pulling out takeout menus, never better, just long days. Don't
Speaker 1: let me get started. An urge rose in me to
Speaker 1: mention the receipt, the gallery, invite anything. Instead, I managed
Speaker 1: a weak laugh. Well, I'm glad you're home. He didn't answer,
Speaker 1: already texting someone back. I called Lena the next morning, voice,
Speaker 1: casual but searching. Have you seen Alex lately? He seems swamped,
Speaker 1: barely home. Lena hesitated. He's working a lot, Yeah, missing
Speaker 1: in action at the last couple crawls, isn't he? I
Speaker 1: heard her typing in the background. I figured he was
Speaker 1: drowning in the bella mere thing. Her paws tightened my chest,
Speaker 1: has he? I mean, who's he been hanging out with
Speaker 1: from work? Still seeing Tess's crew a lot, Lena sniffed, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess she's involved with their interiors, right, Honestly, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen them together much lately. Another pause? Is everything okay? MEA?
Speaker 1: I forced a laugh. Of course, just missing Alex, you know,
Speaker 1: Lena softened. You're the anchor. He'll snap back. But maybe
Speaker 1: take the next crawl for yourself. Ha I agreed, but
Speaker 1: the reassurance failed to comfort. The next Friday, as I
Speaker 1: was prepping for a friend's birthday at a new jazz bar,
Speaker 1: Alex's message that he'd have to miss it client headaches
Speaker 1: running on fumes. By nine p m. Jacob texted the
Speaker 1: group a photo of Alex at the bar, drink in hand,
Speaker 1: blurred and laughing. In the background, a woman's silhouette leaned close,
Speaker 1: unmistakably Tessa, her bold ear rings catching the light. Alex's
Speaker 1: arm hovered just above the back of her chair, not
Speaker 1: touching but near. I stared at the photo for a
Speaker 1: long moment, then threw my phone onto the couch. I
Speaker 1: wanted to text Alex an angry message, demand an explanation. Instead,
Speaker 1: I ended up sending a generic hope you're surviving, to
Speaker 1: which he replied with a penguin gift again nothing else.
Speaker 1: The next morning, he was gone before I woke, his
Speaker 1: mugs still in the sink, lipsticks smudged on its edge.
Speaker 1: The days dripped past each one, thickening the air between us.
Speaker 1: Our marriage, pegged by friends as uncommonly modern and grounded
Speaker 1: in mutual respect, began to unravel beneath miner betrayals. At
Speaker 1: lunch with Lena that Sunday, she tilted her head, why
Speaker 1: are you flying solo so much lately? You and Alex
Speaker 1: in a rough patch For a moment, I almost told
Speaker 1: her everything, but the instinct to protect Alex, or at
Speaker 1: least my pride, was stronger than the impulse to confess
Speaker 1: busy period, I lied, shrugging, we'll bounce back. She gave
Speaker 1: me a skeptical look, but didn't push that. Evening, sorting
Speaker 1: bills at our dining table, I tried to distract myself
Speaker 1: with paperwork. Alex came home late, lingering at the threshold
Speaker 1: before slipping quietly into the bathroom. I found myself listening
Speaker 1: for his movements, analyzing the cadence of his footsteps, searching
Speaker 1: for the familiar clatter of his keys or the squeak
Speaker 1: of the bathroom drawer he always forgot to close. Everything
Speaker 1: felt fractionally off, like someone had rehearsed our life and
Speaker 1: then let it unravel note by note. A week later,
Speaker 1: things finally boiled over, not through anger or confrontation, but
Speaker 1: through an apology. Alex sat me down at the end
Speaker 1: of an ordinary Thursday, eyes red with fatigue. I'd been
Speaker 1: spiraling for days, mine, tracing over receipts and gallery invites
Speaker 1: and credit card statements, like a nervous animal patrolling its
Speaker 1: own borders. I expected a fight, a defensive denial, an accusation. Instead,
Speaker 1: he exhaled and reached for my hand. I know I've
Speaker 1: been checked out lately. I'm sorry, he said softly. It's
Speaker 1: just this new contract. It's a mess, and honestly, there's
Speaker 1: this client. I shouldn't even bring this up, but she
Speaker 1: Things got awkward, crossed some boundaries I didn't anticipate. He
Speaker 1: looked so stricken that I wanted to believe him. He
Speaker 1: said he'd taken her to an expensive dinner. The little fable,
Speaker 1: I realized, still sitting inside his sketch book, to placate
Speaker 1: her show high end hospitality and maybe nutch the project
Speaker 1: in the right direction. It got weird, he said, sheepish.
Speaker 1: I should have told you, but I didn't want to
Speaker 1: drag you into the drama. I watched him closely, unsure
Speaker 1: whether to cling to relief or suspicion. So nothing happened.
Speaker 1: You just had dinner, He squeezed my fingers. Absolutely nothing,
Speaker 1: he said, steady as glass. I don't even like her.
Speaker 1: I promise, I want things to go back to how
Speaker 1: they were. Can we do that? He promised to be
Speaker 1: more transparent, invited me to the next work social. You'll
Speaker 1: see how ridiculous this is. On impulse, he booked us
Speaker 1: a week nd get away for the following month, apologizing
Speaker 1: in a long winded speech for letting stress swallow the
Speaker 1: best parts of our marriage. I wanted to believe it
Speaker 1: was that easy. His honesty, even if delayed, shining through
Speaker 1: the small of doubt. That night, I pulled him close,
Speaker 1: hungry for our old normal. The warmth between us felt real,
Speaker 1: or at least familiar. We started planning the getaway. I
Speaker 1: scoured travel blogs, joked about how ridiculous his work brain was,
Speaker 1: tried to chase away all worries with talk of sea
Speaker 1: air and spa days. Alex seemed genuinely relieved, helping me research,
Speaker 1: sending links to restaurants we could try, just us. I
Speaker 1: almost let myself believe this was the end of it.
Speaker 1: Two days before the trip, I was rummaging through Alex's
Speaker 1: travel bag, checking for sunscreen, and found a set of
Speaker 1: keys at the bottom, a nondescript key ring labeled in
Speaker 1: Alex's handwriting, storage five hundred fourteen. I held them in
Speaker 1: my palm, cold as coins, oddly heavy. I'd never heard
Speaker 1: of a storage unit. Heart pounding, I tucked the keys
Speaker 1: into my pocket and zipped up the bag. At dinner,
Speaker 1: trying to be casual, I asked, did you rent a
Speaker 1: new storage locker for work supplies? He blinked as if surprised. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just for old sketches and samples. Out of space at
Speaker 1: the office too quick, then a sheepish grin. I forgot
Speaker 1: to mention, sorry, slipped my mind. Maybe it should have
Speaker 1: stopped there, but something brittle in me had already snapped.
Speaker 1: On Friday morning, after Alex left for a client meeting,
Speaker 1: I looked up the storage address. It was barely a
Speaker 1: mile from our condo, in one of those sterile, windowless
Speaker 1: buildings that all looked the same. Snow flurries pecked at
Speaker 1: my coat as I let myself in scanning for five
Speaker 1: hundred fourteen. My hands shook as I slotted the key.
Speaker 1: Inside the storage unit was silent and cold, the strip
Speaker 1: light flickering overhead. Art supplies were flung across the space,
Speaker 1: canvas rolls, graphite pencils, paint tubes, dozens of sketch books.
Speaker 1: Some I recognized, others I didn't. Tapestries I'd never seen,
Speaker 1: a fol did blanket, a half finished bottle of bourbon.
Speaker 1: Among the clutter, I spotted a scarf silk pattened in
Speaker 1: bold tropical colors. Tessa es unmistakably her signature, the things
Speaker 1: she flung over art at gallery shows and looped around
Speaker 1: her wrists at brunches. It was still dotted with a
Speaker 1: hint of her perfume. I bent down, searching, heart thrumming.
Speaker 1: Loose envelopes spilled from the bookshelf, receipts from restaurants, jazz bars,
Speaker 1: invitations to gallery nights, each marked aplus guest. At the back,
Speaker 1: a row of framed photos leaned against the wall. I
Speaker 1: lifted one my hand, trembling. Not our wedding, not friends
Speaker 1: at the lake, but Alyx and Tessa, side by side,
Speaker 1: faces tipped together, laughing over drinks in a place I
Speaker 1: didn't recognize, the same bar from Jacob's tagged photo, the
Speaker 1: same expression, one I'd only ever seen him wear with me.
Speaker 1: A cascaded array of snap shots followed Alex and Tessa
Speaker 1: outside a gallery, their heads pressed close, arms brushing, Alex
Speaker 1: holding a camera, snapping Tessa as she posed silly in
Speaker 1: front of an art installation. It wasn't only the intimacy
Speaker 1: that startled me, but the sheer volume, the sense of
Speaker 1: an entire other reel of life running beneath my own,
Speaker 1: uninvited and bright. I straightened, cold, suddenly cutting through my
Speaker 1: coat in the dead air of the storage hallway. At home,
Speaker 1: the world felt newly alien, as though I were sharing
Speaker 1: an apartment with a stranger. That night, Alex was agitated,
Speaker 1: moving through the condo like a shadow. Conversation clipped and perfunctory.
Speaker 1: I watched him, trying to anchor myself in the rhythm
Speaker 1: of my own voice, and blurted, we should have dinner
Speaker 1: with Tessa. Catch up. See how her studio's going. He froze,
Speaker 1: then forced a smile. Tessa s swamped, She'll flake. Let's
Speaker 1: do something just us. Finally, even his refusal was sharp edged, careful.
Speaker 1: The next days I probed the edges of our social circle,
Speaker 1: trying to find something more solid than photographs and half truths.
Speaker 1: Group texts from the friend's circle dimmed. Overnight. Tessa stopped responding,
Speaker 1: Lena became cryptic. Jacob avoided my calls. Gallery invitations arrived
Speaker 1: addressed only to me, Where once it was mere plus Alex.
Speaker 1: It was like being routed out of my own life
Speaker 1: by a series of closed doors. One Friday, I found
Speaker 1: Lena at a coffee shop, the windows clouded over with
Speaker 1: march chill. What's going on with Alex and Tessa? I
Speaker 1: asked carefully. Lana's eyes flickered, her fingers worrying the edge
Speaker 1: of her cup. It's complicated, Mia, Maybe just ask Alex.
Speaker 1: I can't, She shook her head. I really can't get
Speaker 1: in the middle. Her refusal was louder than anything she
Speaker 1: could have said. As I sat on my side of
Speaker 1: the condensation fogged glass, the city moving past, I finally understood.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'd always understood I thought about the way all
Speaker 1: the evidence fit together now, receipts, calendar gaps, gallery invites,
Speaker 1: Tessa's scarf friend group silences, alyxes, worn out, secretive smiles. Still,
Speaker 1: I told myself there might be some other explanation. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'd missed something. Maybe, But even as I sat there,
Speaker 1: the certainty pressed in heavy. As the snow starting to
Speaker 1: fall on the city outside, I stared into the swirl
Speaker 1: of espresso in my mug as Lena cleaned up her plate,
Speaker 1: her eyes leaving mine. As soon as I tried to
Speaker 1: meet her gaze again, the engine of conversation idled into
Speaker 1: awkward silence. In another time, we would have gossiped about
Speaker 1: the mayor's latest pr disaster, or made plans for another
Speaker 1: weekend brunch. But instead Lena offered logistical apologies and said
Speaker 1: she needed to run. Colin was waiting. She hadn't slept.
Speaker 1: She hugged me stiff as two strangers. I stood on
Speaker 1: the curb for a moment before wandering down the block,
Speaker 1: feeling the cities chatter throb against my ribs. It was
Speaker 1: a relief and a torment, turning new evidence over and
Speaker 1: over in my pocket. The scarf, the photos, the dates
Speaker 1: that finally lined up. But as I walked, I kept
Speaker 1: looking at the skyline and thinking, if Tessa and Alex
Speaker 1: were really having an affair, wouldn't the signs have been
Speaker 1: more obvious? Shouldn't I have caught a look, a gesture,
Speaker 1: a stray text. Why hadn't I seen it earlier? Had
Speaker 1: I missed it? Did I just not want to see?
Speaker 1: That night, Alex worked late again. I made myself past
Speaker 1: her with cherry tomatoes and basil, the kind of meal
Speaker 1: we used to cook together, and left the pan in
Speaker 1: the sink. I scrolled group chats in one hand, searched
Speaker 1: storage unit meaning affair in another tab on my laptop,
Speaker 1: and ended up doom scrolling through old drop box folders
Speaker 1: of our wedding, Alex in a summer weight suit, grinning,
Speaker 1: leaning his forehead into mine. I didn't cry. I tried
Speaker 1: to catalog. Every night I'd spent counseling myself out of disappointment,
Speaker 1: and every morning I'd convince myself that this was just
Speaker 1: normal marriage, weathering ebbs and flows. He came home near midnight,
Speaker 1: smelling faintly of bourbon and something sharper underneath. He bent,
Speaker 1: kissed my hair, asked about dinner. You eat yet, he murmured,
Speaker 1: But it was absent I ate, I replied, pushing the
Speaker 1: chair in and out, in and out with my bare heel.
Speaker 1: Did you see Tessa to night or was it just
Speaker 1: the guys? No, just guys. We grabbed one at that
Speaker 1: new tap room. Jacob wanted to watch the early game.
Speaker 1: There was a beat. I tried, hands trembling beneath the
Speaker 1: table to slice through the space between us. She called, though, right,
Speaker 1: I heard you on the phone last night. Sounded intense.
Speaker 1: He looked, surprised. Oh, she's just panicking. She's still trying
Speaker 1: to get the hotel to approve her mural budget for Bellamere.
Speaker 1: I swear I can't figure out if she's a genius
Speaker 1: or a disaster. He grinned, softening, and for a second
Speaker 1: that old spark flickered. Then it washed away as he
Speaker 1: fished his phone from his inside coat pocket, thumb working
Speaker 1: at unread messages, we fell into silence, each walling up
Speaker 1: behind our small screens, the TV's blue wash flickering across
Speaker 1: his jaw. Every so often. I glanced at him from
Speaker 1: the edge of my vision. Was that gilt or just exhaustion?
Speaker 1: Would a guilty man, sit there, bones slouched, so ordinary
Speaker 1: and unremarkable? Or was that the illusion ordinary only by
Speaker 1: the greatest of calculated efforts? A chime night, babe, he said,
Speaker 1: pecked my forehead and walked down the hall to brush
Speaker 1: his teeth. I went to bed an hour later, lying
Speaker 1: stiff on my side, and pretended to be asleep when
Speaker 1: he slid in. Saturdays once belonged to us gallery openings,
Speaker 1: farmers markets, awkward yoga classes before quassas. But this Saturday
Speaker 1: Alex announced that he was working from the coworking lounge downstairs.
Speaker 1: Too many interruptions up here, you know how it is.
Speaker 1: I'll order up, I promise. He grabbed his laptop, headphones,
Speaker 1: a sketch book. I watched him go, then circled the
Speaker 1: apartment in increments, picking up stray socks, fluffing pillows, trying
Speaker 1: to steady my thumping pulse. In the bathroom, I found
Speaker 1: a bottle of cologne I didn't recognize, sleek, foreign, labeled
Speaker 1: full A gift. I texted Lena. Did you guys get
Speaker 1: Alex a new cologne for his birthday? She replied, no,
Speaker 1: we stuck to Bourbon Haar new signature scent. Another dead
Speaker 1: end or maybe a new starting point. By noon, I'd
Speaker 1: scrubbed the place, nearly raw, the smell of bleach pushing
Speaker 1: into every corner. I opened the hall closet, rifled through boxes,
Speaker 1: half tempted to go back again to the storage unit.
Speaker 1: But what more would I find? Proof was choking the air.
Speaker 1: Now I didn't want more. I wanted relief. When Alex
Speaker 1: came up for lunch, he looked pale, eyes rimmed red.
Speaker 1: Want to grab a sandwich at Finch, he asked, sounding
Speaker 1: earnest's walk. I need some air. I eyed him, wary,
Speaker 1: but agreed. We strolled the block under half, Alex's hands
Speaker 1: stuffed deep in his coat pockets. We talked about nothing,
Speaker 1: campaign gossip, the new Mediterranean spot opening soon, Jacob's latest date,
Speaker 1: a disaster. Apparently it was almost easy, almost fun, like before.
Speaker 1: But then as we ordered, I noticed Alex's head darts subtly.
Speaker 1: When someone's phone rang behind us. He reached for his
Speaker 1: own phone, glanced at the lock screen, shoved it away.
Speaker 1: I sipped my soup and waited for him to ask
Speaker 1: me something. He didn't. He just asked if I wanted
Speaker 1: to walk home alone, said he might try to get
Speaker 1: another hour's work in. I nodded cheek's numb with February wind,
Speaker 1: and wandered back past the jewelry store we ducked into
Speaker 1: before our wedding, the one where he joked about buying
Speaker 1: me a pendant for every anniversary. The window glittered. I
Speaker 1: turned away. When I got home, I rummaged through our bedroom,
Speaker 1: opening his drawers one by one, not really searching, just
Speaker 1: motion and compulsion. In his sock drawer, something stopped me.
Speaker 1: A glossy slip wedged at the back. Another receipt, This
Speaker 1: one showed two glasses of champagne at the rooftop bar
Speaker 1: of the Amberley, a place we'd never gone together. The
Speaker 1: date marked midweek, two weeks after our anniversary, the same
Speaker 1: handwriting on the tip line as always. I stared at it, numb.
Speaker 1: Why keep these? Why risk the paper trail at all?
Speaker 1: Some part of me wanted to believe it was carelessness,
Speaker 1: as if denying the significance would make it go away.
Speaker 1: I snapped a photo with my own phone and slid
Speaker 1: the receipt back. The mirrored version of myself in the
Speaker 1: closet door glass was pale, determined, guilty, and angry. The
Speaker 1: emotion was messy and layered, tangled up in a dozen
Speaker 1: quieter humiliations. Had I missed real signs all along? Or
Speaker 1: was this more than just one mistake? Was there a
Speaker 1: whole doubling of marriage threaded under my nose? Lunch plates
Speaker 1: crusted over, and the sink. When Alex returned in the
Speaker 1: early evening, hair disheveled, hands blackened from graphite. He looked,
Speaker 1: for the first time in months, like someone fighting off
Speaker 1: a fever. He dropped into a kitchen chair and groaned,
Speaker 1: can we skip dinner? I'm dead? Want a vege? Watch something? Sure?
Speaker 1: I tried to sound neutral, but my words had an
Speaker 1: edge I couldn't blunt. As we watched TV, I drifted
Speaker 1: half there, picking up my cuticles. The sitcom's studio laughter
Speaker 1: rang hollow. Alex dozed, chin tipped to his chest, oblivious.
Speaker 1: Just before bed, as we went through the routine washing up,
Speaker 1: checking locks, I caught him lingering at his phone again,
Speaker 1: typing rapidly. He caught my eye in the mirror and
Speaker 1: offered his phone for a second, as if inviting me,
Speaker 1: go ahead, what playlist do you want? It was so
Speaker 1: performative that it nearly made me laugh, But I just
Speaker 1: shook my head and said, surprise me in the dark.
Speaker 1: I heard him sigh once, a long drawn out breath
Speaker 1: I'd heard before he delivered bad news at family dinners.
Speaker 1: The next week, I got a d M from a
Speaker 1: mutual friend, Kayla, a curator who sometimes invited both of
Speaker 1: us to first look openings. Hey, hope all's good you
Speaker 1: and Alex coming to the Limbwood preview. Saw him and
Speaker 1: Tessa last Thursday. She said you were out of town,
Speaker 1: so he kept trying to drag me into the sketch.
Speaker 1: Jam wish I had your energy. She punctuated it with
Speaker 1: a string of laughing emojis. I stared at the message,
Speaker 1: Jeor said, I typed back, wasn't out of town, just
Speaker 1: missed the invite, She replied, Er gallery p R mix
Speaker 1: ups are endless. Hope you can make it next time.
Speaker 1: Alex had told me he'd been home late that night,
Speaker 1: catching up on plans for an out of town project
Speaker 1: being decided at the last minute. Now my mind spun
Speaker 1: in loops. There were so many missing hours, so many
Speaker 1: effortlessly constructed alibis. That evening, I asked, again too casually,
Speaker 1: how the Limward project was shaping up. He stumbled for
Speaker 1: a second, then shifted, Oh that's yeah, still at the
Speaker 1: permitting stage. Nothing special. Last week he didn't look up,
Speaker 1: didn't ask about Kayla, didn't ask why I even knew
Speaker 1: we drifted me trying not to come apart him, seemingly
Speaker 1: trying to keep everything together by force of habit. On Thursday,
Speaker 1: I tried a new approach, texting Jacob after work, Hey, random,
Speaker 1: but is Alex bailing on this week's crawl again? Missed
Speaker 1: the old crew minutes past. Then, haven't seen him outside
Speaker 1: of project meetings. If you talk to him, tell him
Speaker 1: he owes me a drink. He was lying to his
Speaker 1: friends too then, or at least lying by omission. I
Speaker 1: spent that weekend reorganizing every square foot of our living space,
Speaker 1: desperate for something orderly, something that responded. In the bottom
Speaker 1: of Alex's art supply bin, I found a small jewelry box,
Speaker 1: the soft blue velvet dusted with graphite. I eased it
Speaker 1: open inside a slim silver bracelet, a style I never wore,
Speaker 1: engraved with an abstract design that looked almost like Tessa's
Speaker 1: signature sketches. The price tag still attached. A gift, unclaimed,
Speaker 1: unnamed for me. For her. My heart lurched. The bracelet
Speaker 1: was just another artifact, another brick in the wall of
Speaker 1: sidelong evidence. I put it back, unable to decide whether
Speaker 1: its presence was proof or prelude. That afternoon, Alex found
Speaker 1: me in the guest room, wrestling with winter blankets. He
Speaker 1: leaned in the door, tentative, packing for our getaway. Already
Speaker 1: I startled, just clearing space, I lied. He stepped closer,
Speaker 1: put his hand on my shoulder. You okay, you seem
Speaker 1: miles away these days. His eyes looked weary, lost for
Speaker 1: a terrible moment. What I saw there was not malice,
Speaker 1: but confusion and sadness. Maybe he really didn't want to
Speaker 1: lose this. Maybe he was desperate, stuck, and didn't know
Speaker 1: how to end it. I let myself sag for a
Speaker 1: second against him. You could tell me if something was
Speaker 1: seriously wrong, I said, voice thin. He pressed his cheek
Speaker 1: into my hair. I'm just tired, he murmured. I want
Speaker 1: it to be good again. I almost said so do I,
Speaker 1: but instead I just nodded, holding him in the silence,
Speaker 1: my mind racing Monday, another shift. Alex's phone buzzed while
Speaker 1: we ate dinner. The screen lighting up with just a
Speaker 1: first initial tea. He flipped the phone, only to realize
Speaker 1: I'd seen it Tessa again, He explained, mouth quirking, she's
Speaker 1: driving me insane about the color palettes. I swear if
Speaker 1: I see one more swatch. He made a face, trying
Speaker 1: to lure me in with humor. I snorted, followed his
Speaker 1: lead and said nothing more. That night, rain spattered against
Speaker 1: the windows, and as Alex nodded off on the couch,
Speaker 1: I picked up his phone, a risk, a defiance, but
Speaker 1: somehow necessary. It was locked with face I d I
Speaker 1: almost laughed at myself, seeing the absurdity. After years together,
Speaker 1: we never needed to hide a phone or guess a password.
Speaker 1: I set it gently down and retreated into the kitchen, chastened.
Speaker 1: I was losing my grip on what kind of marriage
Speaker 1: we had. Was it one full of small lies we
Speaker 1: agreed not to see, or colossal secrets carefully architected like
Speaker 1: the shell of a building around empty space. On Tuesday,
Speaker 1: I went to lunch alone, kneading light, kneading noise at
Speaker 1: a cafe I barely recognized. I spotted Tessa at a
Speaker 1: corner table, deep in conversation with a woman. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I almost left, but instead I bought a coffee and
Speaker 1: watched them from across the room. Tessa's laughter, high, effortless,
Speaker 1: rang above the crowd. She was magnetic, vivid. Her scarf
Speaker 1: looped artfully at her neck. She gestured with a pen,
Speaker 1: drawing something on a napkin, her phone face up beside
Speaker 1: her half eaten sandwich. After the other woman rose to leave,
Speaker 1: I impulsively walked over. Hey, stranger, I said, forcing a
Speaker 1: casual smile. She blinked, caught off guard, not unfriendly MEA wow,
Speaker 1: I swear I just got your text. What are the odds?
Speaker 1: I shrugged, awkward. I was just in the neighborhood. I hovered,
Speaker 1: struggling for small talk. Heard you and Alex are crushing
Speaker 1: the Bellamere project. She lit up, but I saw her
Speaker 1: gaze shifting, scanning the room the way some one does
Speaker 1: when needing a quick exit, trying to anyway. He can
Speaker 1: be a stubborn partner, but you probably know that better
Speaker 1: than any one. She offered a brittle laugh. We exchanged pleasantries, art, politics,
Speaker 1: which coffee place had the least burned beans, and then
Speaker 1: she said, sorry, Mia, I really have to get to
Speaker 1: a client. She shoved her note book into her bag
Speaker 1: and let the door close behind her with a definitive click.
Speaker 1: I sat staring at the water ring left by her glass.
Speaker 1: Even the casual conversation felt orchestrated pieces shifting on a
Speaker 1: board I never asked to play. After work, a new
Speaker 1: invitation arrived, Gallery reception, bellamere commission a plus guest, the
Speaker 1: same gold embossed card as before, except this time only
Speaker 1: my name was printed in the R s v P
Speaker 1: line Mere laurent, no mention of Alex. That night, when
Speaker 1: Alex stumbled in late smelling of rain and cigarette smoke,
Speaker 1: he collapsed into bed, Fully clothed. I lay next to him,
Speaker 1: every nerve tense. I started to draft an e mail
Speaker 1: to our couples therapist, then deleted it. This wasn't something
Speaker 1: we could talk through, not without truth. The build up
Speaker 1: was relentless, the muting of shared rituals, the string of
Speaker 1: altered friendships, the low grade hum of anxiety that threaded
Speaker 1: every hour. Two nights before our planned get away, Alex
Speaker 1: cooked dinner for the first time in weeks, his signature
Speaker 1: mushroom rosotto, a dish we'd made on our first date
Speaker 1: night in the old apartment. He was animated, telling stories
Speaker 1: about old professors, laughing at something I barely heard. At
Speaker 1: one point, he reached for my hand, squeezed it, said,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize how much I missed this. I didn't
Speaker 1: pull away, but my skin felt alien. I tried to
Speaker 1: soak it in the performance of normal, the ghost of
Speaker 1: our old rhythm, thinking maybe if I could memorize this,
Speaker 1: i'd know what to ask when the moment finally shattered.
Speaker 1: After dinner, he opened a bottle of wine, a mid
Speaker 1: shelf nothing fancy, but he poured it carefully, his gaze
Speaker 1: searching mine. He started to say something, maybe a confession,
Speaker 1: maybe a plea, but just then his phone vibrated again,
Speaker 1: that initial tea lighting up his screen. I watched him
Speaker 1: make a choice right in front of me. He reached
Speaker 1: for the phone and turned it upside down. When he
Speaker 1: looked back at me, his smile was tight, practiced. It
Speaker 1: was all choreography now, a par de dedeu of omission
Speaker 1: and hope, each of us waiting for the other to move,
Speaker 1: to shatter the fragile balance. Later, while Alex showered, I
Speaker 1: went back to the storage unit, keys clinking in my palm,
Speaker 1: I flipped the lights and dug further, searching drawers, opening
Speaker 1: sketch books, I found one with multi colored post its
Speaker 1: filled with to do lists in Tessa's handwriting, her looping gs,
Speaker 1: and tall architectural ads. Tasks reserved table, little fable by
Speaker 1: paint frames. Ask 'em about dinner with a the post
Speaker 1: it was dated for our anniversary. My knees buckled beneath me.
Speaker 1: I turned the pages. Notes about lamp fixtures and jazz
Speaker 1: reservations scribbled hundreds of times, always paired A plus T,
Speaker 1: never mire. I dropped the book, shaking, the sound echoing
Speaker 1: in the narrow metal corridor. I texted Lena, can I
Speaker 1: call please? Two rings? And she answered, her voice apprehensive.
Speaker 1: I went to the storage unit again. Lena, it's all there, photos,
Speaker 1: her stuff, receipts, lists. He's been with Tessa for months.
Speaker 1: I know it. I heard her breathing, waiting for a
Speaker 1: life line. I'm so sorry, she said finally, softly. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to tell you, Mia. I just saw
Speaker 1: them together once and thought maybe it was nothing, or
Speaker 1: maybe you two had an arrangement. I didn't understand. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be the person to break you. I
Speaker 1: pressed my forehead to my knees, the steel floor cool
Speaker 1: beneath me. You could have told me, I know, she whispered,
Speaker 1: voice cracking as if weighed by guilt. But it's a mess,
Speaker 1: and every one it's like nobody knows how to pick
Speaker 1: a side. After I hung up, I sat for a
Speaker 1: long time in the ghostly echo of strangers down the corridor.
Speaker 1: I tried to find some sturdy part of myself to
Speaker 1: stand on, something that wasn't shattered by the double betrayal
Speaker 1: of Alex, of my closest friend, of my friend group's
Speaker 1: silent retreat. There was nothing left to invent, no more
Speaker 1: plausible denial, only the cold clarity of loss. I drove
Speaker 1: home on Autopallet, the city wreathed in rain, my face
Speaker 1: reflected twice in every pane of glass. The traffic lights
Speaker 1: flickered hot red as I waited on the last block
Speaker 1: before our building. In my bag, the storage unit keys
Speaker 1: pressed against my thigh like proof, like an omen. Inside
Speaker 1: the condo, I sat on the edge of our unmade bed,
Speaker 1: letting my bag drop to the floor. For an hour,
Speaker 1: I watched the city below, traffic crawling every lighter door
Speaker 1: I couldn't open. Alex wouldn't be home for another hour.
Speaker 1: The question now wasn't whether I would confront him, but how,
Speaker 1: and whether there was any part of the story left
Speaker 1: to salvage. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through
Speaker 1: old texts, trying to remember when the distance began, when
Speaker 1: I stopped being his inside joke and started being his excuse.
Speaker 1: I traced through our photos, the slow slimming down of
Speaker 1: our smiles, the way we leaned away, bracing against the wind.
Speaker 1: The city continued on oblivious. I waited, evidence stacked on
Speaker 1: the table, every muscle primed for the next moment, the
Speaker 1: moment when I could finally demand the truth, regardless of
Speaker 1: how unprepared I still felt to bear it. The sound
Speaker 1: of the city below drifted up through the window, a
Speaker 1: restless murmur that made the walls of our condo feel
Speaker 1: flimsy and false. The bag with the storage unit keys
Speaker 1: lay at my feet, the photos, scarf, and receipts stacked
Speaker 1: in front of me like props for a confrontation. I
Speaker 1: still didn't quite know how to stage. My eyes burned
Speaker 1: with exhaustion, but the adrenaline wouldn't let my body rest.
Speaker 1: Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Alex's face
Speaker 1: in those photos tilted toward Tessa, a light in a
Speaker 1: way I'd forgotten he could be. It was almost a relief.
Speaker 1: When Alex's key finally rattled in the lock. I stood
Speaker 1: up before I even meant to heart, knocking against my ribs.
Speaker 1: I heard him shed his shoes, rustle out of his coat,
Speaker 1: humming quietly, a habit he'd picked up in college. He
Speaker 1: once told me to hide the sound of his nerves.
Speaker 1: He came into the bedroom, pausing at the door when
Speaker 1: he saw me upright fully dressed. The artifacts of his
Speaker 1: secret life splayed across the duvet. His brow twitched in confusion.
Speaker 1: Then his features re arranged into something far more careful,
Speaker 1: A gentle smile, wary, practiced hey. He said the word small,
Speaker 1: but hopeful. Couldn't sleep. I gestured toward the evidence, forcing
Speaker 1: my jaw to unlock. I went to the storage unit
Speaker 1: to day Alex. The words seemed to land sluggishly, like
Speaker 1: he was dredging up another language. He squinted, as if
Speaker 1: disappointed by my lack of subtlety, or maybe by my
Speaker 1: presence at all. What were you doing there? I ignored
Speaker 1: the question. I saw everything, the photos, her scarf receipts,
Speaker 1: the invitations. I know. Please just stop lying to me.
Speaker 1: I need you to give me something that makes sense.
Speaker 1: For a moment, I thought he would try to slip sideways, dodge,
Speaker 1: or spin another half truth. Instead, Alex's shoulders sagged, and
Speaker 1: he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes,
Speaker 1: as if trying to rub away the moment itself mere.
Speaker 1: He exhaled, but didn't look at me. Can we not?
Speaker 1: Can we just not do this now? The air between
Speaker 1: us thickened, coiling with years worth of silent agreements, broken
Speaker 1: only to night by the sound of my strangled breath. No,
Speaker 1: we're doing this now. My voice trembled, not with tears,
Speaker 1: but with the effort to keep it from breaking entirely.
Speaker 1: How long, Alex, how long have you been with her?
Speaker 1: Was it just once? Or I stopped? Unable even to
Speaker 1: say the word affair aloud, He finally raised his gaze,
Speaker 1: searching mine, desperate for some foothold. It's God, Mia, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to hurt you. I really didn't. She and
Speaker 1: I it wasn't so posed to. It was work, and
Speaker 1: then it was just, I don't know, easy for things
Speaker 1: to get blurry. I didn't even realize it was happening
Speaker 1: until it already had. It wasn't enough. I felt the
Speaker 1: heat rise in my chest. Did you love her? Did
Speaker 1: you love me? Alex's voice was barely more than a whisper.
Speaker 1: I was just lonely. I felt shut out. Everything with
Speaker 1: you was about the next event, the next wind, the
Speaker 1: next right thing. Tessa, she was there, she saw me.
Speaker 1: It started as talking, then more, I swear I kept
Speaker 1: trying to stop. I wanted us back mere, I still do.
Speaker 1: You could have talked to me, You could have let
Speaker 1: me in the old argument. I had never thought I
Speaker 1: would need flung between us like broken glass. I pressed
Speaker 1: my hands to my face, feeling how the heat of
Speaker 1: my palms had nowhere to go. I tried, he said, desperation,
Speaker 1: fraying his voice, But it always felt like there wasn't
Speaker 1: room for me any more, not the part of me
Speaker 1: that was messy or scared. You had it altogether. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to drag you down with my stuff, so
Speaker 1: I went somewhere else. I scoffed a sound ugly and small.
Speaker 1: So you sabotaged everything instead, even our friends. You dragged
Speaker 1: them into your lies. Alex's mouth opened and closed some
Speaker 1: reply aborted before it formed. He twisted the hem of
Speaker 1: his shirt. I know, I know there's no fixing this.
Speaker 1: His eyes searched mine, again, softening. I'm sorry. I'm so
Speaker 1: fucking sorry. Words spilled out of me, raw, unplanned. I
Speaker 1: spent weeks, months convincing myself. You were just busy that
Speaker 1: my instincts were broken. You lied to my face, Alex,
Speaker 1: to all of us. He put his hands out, palms up,
Speaker 1: a gesture I'd seen a hundred times during our worst arguments.
Speaker 1: His plea for some version of forgiveness, a future that
Speaker 1: could still include both of us. I couldn't match it.
Speaker 1: Are you leaving me for her? I asked, my teeth
Speaker 1: clicking together with fear, anger and the shame of even asking.
Speaker 1: Alex shook his head slowly. I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Everything feels broken. I never meant for it to get
Speaker 1: this far. I kept thinking I'd find a way to
Speaker 1: fix all of it before you noticed. That's not fair
Speaker 1: to you, or her, or any one, especially you. I
Speaker 1: wiped the back of my hand across my nose. You
Speaker 1: have to leave now. I can't. I can't look at you,
Speaker 1: not right now. Where you go is your problem. He nodded, numb.
Speaker 1: He moved through the room like a ghost, packing a
Speaker 1: duffel bag, bare essentials, no ceremony. At the doorway, he
Speaker 1: stopped about to say something, but his words failed him.
Speaker 1: I watched as he closed the door softly, the sound
Speaker 1: final in its understatement. For a long while I stood
Speaker 1: where I was, hearing only my blood in my ears,
Speaker 1: the city's noise below, and the quiet of a life appended.
Speaker 1: The next morning, the realization clanged through the condo. Alex
Speaker 1: was on his usual shoes, the jacket he slung over,
Speaker 1: the railing, the humming in the kitchen all missing. The
Speaker 1: apartment was suddenly all edges and cold blue light. I
Speaker 1: drifted through our rooms, picking up the stray wreckage, a
Speaker 1: sock beneath the bed, a twisted tie beside the hamper,
Speaker 1: the wine glass he'd left half full on the desk,
Speaker 1: the debris of the life we'd built together. There was
Speaker 1: a part of me that wanted to scream, to break something,
Speaker 1: but I moved numbly, stuffing his things into a box
Speaker 1: just to occupy my hands. When Lena texted, are you okay?
Speaker 1: Do you want me to come by? I stared at
Speaker 1: my phone, Unable to decide if I wanted comfort or
Speaker 1: just the relief of silence, I replied, not yet, needs space.
Speaker 1: The group chat had gone quiet, except for a stray
Speaker 1: meme from Jacob that nobody acknowledged social rituals, gallery invites,
Speaker 1: brunch poles, dinner reservations had withered. Overnight. I kept catching
Speaker 1: myself hovering over Tessa's contact, about to type, wanting to
Speaker 1: demand answers or unleash all the anger tightening my chest,
Speaker 1: but every time my thumb froze above the keyboard. Alex
Speaker 1: texted late in the afternoon, staying at Jacob's for a bit.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, let me know if you need anything from me,
Speaker 1: or if you want to talk. I didn't reply, though
Speaker 1: I read the message so many times the words became static.
Speaker 1: I notified the front desk to limit his access, then
Speaker 1: changed the passwords on our streaming accounts. Feeling small satisfaction
Speaker 1: at even these petty barriers, I scrawled a list of
Speaker 1: tasks on the back of a receipt HR Bank friends,
Speaker 1: not knowing where to start, only knowing I needed tasks
Speaker 1: to anchor me. The practicalities piled up. I left a
Speaker 1: message for HR requesting time off for family emergency. Then
Speaker 1: I began packing away the most obvious reminders, our wedding photo,
Speaker 1: the mug from Santorini, the ridiculous mug we'd bought at
Speaker 1: the Art Museum gift shop. After laughing too oudly under
Speaker 1: a giant Chihuly installation, I stood for a long time,
Speaker 1: thumb pressed against the glass, letting the tears come. Finally, quietly,
Speaker 1: more from fatigue than heartbreak. Lena showed up with coffee
Speaker 1: and flowers, her own face streaked with worry and remorse.
Speaker 1: We sat together on the couch, not speaking at first.
Speaker 1: Then words burst from me, anger, regret, a list of
Speaker 1: humiliations and questions, none of which Lena tried to solve.
Speaker 1: She just listened, holding my hand, letting her silent presence
Speaker 1: fill the gaps my marriage had left behind. I tried
Speaker 1: to cry quietly that night, the muscles in my body
Speaker 1: locked up from stress and exhaustion. Every so often i'd
Speaker 1: bolt upright convinced. I heard Alex's key that he'd try
Speaker 1: to make another show of regret or explanation, but the
Speaker 1: condo stayed silent save for the city's distant thrum. I
Speaker 1: paced the narrow kitchen twice, stopped to pour myself two
Speaker 1: fingers of urban and sat at the table, staring at
Speaker 1: the scarf I had carried back from the storage unit, fingers,
Speaker 1: worrying it into tighter and tighter knots. It was only
Speaker 1: when the dawn started to slip lavender across the window
Speaker 1: that my mind cleared enough to realize that in itself,
Speaker 1: the evidence was now useless. The relationship was already dead.
Speaker 1: All that was left was to decide how I would
Speaker 1: exist in the wreckage. As the day spun on, messages
Speaker 1: from colleagues pinged through my neglected inbox work, reminders piling
Speaker 1: up the real world. Stubbornly uninterested in my collapse, I
Speaker 1: muted them all. The news of my absence would soon
Speaker 1: reach Lana's husband, then Jacob, then everyone in the group,
Speaker 1: each of them calculating the risks of gossip, the right
Speaker 1: words to say, the invitations to retract. I felt the
Speaker 1: shape of my circle shrinking. In a jagged, guilty impulse,
Speaker 1: I started to compose an emil to Tessa, something furious, demanding, dignified.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask her how she could sit on
Speaker 1: my couch, compliment my gallery picks. Then take my husband
Speaker 1: home at night. But each time I began to write,
Speaker 1: I deleted the words. In the end, I closed the laptop,
Speaker 1: letting the anger festa a wound that would not scab.
Speaker 1: Alex called once from Jacob's phone. I watched the screen ring,
Speaker 1: ignored it, but let the voice mil play. I'm not
Speaker 1: calling to ask for forgiveness, he said, his tone flat
Speaker 1: yet oddly gentle. But I do want you to know
Speaker 1: none of this is your fault. Please remember that I
Speaker 1: really am sorry. His unfinished sentences infuriated me as much
Speaker 1: as his betrayals. By nightfall, I'd retreated to the guest room,
Speaker 1: refusing to sleep in what suddenly felt like their bed,
Speaker 1: not just mine and his. I piled the framed photos
Speaker 1: into a box, pressing my palm over each glass rectangle,
Speaker 1: as if I could erase the memories by touch alone.
Speaker 1: I wondered if Alex was feeling anything comparable, or if
Speaker 1: his grief had already calcified into something he'd learned to
Speaker 1: live with. On impulse, I checked the building security app,
Speaker 1: confirming his key fob had not been used. The small
Speaker 1: proof calmed me, here at least was a border he
Speaker 1: would not cross. I tried to sleep, but found myself
Speaker 1: awake at every small sound. At midnight, I changed the
Speaker 1: password to every shared account, Netflix, food Delivery, even our
Speaker 1: back up hard drive. I needed to reclaim something, however trivial.
Speaker 1: Each confirmation email landed in my inbox, a string of
Speaker 1: locks I could build against the memory of him. There
Speaker 1: were moments of cruel clarity, too, when I pictured myself
Speaker 1: at some future gallery opening, running into Alyx and Tessa,
Speaker 1: our friend group orbiting uncertainly. I wondered what explanation he
Speaker 1: would give the others, how Lana would handle the division,
Speaker 1: whether Jacob would choose sides. The next morning felt thin
Speaker 1: and unfamiliar. Brued coffee, poured it into a plain mug,
Speaker 1: and forced myself to stand at the window, watching as
Speaker 1: a new day elbowed its way across the city. My
Speaker 1: reflection was sharp, my eyes rimmed, red but clear. I
Speaker 1: was alone, truly alone, in the same way I'd imagined
Speaker 1: years before when I met Alex and thought myself immune
Speaker 1: to the quiet erosion of trust. The sense of devastation
Speaker 1: was matched only by the faintest undercurrent of relief. No
Speaker 1: more wondering, no more charts of evidence and counter explanation.
Speaker 1: I could let the silence expand, let it hollow out
Speaker 1: the bruised parts, and leave only the shape of what
Speaker 1: would come next. I realized numbly that the only thing
Speaker 1: left was to survive the next few days, navigating the
Speaker 1: social fallout, the paperwork, the return of keys. But this moment,
Speaker 1: this early morning, bridged between our shared life and whatever
Speaker 1: came after, belonged only to me. It was an echo,
Speaker 1: not a conclusion, and I let myself rest in it,
Speaker 1: just for an instant, before deciding what to do next.
Speaker 1: The room, scrubbed of all evidence except for what I'd boxed,
Speaker 1: myself was quieter than I remembered. I forced myself to
Speaker 1: carry Alyx's duffel bag to the door, stacking it beside
Speaker 1: a small pile of his things, coat, shoes, that ridiculous
Speaker 1: hat he'd insisted on keeping from our trip to Montreal.
Speaker 1: Each object felt both heavy and insubstantial, memories condensed to
Speaker 1: wait without meaning. Minutes past, I wrote down a list
Speaker 1: of things I'd need to do for the divorce, legal contacts,
Speaker 1: financial splits, emails to send, but it all seemed abstract, impossible.
Speaker 1: I half drafted a note for Alex, detailing what he
Speaker 1: could pick up, what he shouldn't bother with. But the
Speaker 1: words didn't come. Instead, I found myself scrolling through old photos,
Speaker 1: studying the curve of his smile, the background blur of friends,
Speaker 1: the way we leaned into each other, unaware that some
Speaker 1: day these would be relics and not routine. One by one,
Speaker 1: I deleted images from my Favorites folder, each tap like
Speaker 1: a small satisfying punch. I didn't erase them all, not yet,
Speaker 1: not to day. Sometime in the late afternoon, Lena arrived again,
Speaker 1: letting herself in after a perfunctory knock. She pressed coffee
Speaker 1: into my hand and rammed a shopping bag on to
Speaker 1: the table, frozen soup, bread, a box of tissues, more flowers.
Speaker 1: I sagged with relief. We sat together, the city moving
Speaker 1: on the other side of thick glass, saying little. After
Speaker 1: a long silence, Lena reached over, squeezing my wrist. I'm sorry, Mia,
Speaker 1: I should have stopped it. I should have warned you.
Speaker 1: Any one should have seen it. I wish i'd been braver.
Speaker 1: I turned to her, voice almost gone, It's not your
Speaker 1: job to fix his choices, or hers, or even mine.
Speaker 1: Lena bowed her head wiping at her eyes. I just
Speaker 1: don't want to lose you too. You can't, I told her,
Speaker 1: simple as any vow. But I need space for a
Speaker 1: while until I figure out what any of this means.
Speaker 1: She nodded, understanding, weighted with guilt and sympathy. After she left,
Speaker 1: I wandered again through the empty condo, forcing myself to
Speaker 1: open the windows, letting the outside air sweep away the
Speaker 1: smell of us, of him, of our ending. A part
Speaker 1: of me wanted to do something drastic, trash the photos,
Speaker 1: toss his clothes off the balcony, write a scathing manifesto
Speaker 1: to everyone who'd ever hesitated to tell me the truth,
Speaker 1: But mostly weariness won out. I let the day close
Speaker 1: around me, the city's noiser blanket over the sharp edges
Speaker 1: of grief. On impulse, I found the storage unit keys
Speaker 1: again and walk them to the building's front desk. I
Speaker 1: handed them over to the attendant, brushing off his confusion.
Speaker 1: No longer needed, I said. He didn't press, just nodded,
Speaker 1: tucking them into a bin of unclaimed mail. I returned
Speaker 1: up stairs, closing the door behind me, and for the
Speaker 1: first time since Alex left, I felt the brittle piece
Speaker 1: of a place that belonged only to its present. I
Speaker 1: sat at the dining table, scrawling a list of new routines,
Speaker 1: different supermarkets, a running route, a yoga class. Lana wouldn't
Speaker 1: touch steps, to keep myself away from ghost places, from
Speaker 1: haunting my own marriages left overs. I noticed the group
Speaker 1: chatter had started to blink to life, Jacob apologizing for
Speaker 1: the silence, Lena sending a cautious invite for a brunch
Speaker 1: if you feel up to it. I ignored both, tucking my
Speaker 1: phone and a stack of unopened mail. But as night
Speaker 1: crept in, I realized I had a choice. Now, take
Speaker 1: what I could carry, leave what I could not, and
Speaker 1: let the city's rhythm become my own again. The down
Speaker 1: Towns skyline blinked to life, neon stripes across the glass.
Speaker 1: I took Alex's duffel and the box of his things,
Speaker 1: carried them down to the lobby, and left them beside
Speaker 1: the secure desk with his name taped on top a
Speaker 1: plane label for a plane exit. Back upstairs, I paused
Speaker 1: in the entryway, hand resting on the bare marble counter.
Speaker 1: With the last evidence gone, I closed the bedroom door,
Speaker 1: dimmed the lights, and sat at the window As the
Speaker 1: city settled into night, I plugged in my phone, thumb
Speaker 1: hovering over Alex's contact, his name, his number, the last
Speaker 1: threads of a life that had once fit perfectly. I
Speaker 1: pressed delete contact, watched his name disappear, then scrolled quickly
Speaker 1: through our old photos. When I reached the end, I
Speaker 1: set the phone face down, letting the soft darkness pool
Speaker 1: around me as headlights swooped past far below. For a
Speaker 1: long time, I just breathed in and out. My reflections
Speaker 1: superimposed on the view older changed steadier, maybe even as
Speaker 1: my hands trembled. I took one steadying breath, stood up,
Speaker 1: and began to reassemble the home as mine alone. The
Speaker 1: city stared back at me, bright and unblinking, all promise
Speaker 1: and blank possibility. My future was unknown, but this stillness,
Speaker 1: sharp final, was for now enough. The light above the
Speaker 1: city flickered and dimmed as I finished resetting our space,
Speaker 1: my space now small actions, stacking up to create some
Speaker 1: illusion of order when none had existed for weeks. I
Speaker 1: spent the next hour tucked into the guest bed, half upright,
Speaker 1: scrolling through obscure art blogs with laness forgotten flowers at
Speaker 1: my feet, trying and failing to make the world feel
Speaker 1: less hollow. Sleep came in snatches, interrupted by dreams in
Speaker 1: which Alex slid through rooms without ever facing me, always
Speaker 1: just out of reach, Tessa's laugh echoing from some invisible corridor.
Speaker 1: By morning, I felt the consequences settling deeper in places
Speaker 1: even grief hadn't reached yet. I went through my work
Speaker 1: in box, three dozen messages, urgent and oblivious, hr pinging
Speaker 1: to check if I needed a formal leave of absence.
Speaker 1: For a long long time, I hovered over resignation letters,
Speaker 1: even though my campaign work had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: what had ended between Alex and me. Every misst message
Speaker 1: felt like the world's affirmation that life would continue elsewhere,
Speaker 1: regardless of the scale of my loss. Social consequences arrived fast.
Speaker 1: Lena texted mid morning Jacob's asking if you're coming Saturday,
Speaker 1: don't feel pressure. Tessa won't be there. There was mercy there,
Speaker 1: but also a new, unfamiliar awkwardness, as if the rules
Speaker 1: of my friendships had been quietly rewritten. Moments later, another
Speaker 1: message arrived from a mutual friend, a bland apology for
Speaker 1: not knowing what to say, ending with if you ever
Speaker 1: want to talk I'm here. The sense of being observed
Speaker 1: pitied was harder to bear than outrage would have been.
Speaker 1: I noticed with a twist that group chats began to
Speaker 1: reorganize themselves, an old brunch thread reappearing, but now minus
Speaker 1: Alex and Tessa, new alliances forming in distant digital corners.
Speaker 1: Some sent cautious one on one pings, while others defaulted
Speaker 1: to silence, unsure who belonged where After the split, Alex
Speaker 1: didn't return, not even to pick up the box I
Speaker 1: left downstairs. I tracked the package's movement on the front
Speaker 1: desk clip board, untouched. There was something almost brutal about
Speaker 1: his total absence, How he evaporated from this space, with
Speaker 1: only a trail of cold apologies and half packed clothes
Speaker 1: as evidence that our lives had ever overlapped. The practical
Speaker 1: business of disentanglement moved relentlessly onward. I got a terse
Speaker 1: emil from the management company confirmed access changed per your request.
Speaker 1: The very normalcy of it, no drama, just policy, felt
Speaker 1: crueler than anger would have. I couldn't decide if I
Speaker 1: wanted the world to rage on my behalf or only
Speaker 1: to let me vanish. The day blurred forward but because
Speaker 1: I'd always been the planner, I forced myself to create
Speaker 1: a list and moved through it methodically. Notify Lana when
Speaker 1: the coast was clear, Cancel the gallery crawl reservation Alex
Speaker 1: once made in my name text jacobush short neutral confirmation
Speaker 1: when he offered to retrieve Alex's left over things for him.
Speaker 1: In every interaction, the empty space where my marriage should
Speaker 1: have been grew clearer that night, sitting on the sofa
Speaker 1: with my untouched dinner and a low grade headache pressing
Speaker 1: at my temples, the final stage arrived less with drama
Speaker 1: than with the subtle force of something ending once and
Speaker 1: for all. A single email pinged through the sender line,
Speaker 1: as plain as any other Tessargye. It was empty except
Speaker 1: for a single line, I'm sorry for everything. No sign off,
Speaker 1: not even an explanation, just that I stared at it,
Speaker 1: the curse of blinking at the bottom, daring me to reply.
Speaker 1: I did not. Some silences, I decided deserved to be
Speaker 1: left intact. Instead, I stood up and crossed the room
Speaker 1: to the window, looking out at the sky line, headlights
Speaker 1: streaking the river's dark glass. I reached for my phone,
Speaker 1: found old texts between Alix and me witty warm before
Speaker 1: everything turned. I scrolled until my thumb ached, until faces
Speaker 1: and words blurred into simple color and light. One by one,
Speaker 1: I deleted them, each thread, each chain, each tiny digital
Speaker 1: place holder for conversations that were never as honest as
Speaker 1: I needed. When I finished, I powered down my phone.
Speaker 1: As the city's lights shed the last traces of midnight
Speaker 1: and the river below absorbed the glow. I let myself breathe,
Speaker 1: letting the silence fill up every part of the room.
Speaker 1: And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and
Speaker 1: I will see you in the next one.