Speaker 1: We were half way through the roof top night when
Speaker 1: I first noticed David drifting. I'm not sure anyone else
Speaker 1: would have clocked it. The music was up, neighbors from
Speaker 1: three floors were jammed shoulder to shoulder beside the battered
Speaker 1: wood bar, and the air was shot through with the
Speaker 1: smells of grilled lamb and someone's burnt incense. The moon
Speaker 1: lay in the shallow dip of two towers, looking soft
Speaker 1: edged and enormous, and the crowd was at that phase
Speaker 1: of evening where every group pulses with its own insular energy,
Speaker 1: splintering and merging, talk swelling and shattering into a million
Speaker 1: moving pieces. David's presence was always distinctive in a crowd.
Speaker 1: He dressed better than our friends, buttoned shirts, crisp jeans,
Speaker 1: never quite letting his guard down, even at two in
Speaker 1: the morning. He had that ability to listen, actually listen,
Speaker 1: giving you a sense your opinion mattered whether you were
Speaker 1: launching a start up or still stuck in the back office.
Speaker 1: But Friday night he lingered near the edge, clutching a
Speaker 1: glass of sparkling water like it was a life line.
Speaker 1: The geometric glasses I'd picked for him ages ago, so
Speaker 1: Miami designed district. Babe shimmered whenever he brought them to
Speaker 1: his lips, but he hardly drank anything. Our circle was
Speaker 1: thick with familiar faces, most from designed studios or creative
Speaker 1: shops in the neighborhood. Jewels from across the hall made
Speaker 1: endless rounds with disposable cameras, trying to catch couples off guard.
Speaker 1: For her next collage series. Monica had corralled a group
Speaker 1: near the fire escape, debating urban redevelopment like it was sport.
Speaker 1: David looked across the crowd but didn't join the debate,
Speaker 1: his eyes reading each interaction with a distracted frown, then
Speaker 1: popping down to check his phone. He kept checking it
Speaker 1: every few minutes, thumbing the same lock screen, glancing, then
Speaker 1: sliding it faced one in his pocket. I watched this
Speaker 1: from a few feet away, waiting for some explanation, but
Speaker 1: none came. It wasn't that he seemed angry or even
Speaker 1: especially tense, just elsewhere. At one point I saw him
Speaker 1: eyeing the time on his phone with a pinch between
Speaker 1: his brows, and the old reflex concern over stress, not
Speaker 1: suspicion kicked in. I moved to his side laying a
Speaker 1: palm on his back. He barely leaned in, just gave
Speaker 1: a thin smile, the one he used to reassure clients
Speaker 1: that the rain on the job site really wasn't a problem.
Speaker 1: He squeezed my hand, glanced past me, and asked if
Speaker 1: I'd seen his sketch book. I hadn't. He rarely went
Speaker 1: anywhere without it, the tattered black moleskine that tracked half
Speaker 1: his career's loose ends, stacked with folded time tables, sketches, receipts,
Speaker 1: color swatches. I offered to help him find it, but
Speaker 1: he brushed past the suggestion. Minutes later, as the crowd
Speaker 1: surged toward a neighbor's tray of flaming Sambuka shots, David
Speaker 1: sidled up close. I need to go, he said, low,
Speaker 1: big sight, visit to morrow with the Larabee team. I
Speaker 1: told you right early start, and I've still got to
Speaker 1: finalize the presentation. Set It technically made sense, I remembered
Speaker 1: him mentioning the Larabie Project, a luxury condo built Southeast,
Speaker 1: still in the design approval phase, but something odd crept in.
Speaker 1: Normally he'd stick it out at least until midnight, taking
Speaker 1: the ribbing from our friends about architect hours with his
Speaker 1: usual smirk. He only half laughed now, and Ben called
Speaker 1: after him, don't let the ymbies catch you sneaking out
Speaker 1: before dessert. Jewels waved her camera, but David ducked, already
Speaker 1: half way to the door, keys jangling. He brushed his
Speaker 1: lips just to the edge of my hair, muttered text
Speaker 1: when you come down, okay, and strode off forgetting to
Speaker 1: say good bye to Monica, to Jewels, or even to
Speaker 1: Ben and Sarah people. He never left without a word.
Speaker 1: I leaned over the rail, watching his head disappear down
Speaker 1: the stairwell. The last thing I saw was the blue
Speaker 1: band of his preferred watch, as he had just did
Speaker 1: his sleeve out of habit. When I turned back, Monica
Speaker 1: raised an eyebrow. Architects and their deadlines, she said, half amused.
Speaker 1: Someone else chimed in, that's how you know it's serious,
Speaker 1: David baling on mescal. We all laughed, but it sounded
Speaker 1: a little hollow inside. I waited for the elevator in
Speaker 1: a sudden hush, replaying the last ten minutes. I never
Speaker 1: used to second guess David, So why did tonight feel different?
Speaker 1: There were a hundred plausible answers. Maybe the Larabee team
Speaker 1: was giving him grief, Maybe a contractor missed a deadline.
Speaker 1: Maybe he just wanted solitude after a non stop week.
Speaker 1: But his absence settled into my chest a dense, awkward shape.
Speaker 1: I buried it under the trivia of party clean up,
Speaker 1: joked along with Jewels about the glassware, and didn't mention
Speaker 1: the forgotten sketch book. It wasn't until I was scraping
Speaker 1: candle wax out of a dish at two am that
Speaker 1: the question really began to press. Had I missed something
Speaker 1: or was I just inventing drama in the lull between projects.
Speaker 1: David and I were once infamous for our energy. It
Speaker 1: started in the lowest paying summer of our lives in
Speaker 1: turned at a boutique firm so small the owner did
Speaker 1: his own plumbing. He was the structured one, reading municipal
Speaker 1: code in the lunch room, running comparative cost spreadsheets on
Speaker 1: his phone. I was the compulsive doodler, with a mini
Speaker 1: scanner in my purse and paint on every other fingertip.
Speaker 1: We noticed each other by degrees. Initially, our orbits collided
Speaker 1: only in critique sessions, then in desperate caffeine runs, then
Speaker 1: in whispers about overpaid clients who didn't know a truss
Speaker 1: from a trellis. One afternoon, I found his post it
Speaker 1: on the break room fridge, lunch on the roof if
Speaker 1: you want to escape, Bill docks d I took the
Speaker 1: gamble we ate for lafful under battered patio umbrella, surrounded
Speaker 1: by the ghosts of abandoned planters and half finished student models,
Speaker 1: and I realized David laughed with his whole body. He
Speaker 1: was ambitious, sure, but also prone to sudden candor, a
Speaker 1: trait both thrilling and as I'd later learn, rare in
Speaker 1: our industry. He asked about a mural i'd shown in
Speaker 1: a group's show down town, then pressed for a tour
Speaker 1: of my neighborhood, and grinning challenged me to design the
Speaker 1: most beautiful, impossible staircase together on a napkin. A year
Speaker 1: passed in a blur of haphazard projects, midnight deadlines, and
Speaker 1: shared ubers across the city. We won a competition for
Speaker 1: a pop up gallery build, then lost another when the
Speaker 1: developer pulled funding. Giggling together at the presentation that almost
Speaker 1: burned the projector down. My fault There were fights and stress,
Speaker 1: each of us pulling hazy, urgent all nighters, tempers flaring
Speaker 1: over ignored e mails and the futility of crafting concept
Speaker 1: boards for sociopaths, as David once put it, But the
Speaker 1: lows never lasted. We made up over Macha ice cream
Speaker 1: or morning lattes, newly stitched together after each mini crisis.
Speaker 1: By the time we both scored offers from more reputable firms,
Speaker 1: we'd already become the couple our friends invoked as proof
Speaker 1: creative relationships could work. We rented a skinny, light soaked
Speaker 1: apartment on a bustling street, every window boxed by fire escapes,
Speaker 1: draped with jewels, plants, and Moniker's laundry strung like bunting.
Speaker 1: Every few weeks we draft open invitations to our circle
Speaker 1: dinner parties, concocted from nothing rooftop hangs, even in the
Speaker 1: biting wind, pop up screenings, art crawls that left us
Speaker 1: stumby and starry eyed at midnight arguing about which glass
Speaker 1: tower should win most pointless lobby. David was competitive. He
Speaker 1: liked to win, and he didn't pretend otherwise. His work
Speaker 1: ethic bordered on brutal. When the city's largest design firm
Speaker 1: came knocking, offering him a junior lead spot. He barely celebrated,
Speaker 1: already thinking three moves ahead. My own career took a
Speaker 1: more meandering part, shifting between firm gigs, freelance stints, and
Speaker 1: hand painted installations on the walls of cafes. Still we
Speaker 1: found our rhythms. Sometimes we'd cross each other's portfolios. The
Speaker 1: thrill of seeing my loose line work woven into his
Speaker 1: precise renders lit us both up. Early on, I'd notice
Speaker 1: how our independence didn't threaten our trust, but made us better.
Speaker 1: There were wild spells, weeks when I'd be waist deep
Speaker 1: in painted canvas, unreachable, while David fielded machine gun texts
Speaker 1: from developers. We'd have drinks later, laugh about the brutal pace.
Speaker 1: The only arguments we had were about scheduling. Who promised
Speaker 1: to show up for whose gallery opening, whose project got priority?
Speaker 1: During our biannual escape weekends, went to tap out and
Speaker 1: retreat to the coast with no phones. I always believed
Speaker 1: we'd be those people in their fifties, still trying every
Speaker 1: dumpling spot within a mile, still yelling over music about
Speaker 1: weather glass Block was making a real comeback. Even when
Speaker 1: Deadline's bit or colleagues gossiped. Even in our occasional dry spells,
Speaker 1: we felt solid. Our friends described us as the glue couple,
Speaker 1: the ones you could bring anything to a struggling artist,
Speaker 1: a forgotten wallet, a crash on the couch. David prided
Speaker 1: himself on that. I think being the fix it, the connector,
Speaker 1: the last one. U d suspect of causing any real hurt.
Speaker 1: Changes crept so quietly I didn't see them at first.
Speaker 1: The rooftop Friday, he left early. I chalked it up
Speaker 1: to exhaustion. The next week, he left half way through
Speaker 1: Jules's film night, apologizing for client calls and waving off
Speaker 1: my offer to uber home together. He began skipping out
Speaker 1: on our lazy mid morning brunches, sighting back to back
Speaker 1: planning meetings, and when I quipped that the only thing
Speaker 1: he designed lately was a solitary dinner for one, he
Speaker 1: laughed without warmth. His phone grew an extra layer of security.
Speaker 1: Before he'd leave it scattered on the kitchen counter, on
Speaker 1: the coffee table mid charging by the shoes. Now he
Speaker 1: kept it zipped in his jacket or buried in his pocket,
Speaker 1: even when showering. He used to text me silly memos
Speaker 1: during office hours. What if we entered the microloft comp
Speaker 1: this year, or found the best sir roarcha flavored popcorn,
Speaker 1: don't let jewels steal it? Those tapered down replaced by
Speaker 1: the practical running late Sight went long, save me some dinner.
Speaker 1: I knew architecture was a jealous discipline, prone to sudden sprints,
Speaker 1: changes impossible asks, but the difference was palpable, like someone
Speaker 1: had told him to rehearse every detail, never let a
Speaker 1: detail slip. One Saturday, I woke to the slow buzz
Speaker 1: of David's watch alarm before sunrise. He kissed my forehead,
Speaker 1: whispered something about catching a euber to the northeast side.
Speaker 1: I grumbled, eyes half shut, told him to send me
Speaker 1: photos of the crazy overhang hed been stressing about. Hours passed,
Speaker 1: then noon, then dusk, No photo, no updates. He breezed
Speaker 1: home at nine p m. Smelling faintly of hotel shampoo
Speaker 1: and something musky that wasn't his cologne. When I asked
Speaker 1: how the Sight visit went, he described an impossible timeline,
Speaker 1: blamed a no show contractor, then trailed off. He didn't
Speaker 1: name the sight, the contractor, or even reference the engineer
Speaker 1: he always went on about that night, I double checked
Speaker 1: his shared calendar, a habit that felt both intrusive and
Speaker 1: perversely justified. The slot was blocked with a generic client
Speaker 1: visit Lion. I never heard him mention Lion before the
Speaker 1: project file linked to a blank page. I snapped my
Speaker 1: laptop closed, resisting the urge to scroll further. Was I
Speaker 1: being paranoid? The question pinched at me as I set
Speaker 1: up for Sunday breakfast, setting his favorite mug in its
Speaker 1: usual place, before realizing he'd said he might have to
Speaker 1: skip again. Another sight, another deadline. The city is wound
Speaker 1: tight around the lives of people like us, creative, restless,
Speaker 1: constantly pushing against traditional schedules, but the circle's overlap loyalty
Speaker 1: and gossip. Doubling back at a new gallery opening post
Speaker 1: wine and cheese, Sophie from David's firm flagged me down.
Speaker 1: She was deep into stories about their marketing directors failed
Speaker 1: Lemon Grove concept when I brought up David's recent projects,
Speaker 1: asking if he were spread too thin. After the Larabie
Speaker 1: monster finally wrapped, Sophie paused wine glass half way to
Speaker 1: her lips. Oh, hasn't it come down for you both?
Speaker 1: She asked. Our partner's forced a work hour freeze. Everyone's
Speaker 1: on lighter loads for the next month or so. I'm
Speaker 1: jealous of your husband. I saw him heading out early
Speaker 1: last Thursday. Betty's hitting the bike trails. Not more sight work, huh,
Speaker 1: I laughed along, scanning her face for a hint of irony.
Speaker 1: She looked genuinely clueless, then chattered on about new clients
Speaker 1: positioning the firm as post pandemic adaptive, whatever that meant.
Speaker 1: I let the topic drop, warmth draining from my fingers.
Speaker 1: When Monica and Jewels rejoined us. I didn't mention Sophie's confusion,
Speaker 1: but the stray details tangled behind my eyes as we
Speaker 1: migrated to the next bar. Maybe David picked up side
Speaker 1: gigs under the table. Freelancers in our set did this
Speaker 1: all the time, sometimes not even telling their firms, especially
Speaker 1: if a client insisted on discretion, a cash conversion, a
Speaker 1: friend's mom's vacation renno. I tried to comfort myself. Maybe
Speaker 1: this was all there was to it. Maybe the project
Speaker 1: was hush hush, or some client pressed their faces for
Speaker 1: NDA's before letting the real design begin. But I couldn't
Speaker 1: shake the memory of Sophie's blink. Her startled reasonable questions.
Speaker 1: Was architecture ever truly predictable? Did project cycles line up
Speaker 1: as neatly as David now insisted, or was he counting
Speaker 1: on my faith in our shared shifting world to cover
Speaker 1: whatever wasn't being said? Week's asked under the sign of
Speaker 1: small shifting changes, a parade of details too subtle to
Speaker 1: call out but too consistent to ignore. In the mornings,
Speaker 1: David woke first silent. He showered and dressed, with the
Speaker 1: door half closed, phone set on airplane mode beside the sink,
Speaker 1: Our breakfast ritual dissipated. I'd come out to see him
Speaker 1: half scrolling slack, one foot already out the door before
Speaker 1: I'd started coffee. I found myself tiptoeing around his mood,
Speaker 1: choosing silence over the old banter. When I offered to
Speaker 1: help with renderings or give feedback on an early design,
Speaker 1: he demurred, mumbling about confidentiality or internal stuff not ready
Speaker 1: for feedback yet. The first indisputable anomaly came via Eber.
Speaker 1: I was sorting receipts one evening, prepping for quarterly taxes.
Speaker 1: When I found a line item David's late night ride
Speaker 1: downtown three sundays prior. Only the drop off address wasn't
Speaker 1: the Larabie site or any other project. I recognized it
Speaker 1: was a boutique hotel in a wedge shape part of
Speaker 1: the city, nowhere near his office or our apartment. My
Speaker 1: heart banged in my chest as I stared at the receipt,
Speaker 1: arguing with myself. Could be a client at the bar.
Speaker 1: Maybe he just needed coffee and Wi Fi at the
Speaker 1: lobby cafe. Still the time nine fifteen p m. On
Speaker 1: a night he told me he was working late at
Speaker 1: the studio needled. The next week, Jewels stopped by, chattering
Speaker 1: about everyone's plans for a group rooftop barbecue, one of
Speaker 1: our informal just bring something nights, the kind David used
Speaker 1: to host. With contagious delight. I mentioned maybe getting David
Speaker 1: to swap his shift so he could join. Jewels looked
Speaker 1: down at her phone, shifting on her feet. He's got
Speaker 1: a schedule these days, ha must be killing you both.
Speaker 1: I waited for her to elaborate, but she changed the
Speaker 1: subject to a photographer. She just started seeing the thread unspooled.
Speaker 1: Anniversary forgotten. I swear I blocked out the night for you,
Speaker 1: but the hotel group needed a pit deck turned around
Speaker 1: by Friday. Brunches missed apologies made with a distracted wave.
Speaker 1: I began offering Olive Branches weekend getaways tickets to a
Speaker 1: new architecture lecture series, but he turned them down. I'm wiped,
Speaker 1: was all he'd say. Maybe when things settle out. One Wednesday,
Speaker 1: late after I'd finished sketching and was falling into sleep,
Speaker 1: I heard David's voice from the office, gentle lo, not
Speaker 1: his usual animated side. I strained to make out the words,
Speaker 1: but the conversation blurred, punctuated by soft laughter. I hadn't
Speaker 1: heard from him in weeks. He ended the call quietly,
Speaker 1: shuffling back into the bedroom, climbing in beside me like
Speaker 1: nothing had happened. I wanted to ask who it was,
Speaker 1: but I only rolled over and watched as he scrolled
Speaker 1: his phone under the blanket until he slipped away into sleep.
Speaker 1: The breaking point came not with a dramatic scene, but
Speaker 1: a quiet ache. I went to Monika, who'd known both
Speaker 1: of us since our intern days, the first person who
Speaker 1: called bullshit when David and I pretended to be just friends.
Speaker 1: We met in our regular toast and doomlic place, the
Speaker 1: air punctured by hissed espresso machines and jewels's text alerts.
Speaker 1: Monica leaned in over her coffee eyes, tracing mine. He
Speaker 1: seems busy, she said, carefully. She knew me well enough
Speaker 1: to steer clear of accusation. Last week, I saw him
Speaker 1: leave the building right after our check in. I figured
Speaker 1: he was meeting you at the park, but then maybe not.
Speaker 1: I was waiting for Tracy on Maine, and I actually
Speaker 1: saw him at the wine bar across from Mural and Sons.
Speaker 1: He was alone, looked like he was waiting on someone,
Speaker 1: but I didn't want to intrude. My head thudded. He
Speaker 1: said he was at a sight, probably an error, he stretched,
Speaker 1: could have been a quick client thing. Monica let the
Speaker 1: lie pass, but her expression said everything. That was the
Speaker 1: moment I broke. I opened our mutual Instagram feeds and
Speaker 1: began scrolling obsessively, examining every new photo for clues. David
Speaker 1: was rarely the one taking pictures, but in group shots,
Speaker 1: his gaze seemed fixed somewhere just past the lens. New
Speaker 1: names kept appearing in tags and comments. Mostly from our
Speaker 1: overlapping creative world, but one in particular stuck. Cass Cass,
Speaker 1: a part time interior designer freelance muralist, had drifted into
Speaker 1: our friends set after collaborating on a lobby installation for
Speaker 1: a down town hotel. She was whip smart and fussy,
Speaker 1: with a studded effortlessness that seemed to attract every one's
Speaker 1: attention without trying. I'd liked her at first. Her d
Speaker 1: M threads with me were sporadic, mostly creative chatter or
Speaker 1: event invites, but lately she and David had exchanged comments
Speaker 1: on one another's posts, little inside jokes, shared sketch memes,
Speaker 1: cryptic quips about project stress. In one selfie from a
Speaker 1: group night, she'd tagged David with a double exclamation mark,
Speaker 1: then deleted the tag. Days later, another late night call came.
Speaker 1: David slipped into the office, locking the door behind him.
Speaker 1: I pressed my ear to the wall, but all I
Speaker 1: caught was a muffled, familiar giggle, a tone I recognized
Speaker 1: but hadn't heard directed at me in ages. I checked
Speaker 1: our group chat. Cass had posted a playless link at
Speaker 1: the same hour. A cold chill spread over my chest.
Speaker 1: Was I inventing overlap where there was none. Was this
Speaker 1: just the coincidence of insecure people chasing after pattens? Sleep
Speaker 1: became a tangle of questions. The next morning, David caught
Speaker 1: me searching for firm brochures in the kitchen, eyes hollow.
Speaker 1: What are you doing up so early? I shrugged, couldn't sleep,
Speaker 1: too many projects on the brain. He picked up his briefcase,
Speaker 1: watching me closely, waiting for me, maybe to say more.
Speaker 1: The air felt dense with potential revelation, but neither of
Speaker 1: us moved to break it. I started paying closer attention
Speaker 1: at events. At our friends and Eron's exhibit, I watched
Speaker 1: David and Cass interact. He seemed cautious, never lingering too
Speaker 1: long in her orbit, but she'd drift past, exchanged glances
Speaker 1: from across the open floor, then snap her attention elsewhere.
Speaker 1: When I approached, Monica caught my unease, gave my hand
Speaker 1: a little squeeze, but kept the conversation light. The fabric
Speaker 1: of our life thinned. David forgot to order the prints
Speaker 1: for our annual group show. He claimed he'd left the
Speaker 1: EMIL draft unsent. When I suggested he invite Kass along
Speaker 1: to a community mural workshop. He bristled, odd, since she
Speaker 1: just finished a project for the same foundation. She's really
Speaker 1: busy with another client, he said, gaze darting past my face.
Speaker 1: More and more I lived in a haze of doubt, embarrassed, angry,
Speaker 1: aching for a clear answer. Sometimes I caught David watching me,
Speaker 1: as if sensing the shift. He de offer something like
Speaker 1: an apology, vague and unconvincing. I know I've been distracted.
Speaker 1: It's just a phase. I need to get this project wrapped.
Speaker 1: One night, over Ramen, I pressed him, not about Cass,
Speaker 1: but just in general. I feel like I haven't seen
Speaker 1: you in weeks, even when you're here. Are you all right?
Speaker 1: He looked at me as if surprised by the question,
Speaker 1: then said, it's nothing, really stress. Maybe I just need
Speaker 1: a break. I let him off the hook, but the
Speaker 1: miasma of secrecy thickened. Monica noticed Jewels noticed our friends
Speaker 1: grew shifty in conversation, their chatter veering away from David's work,
Speaker 1: as if anxious to avoid tripping some invisible wire. If
Speaker 1: I wasn't searching receipts, I was wandering through our shared
Speaker 1: drop box folder, hunting for project notes, cross referencing dates.
Speaker 1: I told myself this was all accidental, the instincts of
Speaker 1: a frazzled, insecure partner. But the work produced more smoke.
Speaker 1: Conference calls on nights with no corresponding invites, euber receipts
Speaker 1: for unfamiliar addresses, new passwords on shared files. David, sensing
Speaker 1: my restlessness, offered answers before I could even ask. I've
Speaker 1: got to run. You know how it is n d
Speaker 1: a city. Everything's under wraps until the client gives the
Speaker 1: o K. I wanted to believe him, but he never
Speaker 1: used to hide his excitement from me. He'd bubble over
Speaker 1: with the tiniest hint of creative success. The silence now
Speaker 1: was noisier than any brag. The night after our aborted
Speaker 1: anniversary dinner, as loneliness set in, David came home hours late.
Speaker 1: He smelled faintly of gin, his posture sagging. He handed
Speaker 1: me a paper bag with my favorite quassa, the one
Speaker 1: from the bakery across town, and said, let's try to
Speaker 1: regroup this weekend. I owe you. I wanted to scream
Speaker 1: that a pastry didn't buy back trust, but instead I
Speaker 1: accepted the apology with a nod. He seemed relieved, retreating
Speaker 1: to the shower before I could say more. Some nights
Speaker 1: my mind word with questions. Was there something broken in me,
Speaker 1: in us that made suspicion breed so easily? Were all
Speaker 1: city marriages built on half secrets and invisible cracks only
Speaker 1: visible in the right light. I replayed each moment, his
Speaker 1: hand brushing Cass's shoulder at a gallery laughter that didn't
Speaker 1: reach his eyes, my own careful distancing at group drinks,
Speaker 1: and felt the uneasy vertigo of slipping out of my
Speaker 1: own life. It was a week later that David's narrative
Speaker 1: snapped into a new shape. On a rainy Tuesday, he
Speaker 1: called me from the studio, bad news. The Larabie group
Speaker 1: wants overnight turner, and so I'll be crashing at my
Speaker 1: desk to night. Don't wait up. I believed him. When
Speaker 1: I texted him at nine p m. Just to say
Speaker 1: good night, an emoji, nothing more. I got a single
Speaker 1: word reply. Swamped, I poured a glass of wine and
Speaker 1: set up my paints, drifting through the late hours until
Speaker 1: a ping signaled an unfamiliar email address. When I checked,
Speaker 1: I realized David had forded an email to my account
Speaker 1: by mistake a confirmation for a week end executive suite
Speaker 1: booking at the same boutique hotel as before. The reservation
Speaker 1: was set for a Friday two weeks out, the same
Speaker 1: date he promised he would be off the grid at
Speaker 1: a sight visit in the Erbs. I stared the sender
Speaker 1: was the hotel. The special notes section listed two guests.
Speaker 1: The feeling was like a stomach punch, the wash of humiliation, dread,
Speaker 1: and clarity mixing in equal parts. I wanted to call
Speaker 1: him immediately, demand an explanation, but I sat instead, knuckles
Speaker 1: gone white against my wineglass. David had always been careful, discreet,
Speaker 1: never one to cross wires or leave digital bread crumbs.
Speaker 1: The mistake now felt deeply significant, not just a slip,
Speaker 1: but the evidence of someone stretched beyond his limits. He
Speaker 1: came home the next night, calm, even gentle, asking me
Speaker 1: if I wanted to order in, suggesting Indian. For a
Speaker 1: brief moment, I considered letting it go, telling myself there
Speaker 1: had to be a rational reason for the booking, maybe
Speaker 1: a client dinner, an architectural symposium, or some perk from
Speaker 1: a business partner. But the facts pressed in tight. A
Speaker 1: reservation for two the same hotel as the Uber drop off,
Speaker 1: the overlay with Cassi's recent tagged posts at favorite down
Speaker 1: town escapes. David caught my mood, reading my questions in
Speaker 1: the air. Are you okay? He asked, you seem quiet?
Speaker 1: I nodded, breathing through the lie just tired. He offered
Speaker 1: a smile, brushed my shoulder, and took a seat next
Speaker 1: to me on the couch. Let me make it up
Speaker 1: to you. I've been buried in work and it's not fair.
Speaker 1: What do you say to special date night this Friday?
Speaker 1: Just us? His tone was so warm, so practiced, that
Speaker 1: I nearly believed him. I said yes, hiding my panic
Speaker 1: behind a careful smile. On Friday, David pulled out old stops,
Speaker 1: prepaid dinner at our favorite Italian spot, a walk home
Speaker 1: past the mural we d once painted on a dare,
Speaker 1: A bottle of Sancera opened at the tiny table by
Speaker 1: our living room window. He was attentive, laughing, easily, pausing
Speaker 1: to brush a strand of hair from my cheek. I
Speaker 1: let myself slip into the old routine, wanting to believe
Speaker 1: this was our return to normal, But the hotel booking
Speaker 1: burned in my mind on Saturday, as he claimed a
Speaker 1: last minute sight check called him away. I stared at
Speaker 1: the empty stretch of ours, his absence now more oppressive
Speaker 1: than before. I checked Cassi's social media again. A new
Speaker 1: post appeared, the view from the hotel's rooftop bar. Two
Speaker 1: wine glasses side by side, no tags, no people in
Speaker 1: the frame, but the angle matched the lobby I'd visited
Speaker 1: with him last year when we'd done a design walk
Speaker 1: for inspiration. That was when I felt the pit open.
Speaker 1: I composed myself and dialed the hotel voice steady, Hi.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to confirm my joint booking for next
Speaker 1: weekend under David Saatellite. My breath caught as the receptionist
Speaker 1: flipped through records, then said, yes, we have you down
Speaker 1: for Friday and Saturday. That's two guests, David Satowite and
Speaker 1: cas Lynn. A hum spread through my skull. I thanked
Speaker 1: her voice automatic and hung up. Suddenly, scenes replayed in
Speaker 1: a sickening staccato, Jewels glancing away when I mentioned cass
Speaker 1: Monika's anxious looks, Sophie's confusion over David's workload, the wine
Speaker 1: bar report, the hotel, the comments, the architecture of our lives,
Speaker 1: once stable, now revealed to be a maze of false
Speaker 1: walls and hidden doors. I told myself I needed more proof,
Speaker 1: not just for myself, but to prepare for whatever lay ahead.
Speaker 1: There was still some thin, brittle edge of hope. Maybe
Speaker 1: the reservation was a work thing, maybe Cass had booked
Speaker 1: under his name by error. But as I replayed Cass's
Speaker 1: easy laughter, the private way she'd won, described David's rare
Speaker 1: collaborative brain, my chest ached with the inevitability of the answer.
Speaker 1: Friday night, I waited until David left, telling me again
Speaker 1: about a late phase review. I grabbed my jacket, phone keys,
Speaker 1: and sat in the cafe across from the hotel's entrance
Speaker 1: until I saw him stride through the glass doors, his
Speaker 1: posture loose and open, jackets slung casually over his shoulder,
Speaker 1: a side of David I hadn't seen in months. Minutes later,
Speaker 1: Cass appeared. They exchanged a brief glance, then moved to
Speaker 1: the reception desk together. There in the fluorescence was no distance,
Speaker 1: no hesitancy. They looked like two people belonging. I watched,
Speaker 1: freezing in my own skin, as they accepted their key
Speaker 1: cards and ascended in the elevator without once checking their surroundings.
Speaker 1: My hands shook as I snapped a foat a blurry,
Speaker 1: desperate record. I felt less rage than a yawning nausea,
Speaker 1: a sense of standing at the rim of an old quarry,
Speaker 1: staring down into what had always been hidden. Walking away,
Speaker 1: I felt a wave of numb logic settle over me.
Speaker 1: Every explanation, every excuse, fell apart in the light of
Speaker 1: these small, devastating facts. For the next two days, I
Speaker 1: oscillated between furious activity and utter inertia. I scoured David's
Speaker 1: search history, quietly, extracted old receipts from his wallet, checked
Speaker 1: for confirmation emails on his tablet. When he showered, the
Speaker 1: messages with cass. At first appearing innocent, shifted revealing shared memes,
Speaker 1: jokes about project headaches, morphing into late night you make
Speaker 1: it bearable texts. They were not overtly sexual, but the
Speaker 1: intimacy was clear. The coded promises and assurances of figuring
Speaker 1: things out soon our friends became a battleground. Monica, seeing
Speaker 1: my face at brunch, offered silent understanding Jewels. Sitting next
Speaker 1: to me at another roof top hang bent close and
Speaker 1: whispered I didn't want to hurt you, but something's been
Speaker 1: off with those two. We weren't sure how to say it.
Speaker 1: More details emerged, avoidance, clumsy justifications, awkward silences in group conversations.
Speaker 1: As soon as I entered the room, the betrayal wormed
Speaker 1: into every part of my world. My marriage, yes, but
Speaker 1: also the net of friendships, work, and trust that were
Speaker 1: supposed to keep me secure. I found myself reviewing years
Speaker 1: worth of memories, running them through this new filter, searching
Speaker 1: for the error that let the rot crawl in. I
Speaker 1: rehearsed conversations in my head, sometimes angry, sometimes plaintive. I
Speaker 1: pressed Monica for her take. Did you ever see them together?
Speaker 1: Did they act differently? She hesitated, then nodded a little.
Speaker 1: The last project they were inseparable. Justified it as work,
Speaker 1: but it always had this charge. I thought, maybe you knew,
Speaker 1: or it was some open relationship thing I hadn't heard about.
Speaker 1: I shook my head, unable to trust the steady flow
Speaker 1: beneath me. Still part of me longed for an expert
Speaker 1: nation that could undo the facts, a story in which
Speaker 1: I had misunderstood, or in which this was simply a patch.
Speaker 1: David and I could heal. But the days grew longer,
Speaker 1: and every attempt at normal texts about groceries, brief chats
Speaker 1: after work, half hearted attempts at sex curdled with the
Speaker 1: weight of knowing. Finally, Monica called it out. Whatever you're
Speaker 1: going to do. You can't put it off forever. If
Speaker 1: you wait, you'll explode or he'll double down. You deserve honesty,
Speaker 1: even if it isn't the kind you want. So I
Speaker 1: planned the confrontation, rehearsing it as I imagined David's deflections,
Speaker 1: his practiced calm, the half truths I had come to
Speaker 1: recognize as his shield. Every part of me wanted to
Speaker 1: believe that it could be explained away. That the hotel
Speaker 1: was a convenient spot, the message's jokes, the lingering looks professional,
Speaker 1: but the evidence was overwhelming, poorous no longer. Still, as
Speaker 1: the day came near, I felt the ache beneath the anger.
Speaker 1: This wasn't just my marriage, it was the architect of
Speaker 1: my whole adult world. I watched the sun rise over
Speaker 1: the city, its concrete and steel picking new light. I
Speaker 1: wondered where exactly it all began, Where trust slipped, where
Speaker 1: creativity became a cover for something else. I no longer
Speaker 1: knew if the answer would give me comfort or just
Speaker 1: set the boundaries of what I'd lost. I didn't sleep
Speaker 1: the night before I confronted David. Instead, I pulled myself
Speaker 1: upright in bed, legs tucked under me, watching the quiet
Speaker 1: play of headlights across our wall. My thoughts dragged back
Speaker 1: and forth, heavy as stones, each replaying the last few weeks,
Speaker 1: where we'd existed on parallel tracks, missing each other at
Speaker 1: every crossover. Everything in our apartment felt agonizingly sharp that night,
Speaker 1: the yellowed light above the stove, the echo of my
Speaker 1: own feet on the floor, the line of David's jacket
Speaker 1: where he'd slung it across the kitchen stool, his habitual
Speaker 1: carelessness now suffocating. At four and the morning, I cracked
Speaker 1: the window for air and listened for city sounds, wishing
Speaker 1: for an external interruption, or even some conclusive disappointment. Anything
Speaker 1: I thought but this endless anticipating. But nothing came, no text,
Speaker 1: no call, only the gentle rattle of a city refusing
Speaker 1: to notice my private collapse. Some time after dawn, I
Speaker 1: heard David get up to use the bathroom. His footsteps
Speaker 1: were soft, almost guilty, and he padded around the kitchen, quietly,
Speaker 1: trying not to wake me. I watched him through the
Speaker 1: cracked bedroom door. He checked his phone first thing, of course,
Speaker 1: double tapping the screen even before the coffee was on.
Speaker 1: He moved stiffly, not whistling or humming as he used to.
Speaker 1: Shoulders hunched as if bracing for something. I almost pitied him,
Speaker 1: but shame burned me back to anger. He lingered by
Speaker 1: the fridge, then tiptoed over to my side of the bed. Hey,
Speaker 1: he whispered, I grabbed your almond milk in yesterday's run.
Speaker 1: Don't want you stuck with that cardboard oat stuff. I
Speaker 1: made a noise between thanks and dismissal. He bent to
Speaker 1: peck my head, hand warm on my cheek for a moment.
Speaker 1: Everything in me screamed to ask, but I just closed
Speaker 1: my eyes. Do you need anything from the market to night,
Speaker 1: he continued over bright. Now I can pick up that
Speaker 1: pino you like. I'll take care of it, I said,
Speaker 1: too abruptly. I saw his face falter. He nodded, ruffling
Speaker 1: his hair with one hand, and left the room, his
Speaker 1: socks silent on the wood. That morning, I went about
Speaker 1: the rituals of an ordinary Saturday. I texted Monica, I
Speaker 1: need you later. Please don't ask, just come. She sent
Speaker 1: back a single red heart. I made a poor over
Speaker 1: half drank it, then dumped it out after tasting bitterness
Speaker 1: I couldn't name. I shouldn't have felt surprised when I
Speaker 1: checked social media and saw Cass liking a new post
Speaker 1: from a friend at a Central Market cafe. The time
Speaker 1: stamp matched. David supposed quick procurement. Run the coincidence, if
Speaker 1: that's what it was, landed with dull certainty. When Monica arrived,
Speaker 1: I opened the door with shaking hands. She looked at me,
Speaker 1: understood the gravity in half a second, and wrapped me
Speaker 1: in a hug. I pressed my face into her shoulder,
Speaker 1: but didn't allow myself to cry. She followed me into
Speaker 1: the kitchen, setting her bag on a chair. Tell me
Speaker 1: what you need, she said. I handed her my phone.
Speaker 1: Just tell me I'm not hallucinating. Read these, all of them,
Speaker 1: she did, taking her time scrolling through screenshots, the Euber receipt,
Speaker 1: the hotel booking, a string of texts between David and Cass.
Speaker 1: I'd managed to piece together from browser caches and message previews,
Speaker 1: bits of inside jokes that weren't intelligible outside the circle
Speaker 1: of the guilty. Monica's lips pressed into a tight line
Speaker 1: every time something new loaded. At last, she looked at
Speaker 1: me and exhaled, eyes shining. This is pretty clear, she said, carefully.
Speaker 1: If it were me, I'd want someone to just say it. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's seeing her. I'm sorry. A short silence passed between us.
Speaker 1: Familiar with so many years of mutual troubles, but never
Speaker 1: this one. I nodded, feeling an odd relief to have
Speaker 1: Monica say it with her usual precision. No sugar. Some
Speaker 1: spell had broken. I couldn't sleep last night, I said softly,
Speaker 1: kept wishing it could still be fixed by just asking
Speaker 1: the right question. She poured us both a mug of coffee,
Speaker 1: then placed us down untouched. You don't have to confront
Speaker 1: him alone, the sentiment sat between us in the morning sun.
Speaker 1: I shook my head. I do I think, I do? Moan.
Speaker 1: I need to feel like I tried every avenue, like
Speaker 1: I get the whole story, not just what he feeds me.
Speaker 1: Monica leaned back, rubbing her forehead. If there's anything else
Speaker 1: you want to know before now's the moment, you want
Speaker 1: back up details, anything, I'll help. I stare at my hands,
Speaker 1: contemplating what could Monica or anyone really add. Their suspicions
Speaker 1: only mirrored what I'd already brought into the light. My
Speaker 1: need was not information, but the certainty of standing my ground. Instead,
Speaker 1: we sat together, breathing, and Monica squeezed my fingers once
Speaker 1: before she left with a promise call if you need
Speaker 1: back up, no matter what. By evening, I had rehearsed
Speaker 1: a dozen openers, none of which survived contact with the
Speaker 1: way David entered the apartment, plastic bag rustling, the smell
Speaker 1: of take out perfuming the air. He looked exhausted, almost younger,
Speaker 1: a man who might still be innocent if you didn't
Speaker 1: know better. I waited until after we dined in silence,
Speaker 1: tidy pasta big forkfuls, not one comment about the garlic
Speaker 1: or the playlist I'd put on. There was no tactful
Speaker 1: way to begin, so I went blunt, Can we talk?
Speaker 1: He looked up fork mideia, eyes flicking to my face
Speaker 1: with a spark of nervousness. Of course, is it about work?
Speaker 1: He almost sounded hopeful. I shook my head, meeting his
Speaker 1: gaze directly. It's about you, about us, and I need
Speaker 1: you to really listen, not perform, not just find a
Speaker 1: way to fix things. In ten minutes, he set down
Speaker 1: his fork. Okay, I'm listening. There was defensiveness in the
Speaker 1: line of his jaw, but he leaned forward, as he
Speaker 1: always did when he wanted to show good intent. I exhaled,
Speaker 1: hands flat on the table. Every cell in my body
Speaker 1: urged me to find a softer route, to manufacture some
Speaker 1: reason for the things I'd found, but that urge had
Speaker 1: to die. David, I need you to tell me the
Speaker 1: truth about the hotel, about Cass, about your absences. I
Speaker 1: don't need more deadlines or NDA talk or stories about Larabie.
Speaker 1: I know about the reservation I called the hotel. I
Speaker 1: know you checked in with Cass. I know you lied
Speaker 1: about a lot of nights. I know this wasn't about work.
Speaker 1: Please don't make me beg for honesty. The sickest part
Speaker 1: was watching his practiced mask. The calm architect tried to
Speaker 1: slide into place and then slowly, perceptibly break. David's posture collapsed,
Speaker 1: his mouth moved, no sound emerging. At first. I can
Speaker 1: explain he managed it's it was complicated, not don't, I
Speaker 1: said suddenly, weary. Just don't explain for a second. Just
Speaker 1: tell me. Are you sleeping with her? He stared at
Speaker 1: his hands, all color gone from his face. The silence
Speaker 1: was so deep I could hear the steam hiss from
Speaker 1: the dishwasher. Yes, he said, barely audible, not for very long.
Speaker 1: I didn't want it to It just happened. A sound
Speaker 1: escaped me, then a strange, tight cry that wasn't quite weeping.
Speaker 1: My hands clenched hard into fists. How long I pressed?
Speaker 1: Voice roar? Since late spring? David mumbled, the project that
Speaker 1: mural in the hotel. We started meeting up outside of ours.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be for work, but I'm sorry
Speaker 1: I didn't. I never wanted this too, but you kept
Speaker 1: doing it. That fierce, bitter clarity finally cut through my haze.
Speaker 1: How could you let every one else know before me?
Speaker 1: How could you let Jewels, Monika, even Sophie see this
Speaker 1: when you acted like we were fine. He shook his
Speaker 1: head hard, but didn't try to contradict me. I thought
Speaker 1: it would burn out, that it was just stress work.
Speaker 1: She made things easier sometimes, you know how things got
Speaker 1: with us, with everyone watching everything always? His voice cracked.
Speaker 1: She listened in a way that felt new, not like
Speaker 1: the same loop of deadlines and plans. I felt you
Speaker 1: remember how we used to make each other feel seen.
Speaker 1: It was like that again, but for a second, anger
Speaker 1: flared and subsided, replaced by a cold nausea. You don't
Speaker 1: get to tell me this is about being seen. You
Speaker 1: don't get to cast yourself as the wounded party. He
Speaker 1: pressed his lips together. That isn't what I'm doing. I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to tell you what it was. I never
Speaker 1: meant to hurt you. I thought i'd stop. I just
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out how to say no to it, or
Speaker 1: to her or He trailed off, self loathing in every
Speaker 1: line of his shoulders. A thousand stacked betrayals unfolded in
Speaker 1: my head, not just the sex, or even the collusion
Speaker 1: with someone from our world, but the slow, methodical construction
Speaker 1: of a better story for every one else's benefit. While
Speaker 1: I was meant to play along, I asked, was it
Speaker 1: just Cass. He nodded, yes, I swear only her. It's
Speaker 1: not not about wanting someone else or wanting out. I
Speaker 1: don't want to lose us. I want to fix this.
Speaker 1: If I know I can't undo what I've done but
Speaker 1: if there's anything left. The plea in his voice made
Speaker 1: my skin crawl. I pushed my chair back, needing space.
Speaker 1: You don't get to decide what's left, I said evenly.
Speaker 1: You built your escape room and locked me out while
Speaker 1: letting every one else watch me fumble for clues. You
Speaker 1: had a choice. You could have told me the truth. Instead,
Speaker 1: you waited for me to find the damage on my own.
Speaker 1: His face contorted, eyes crumpling. I know, I know, I
Speaker 1: messed up. I'll end it. It was never meant to
Speaker 1: last anyway. It's over after this. Please don't let this
Speaker 1: be the way we fall apart. I stood, retreating to
Speaker 1: the window, unable to be near him. I pressed my
Speaker 1: forehead to the glass until the city's lights blurred in
Speaker 1: the water of my eyes. We've already fallen apart, I said, softly,
Speaker 1: knowing it was true. Behind me, I heard him choke
Speaker 1: back a SOB. Is there anything I can say, anything
Speaker 1: I can do to even begin? I turned, voice ragged.
Speaker 1: I need you gone to night. I'll pack some things
Speaker 1: for you if you want, but you can't stay here.
Speaker 1: He didn't argue, didn't offer more apologies, only nodded, numb
Speaker 1: and walked to the bedroom. I listened as he gathered
Speaker 1: clothes in silent, measured movements. I heard the click as
Speaker 1: he opened our shared closet, the soft thud of his
Speaker 1: overnight bag hitting the bed. I couldn't watch. Instead, I
Speaker 1: texted Monica, it's done. Can you come? Minutes later, Monica
Speaker 1: let herself in, brushing past the tension, like it was
Speaker 1: whether she'd encountered before. She and I went through the motions, silently,
Speaker 1: collecting a few of David's things, unstacking shared toiletries, putting
Speaker 1: his charges into a canvas bag. David moved like a ghost,
Speaker 1: never meeting my eyes. He paused in the entryway, hands shaking.
Speaker 1: I'll check into Ben's to night, he said, voice gone,
Speaker 1: I'll I'll give you space. There was nothing left to
Speaker 1: say after he left, Silence ballooned in the apartment, the
Speaker 1: echo of loss so complete that it felt like someone
Speaker 1: had stripped every painting from the walls, every memory down
Speaker 1: to wire and nail. Monica hugged me for a good
Speaker 1: long while until her warmth, too, felt unbearable. That first
Speaker 1: night was worse than I'd expected. There was no sleep,
Speaker 1: only a relentless replay both of the confession and of
Speaker 1: every scene that could have gone another way, if I'd
Speaker 1: confronted him sooner, if I'd demanded more, if he'd come
Speaker 1: clean before, I'd pieced it together on my own. But
Speaker 1: the truth was an anchor, now heavy and undeniable. Even
Speaker 1: vengeance fantasies of telling Cass off, of outing David in
Speaker 1: our friend group felt hollow and childish. In the first
Speaker 1: shards of morning, I made coffee and started texting Jewels
Speaker 1: and Monica, letting the truth circulate through our network. The
Speaker 1: responses were gentle, apologetic, remorseful, but also wary, as if
Speaker 1: my pain might be contagious, or as if picking aside
Speaker 1: too quickly could endanger the fragile web of creative alliances
Speaker 1: that had always underpinned our circle. Invitations dried up almost
Speaker 1: overnight or arrived with caveats. Don't worry, Cass isn't coming.
Speaker 1: David hasn't been a round promise if you want to skip,
Speaker 1: every one understands. Monica stayed close, brought over groceries, sortid receipts,
Speaker 1: changed my bed sheets. While I sat stunned, drinking too
Speaker 1: much bitter coffee, and fielding offers of support. I could
Speaker 1: hardly process Jewels took over the roof top garden, watering things.
Speaker 1: I used to tend, slipping quietly in and out so
Speaker 1: i'd always know I wasn't alone, but never forced me
Speaker 1: to talk. Even Ben, who'd offered his couch to David,
Speaker 1: checked in with a kind, plain spoken text, Sorry, if
Speaker 1: you want to yell at some one, I'm here for days.
Speaker 1: I floated through our home, picking up objects as if
Speaker 1: for clues, David's favorite mug, a sketch eye d once
Speaker 1: made of his hands, the battered napkin with our first
Speaker 1: impossible staircase, all artifacts from a world that now felt
Speaker 1: brutally exposed, robbed of its central pillars. Practically things moved fast.
Speaker 1: David and I divided passwords, split up the plants, schedule
Speaker 1: times for him to come collect what remained of his things.
Speaker 1: There were no fights about money, just silence and the
Speaker 1: low level hum of grief. He left polite formal emails
Speaker 1: about the utilities. Whether I wanted to keep our studio lease,
Speaker 1: I answered in one word replies. The friend Webb recalibrated
Speaker 1: Monica and Jewels tried to stay neutral, but I knew
Speaker 1: from a series of polite but unenthusiastic responses that some
Speaker 1: people in our world were bending towards Cass, or at
Speaker 1: least not ready to excel her entirely. Others vanished, not
Speaker 1: wanting to breathe the air of rupture, perhaps, or simply
Speaker 1: not sure how to mourn one more collapsed couple. The
Speaker 1: only thing I knew for certain was that David's betrayal
Speaker 1: was never only about sex, never even just about him
Speaker 1: and Cass. It was as if I had discovered a
Speaker 1: structural floor in a building I'd spent a decade designing,
Speaker 1: invisible under the surface, harmless until the foundation shifted, and
Speaker 1: then cat strophik. A week later, Monica dropped by with
Speaker 1: a bottle of Sancerah. I found myself sitting on the
Speaker 1: cold tile of the kitchen floor, both of us in silence.
Speaker 1: She traced the lip of her glass thoughtfully. I keep thinking,
Speaker 1: how does anyone start over after this? She said. I
Speaker 1: looked away, the curl of pain too raw to answer.
Speaker 1: But that night, alone again, I climbed back up to
Speaker 1: the roof top. The breeze carried the scent of the city,
Speaker 1: cooked onions, car exhaust jasmine from some garden below. I
Speaker 1: pressed my hand to the same chipped railing where months
Speaker 1: before I'd watched David disappear down the stairs, flash of
Speaker 1: watch at his wrist. The city lights blinked on in
Speaker 1: their measured rhythm, indifferent to my grief. I let out
Speaker 1: a breath, tasting wine and salt, and felt, beneath the
Speaker 1: howl of endings a quiet aching determination. Whatever came next,
Speaker 1: I would face it on my own, and in the morning,
Speaker 1: maybe I'd take the first steps toward reclamation, piece by
Speaker 1: piece in the light. The cold roof top air on
Speaker 1: my skin grounded me, stinging where my tears had dried
Speaker 1: against my cheeks. I hadn't realized how long I'd been
Speaker 1: standing there until Monica, calm but persistent, tugged me gently
Speaker 1: towards the stairwell and down into the dim lit apartment.
Speaker 1: She flicked on the small lamp by the window, made
Speaker 1: sure the door behind us was locked, and busied herself
Speaker 1: filling the kettle. I could only watch her shoulders move
Speaker 1: as she worked, careful, deliberate, unwilling to meet my eyes
Speaker 1: except in quick and silent glances. After I finally sank
Speaker 1: on to the battered sofa, Monica joined me, wrapping a
Speaker 1: blanket over my shoulders. I felt neither warmth nor comfort.
Speaker 1: The fabric might as well have been a tarp, suffocating
Speaker 1: but necessary. I was not prepared for the chill that
Speaker 1: came with the first long moment of stillness. My world
Speaker 1: felt recalibrated, everything that had been whole, buckling to a new,
Speaker 1: ragged shape. The cup she pressed into my hands rattled
Speaker 1: against the saucer, my fingers refusing to steady. There was
Speaker 1: nothing to say that hadn't already been said. Sometimes quiet
Speaker 1: with someone is the only mercy you can accept. In
Speaker 1: the brief hush, I found myself peering around the room,
Speaker 1: cataloging the new emptiness already forming where David's things had been,
Speaker 1: his jacket off the stool, his sneakers gone from the mat.
Speaker 1: I half expected his voice from the corridor, a brisk
Speaker 1: apology for forgetting something, for ever making this necessary. But
Speaker 1: the only sound was the faint hum of the street below. Life,
Speaker 1: indifferent to my loss. Messages from friends pinged, then multiplied,
Speaker 1: jewels checking in, Sarah offering her emptied guest room, Ben
Speaker 1: apologizing again, cautious and polite. They all landed like gravel,
Speaker 1: signs of allegiance, but also of distance, a reminder that
Speaker 1: every secret between David and Cass rippled through our group.
Speaker 1: Unstitching ties, Monica read a few aloud, voice careful, censoring
Speaker 1: the pity. I scrolled through the rest, my thumb numb.
Speaker 1: Already allegiances were forming a kind of silent adult sorting,
Speaker 1: as if each friend was privately deciding how ruinous my
Speaker 1: pain would be to their own standing. I didn't respond.
Speaker 1: I couldn't. There was too much risk in any reply.
Speaker 1: Small details would not let up. When I went to
Speaker 1: make coffee, my hand hovered over David's beans, then put
Speaker 1: them back. When I passed the closet, the gap in
Speaker 1: his side of the rail widened, a lozenge of cold
Speaker 1: air over bare floor. Monica started rearranging my shoes and
Speaker 1: portable heater, filling the emptiness. She was trying to offer comfort,
Speaker 1: to prove that space could be reclaimed. It just made
Speaker 1: the apartment feel foreign. I spent that Saturday scrubbing surfaces,
Speaker 1: as if vinegar and bleach could erase the scramble of memories.
Speaker 1: Monica vacuumed in companionable silence, her presence keeping me from cracking.
Speaker 1: I rotated through practical steps sorting mail, tossing dead plants,
Speaker 1: logging into joint accounts to split streaming services. Everything familiar
Speaker 1: was suddenly evident, everything untouched, a reminder of how deeply
Speaker 1: I'd assumed togetherness. Each decision keep this, delete that, store
Speaker 1: or return chipped away at the fantasy of certainty, exposing
Speaker 1: the scaffolding beneath. That evening, as Monica packed her things,
Speaker 1: she paused at the door, call if you need anything,
Speaker 1: even at three in the morning, I'll come back. I nodded,
Speaker 1: grateful beyond words for her steadiness. But when the door
Speaker 1: shut and I heard her footsteps fade, the stillness fed
Speaker 1: my dread. I stood impatiently in the dark, waiting for
Speaker 1: rage or grief, anything concrete enough to act on. Instead,
Speaker 1: it was only that old, aching need for explanation. A
Speaker 1: light rain struck the window as I unspooled that day's events,
Speaker 1: every word of David's confession cycling against the beat of
Speaker 1: rain drops. What he'd done was now unchangeable, but my
Speaker 1: mind kept searching for a hinge, a single moment that
Speaker 1: could have delivered a different outcome. By the next morning,
Speaker 1: I realized that avoidance was impossible. Confrontation had injected a
Speaker 1: fissure into every hour. Small tasks became litmus tests for
Speaker 1: how much of my life I had lost. Even simple
Speaker 1: errands getting groceries, responding to a client Emil brushed up
Speaker 1: against decisions I used to make jointly with David. The
Speaker 1: smallest things chafed. The key to our bike's shed still
Speaker 1: clinking in my bag, his initials on our intercom, the
Speaker 1: echo of his voice in every group. Text invitations to
Speaker 1: roof Top Knights dried up almost entirely. If one arrived,
Speaker 1: it came hedged with disclaimers about attendance lists and understanding
Speaker 1: if I wanted to skip. The silence was worse. I tried, once,
Speaker 1: out of stubbornness, to join jewels and bend for drinks.
Speaker 1: They acted normal enough, kind and inclusive, but even the
Speaker 1: careless swing of conversation left Cass's names stranded in the air,
Speaker 1: a note nobody wanted to play. I made my excuses
Speaker 1: early and took the empty walk home under a chilly
Speaker 1: cloud thick sky. Within a week, lines were drawn quietly
Speaker 1: around me in a round Cass subtle, mostly invisible but real.
Speaker 1: I received one clumsy apology from Sarah, who admitted she
Speaker 1: knew something was up, but thought it was none of
Speaker 1: her business. Jewels sent memes and documentaries, trying to avoid
Speaker 1: the topic altogether. The friends who drifted towards Cass did
Speaker 1: so silently, staying off my radar except for the occasional
Speaker 1: Instagram like I knew. Monica and Jewels rallied behind me
Speaker 1: while others retreated. Uncomfortable with the fallout. Everyone wanted to
Speaker 1: avoid choosing sides, but neutrality felt like betrayal. David kept
Speaker 1: his promise to stay away. He texted about logistics, when
Speaker 1: to pick up the rest of his clothes, which bookshelves
Speaker 1: he'd leave behind, how to transfer his half of the
Speaker 1: U Tility bills. Each message was clipped carefully neutral, as
Speaker 1: if speaking through legal counsel. Once he called I let
Speaker 1: it go to voicemail. His voice was so small and
Speaker 1: strained it almost didn't sound like him. If you need anything,
Speaker 1: I know I have no right, Just please let me
Speaker 1: know you're okay. I didn't answer. The only response I
Speaker 1: could muster was to change the codes on the front
Speaker 1: gate and leave his Duffel bag out for him on
Speaker 1: the porch. Escalation came not in grand gestures, but in
Speaker 1: the slow parade of losses. The apartment, once noisy with
Speaker 1: friends and shared plans, grew quieter every night. Meals shrank
Speaker 1: to one plate, then sometimes didn't happen at all. Our
Speaker 1: group chat, thirty odd friends and colleagues, accumulated over years,
Speaker 1: became a relic. I left it the night after David's departure,
Speaker 1: unable to stomach the pings of Cassi's name, Unable to
Speaker 1: feeld another mean tagged from a party I've been pointedly
Speaker 1: left out of. Unsubscribing felt weak, but still aying would
Speaker 1: have been masochism. Monica called the decision a mercy on yourself. Work, too,
Speaker 1: turned precarious. One project for a cowaking space Cass had
Speaker 1: helped design fell through abruptly as the client moved to restructure.
Speaker 1: I didn't need anyone to tell me she gotten there first,
Speaker 1: or that word had spread about my personal issues. My
Speaker 1: freelance gigs were always fragile, subject to the whims of
Speaker 1: personal relationships. Old colleagues who used to ping me for
Speaker 1: interior murals now left my texts unread. There were run
Speaker 1: ins I couldn't avoid. Once a block from our apartment,
Speaker 1: cast herself appeared hair in her trademark casual twist, face scrubbed,
Speaker 1: headphones slung around her neck. She stopped, hesitated, then kept walking,
Speaker 1: eyes averted. The avoidance landed harder than a confrontation would have.
Speaker 1: I realized that ours would be a cold war, played
Speaker 1: out in the margins of openings and coffee counters, each
Speaker 1: of us shadow boxing, shame and accusation without a word.
Speaker 1: Worse than that was the morning I spotted David across
Speaker 1: the plaza, seated outside the cafe where we'd first dreamed
Speaker 1: of our new firm together. He was alone, bent over
Speaker 1: a sketch book, but when someone approached, a woman with
Speaker 1: a dog, not cast but a friend, I watched him laugh,
Speaker 1: His face cracked open, his old self flickering through for
Speaker 1: a second. I convinced myself what I'd lost wasn't just
Speaker 1: a marriage, but the last refuge of real intimacy. I
Speaker 1: ducked my head, praying he wouldn't see me. Financial pressure
Speaker 1: edged in soon after David notified me by email that
Speaker 1: he would be withdrawing his name from the joint credit
Speaker 1: card effective immediately. I found myself calculating rent against a
Speaker 1: shriveling savings account, short listing which subscription services I could
Speaker 1: live without, which utilities I might need to cut back.
Speaker 1: I remembered with a pang, how easy I'd had it
Speaker 1: before someone else to split the bill for leaking pipes.
Speaker 1: Winter heating flourishes like overpriced farmer's market honey. That now
Speaker 1: felt like extravagance. At work, everyone moved carefully. My art director, Susan,
Speaker 1: who'd once gently ribbed me about those architect husbands and
Speaker 1: their mood swings, started giving me wide berth, dodging all
Speaker 1: talk of lateness or low energy. At the weekly checkin,
Speaker 1: she asked if I needed extra time on deliverables. It
Speaker 1: was meant as kindness, but sounded as if she'd already
Speaker 1: decided I was a diminishing asset. The next day, a
Speaker 1: mutual acquaintance brought me news that Cass was being considered
Speaker 1: for a lead mural at a gallery i'd been quietly
Speaker 1: hustling for all winter. I swallowed my pride and sent
Speaker 1: a pitch anyway, but did so knowing the lane had narrowed.
Speaker 1: The merit of my work. Now mired by association, nights
Speaker 1: became a hard study in endurance. It wasn't only loneliness.
Speaker 1: It was the sharp, constant reminder of what social networks, careers,
Speaker 1: routines had always depended on trust and the mutual tending
Speaker 1: of the life we'd built. David's betrayal, Cass's collusion, and
Speaker 1: our friends uneven loyalties exposed every crack. I tried to
Speaker 1: picture moving to another neighborhood, starting fresh, but each attempt
Speaker 1: bled into dread. What if every city contained its own Cass,
Speaker 1: its own silent David ready to unravel whatever I managed
Speaker 1: to remake. The low point came at a rooftop party
Speaker 1: I hadn't planned on attending, hosted by a couple tangential
Speaker 1: to our old circle. I lasted an hour smiling and
Speaker 1: sipping flat tonic beside monica, enduring the kind of polite
Speaker 1: sideways glances reserved for those whose private collapse had become
Speaker 1: public news. I excused myself under the pretext of kneading
Speaker 1: air at home, I slid down against the iron door,
Speaker 1: palms pressed flat, more hollow than angry, each kindness from
Speaker 1: friends feeling like a memorial rather than comfort. On the
Speaker 1: third Saturday day after David moved out, he contacted me again,
Speaker 1: not about logistics, but about Cass. He wanted, he said,
Speaker 1: to make amends. The best way possible. The language was
Speaker 1: so colorless, so stripped of heat, it might have been
Speaker 1: a form letter. I'm not seeing her any more, he wrote.
Speaker 1: I ended it that night. She's left the group. I
Speaker 1: don't know where she's staying. I read the message three
Speaker 1: times before deleting it. There was an exhausted quality to
Speaker 1: his tone, something newly fragile, almost despairing, that left me
Speaker 1: numb rather than vindicated. This wasn't the revenge fantasy I'd
Speaker 1: nursed during sleepless nights, the showdown or apology that would
Speaker 1: finally explain all the gaps. It was merely more evidence
Speaker 1: of the casualness of loss, the speed with which some
Speaker 1: one could pass from center to margin, the way disasters
Speaker 1: cleared a field with no logic as to who survived
Speaker 1: closest to the blast. Rumors ticked through friend groups, trickling
Speaker 1: back to me with the inner inevitability of gravity. Cass
Speaker 1: had lost two clients after the scandal surfaced, one project
Speaker 1: suspended indefinitely, and I heard via Monica that she was
Speaker 1: staying somewhere midtown, out of sight. Some friends, racked with guilt,
Speaker 1: reached out to say they hadn't known the full story.
Speaker 1: That if they had, they might have intervened, might have
Speaker 1: told me sooner. I never believed it. When the world
Speaker 1: is structured to keep secrets, intentions matter little. Time did
Speaker 1: nothing except embroider the pain into less obvious places. By
Speaker 1: the month's end, my body had mapped every inch of loss.
Speaker 1: Sleep vanished at four a m. Meals, skipped work, missed
Speaker 1: all the ordinary failsafes, designed deadlines, yoga with Monica, trading
Speaker 1: recipes with jewels, felt performative life lines fraying in my hands.
Speaker 1: My mother called, having sensed shift in my voice, and
Speaker 1: I lied, telling her it was a bad project stretch,
Speaker 1: nothing more. So. It strung all the more when the
Speaker 1: group's next roof top invite appeared, sent not to me,
Speaker 1: but posted to the wider circle, tagged in a way
Speaker 1: that seemed pointedly inclusive. While erasing my name, Monica texted
Speaker 1: a screen shot. Don't react, don't engage with cass. These
Speaker 1: people are cowards. I laughed, then felt the old seams
Speaker 1: crack anger, giving way to fatigue. Trust had been quicksilver,
Speaker 1: loyalty even swifter. It was after this, in another fit
Speaker 1: of boredom and despair, that I sorted through a leftover
Speaker 1: box from David's things, documents he meant to pick up
Speaker 1: but abandoned, blueprints, old lease agreements, a few hand drawn sketches.
Speaker 1: At the bottom was his battered moleskin, the original one
Speaker 1: I'd searched for, that roof top night, spine, nearly torn
Speaker 1: through half its pages, loose, something reckless made me flip
Speaker 1: through it. Therein David's handwriting were errant lists, fabric swatches
Speaker 1: for a CAS's sweet, tiny perspectives of a hotel lobby,
Speaker 1: notes about ce Sea, mural colors, snippets of poetry jotted
Speaker 1: in the margin. Find the curve, light finds the weak point.
Speaker 1: Some dated from before the affair, some after. None referenced me.
Speaker 1: It was physical, undeniable, still faintly, smelling of pepper and graphite,
Speaker 1: and late nights. I shut the notebook, feeling as if
Speaker 1: I'd stumbled into someone else's house, a room where I
Speaker 1: didn't belong, witnessing a version of David I'd never been
Speaker 1: meant to know. This finally was the horizon line. No
Speaker 1: more discoveries, no more answers, only the dull force of
Speaker 1: consequence pressed into every object they'd once shared. The final confrontation,
Speaker 1: came sooner than I expected. David arrived as scheduled after
Speaker 1: one of our brief, painful logistics exchanges, to collect some
Speaker 1: forgotten tools and pick up mail. He looked gaunt, unshaven,
Speaker 1: but attempted a smile as I handed him the last box.
Speaker 1: He lingered by the entryway instead of leaving, as if
Speaker 1: there were words he'd rehearsed and now was trying to recall.
Speaker 1: I know the damage is done, he began, but can
Speaker 1: I just explain one last thing? Will you let me?
Speaker 1: I looked at him, the man I once believed incapable
Speaker 1: of casual cruelty. He hesitated. It wasn't about replacing you.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even about her, not really. It was like
Speaker 1: the ground kept shifting. You were always so ahead connected.
Speaker 1: I started to feel like an extra in my own life.
Speaker 1: Cass she she was outside all of it. It made
Speaker 1: me feel seen. I guess he fumbled, searching for language
Speaker 1: that might soften the blow. But I never stopped loving you.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make it right, I know. I just I
Speaker 1: cut in voice, scraped raw. You built the lie piece
Speaker 1: by piece, David. You could have talked to me instead
Speaker 1: of blowing up our world. You risked everything we had,
Speaker 1: and you risked my place in it too. He faltered,
Speaker 1: looking as if the scale of my injury had just registered.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm so so sorry. There's nothing else I
Speaker 1: can say. You deserved so much better. I'll never forgive
Speaker 1: myself for it. The words reached me, but didn't move me.
Speaker 1: Remorse in slow motion changes nothing. Nothing would reverse the
Speaker 1: damage or restore the lost months of confusion, humiliation, and ache.
Speaker 1: He seemed to realize it, then, shouldering the box, backing
Speaker 1: toward the hall. Take care of yourself, he whispered, like
Speaker 1: a phrase practiced or borrowed from someone else's parting. As
Speaker 1: the door shut, finality crept into the air. Not the
Speaker 1: end I'd fantasized, but something conclusive, The quiet after the
Speaker 1: stadium empties, no applause or booze, just the echo. I
Speaker 1: stood in the half light, listening for a moment to
Speaker 1: the old refrigerator rattle and the muffled rise of evening traffic.
Speaker 1: Then moved by something restless and unkind, I swept through
Speaker 1: each room, boxing up his projects, erasing notes from the fridge,
Speaker 1: peeling traces of his handwriting from our whiteboard. I folded
Speaker 1: every memory into a neat cardboard casket and set it
Speaker 1: in the corridor for the next pick up. There was
Speaker 1: no catharsis, only the matter of fact closure of the
Speaker 1: ordinary undone. When all was gone, I carried the battered
Speaker 1: moleskine to the roof top, the same one where our
Speaker 1: story and its unraveling had found their first and last act.
Speaker 1: I stood by the railing, thumbing its broken spine, the
Speaker 1: sky line flickering to life across the city. I allowed
Speaker 1: myself one deep, unhurried breath, then set the notebook face
Speaker 1: down on the ledge and pressed my palm flat over
Speaker 1: its cover, not to claim or consecrate it, but to
Speaker 1: mark the end. Only in that last moment, as the
Speaker 1: wind curled around me, did I let the ache rise, hot, silent,
Speaker 1: and then ease one paragraph closing below The city glimmered,
Speaker 1: indifferent but steadier than anything I'd built in the past decade.
Speaker 1: I let my hand fall from the note book, fingers
Speaker 1: curling around the cool edge of the roof top rail,
Speaker 1: with a weight of loss. Sharp and simple. Now I
Speaker 1: let the quiet set in my chest, raw, yes, but
Speaker 1: eerily clean, as if the air itself could be trusted
Speaker 1: again for the first time, in too long. I breathed in,
Speaker 1: stayed with the silence, and waited, this time for no one.
Speaker 1: I stayed with that hush as long as I could,
Speaker 1: watching my breath cloud a small oval on the air,
Speaker 1: until the cold began to bite at my ankles through
Speaker 1: thin socks. From the street below. The city's murmur kept
Speaker 1: itself steady, invisible tides of conversation, neon shifting on glass,
Speaker 1: laughter drifting from a bar's open window. Some part of
Speaker 1: me wanted to shatter the quiet, to scream, or throw
Speaker 1: David's old notebook off the edge and watch the unremarkable
Speaker 1: thud as it landed in a flower bed three stories down.
Speaker 1: But the urge passed all the drama, the embarrassments, the
Speaker 1: ugly public fracture. None of it seemed worth an act
Speaker 1: of destruction anymore. Instead, I pressed the moleskine's battered corners
Speaker 1: together and tucked it into the gap between pipes, out
Speaker 1: of sight, a small act of room movel as clean
Speaker 1: as I could manage. My hands came away faintly stained
Speaker 1: with graphite, and I wiped them on my jeans before
Speaker 1: heading back inside. The apartment was dim but less oppressive. Now,
Speaker 1: the familiar hum and clatter of old plumbing, the clink
Speaker 1: of a neighbor's keys through the wall, sounds that, for
Speaker 1: the first time in weeks, didn't remind me of what
Speaker 1: I'd lost. That night, I let myself sleep late. The
Speaker 1: sheets bundled around me like a proof I was whole
Speaker 1: without any one else's warmth. I woke with a kind
Speaker 1: of dread, worried I'd find David's name on my phone,
Speaker 1: his voice on voicemail, or worse, nothing at all. Instead,
Speaker 1: there was an e mail from the property manager about
Speaker 1: the lease, a mundane sort of notice, I answered without emotion. Life,
Speaker 1: it seemed, was always eager to call a person back
Speaker 1: to small logistics. But before lunch time could assert its boredom,
Speaker 1: I heard a sound at the door. Three even careful knocks.
Speaker 1: The one's jewels used a pattern she'd invented during the
Speaker 1: worst early months of the pandemic. I opened it to
Speaker 1: find her carrying a shallow cardboard box. Awkward and apologetic
Speaker 1: but smiling, she came in with little ceremony and set
Speaker 1: the box on the table. I found more of your
Speaker 1: prints in my closet, she said, from Ben's last party.
Speaker 1: You never pick them up. I figured, well, you might
Speaker 1: want them back, or want to trash them whatever. I
Speaker 1: sifted through the contents, feeling, for a moment as though
Speaker 1: these stray relics, the failed poster designs, the group shots
Speaker 1: with David just out of frame, the stack of blank
Speaker 1: cards from our first design party were fossils from a
Speaker 1: universe that no longer existed. I set the box aside,
Speaker 1: but the gesture opened something up, a channel where conversation,
Speaker 1: actual presence felt bearable. We sat together at my small
Speaker 1: kitchen table, jewels in her usual careless posture, me still
Speaker 1: bent inward. It's weird, she said after a while. How
Speaker 1: it all gets quieter and then you notice what's missing.
Speaker 1: Like everyone's pretending it's normal, but it's not. I don't
Speaker 1: know where Cass is. These days. People talk, but nobody's
Speaker 1: really saying anything. You want the real story. She met
Speaker 1: my gaze, her face open and judging. Nobody's doing well.
Speaker 1: I shrugged. I don't really want anyone to be doing well.
Speaker 1: I just want it, I gestured, Unable to finish. She
Speaker 1: nodded thumb rubbing a half moon chip out of her
Speaker 1: coffee mug. The moment didn't need an answer. This I
Speaker 1: realized was the new shape of friendship, stripped of party
Speaker 1: games and in jokes and the old frictionless comfort. There
Speaker 1: was pain in it, but also honesty. Eventually, Jules stood
Speaker 1: to leave, giving me a quick, bracing hug, call me
Speaker 1: to vent, or to trash his stuff, or to talk
Speaker 1: about literally anything else. I'm here, I always will be.
Speaker 1: I nodded and watched her go the door's gentle click
Speaker 1: and answer to a question I'd had about how many
Speaker 1: people would truly remain Fewer maybe, but perhaps the ones
Speaker 1: that did would be the right kind. That afternoon, I
Speaker 1: found the energy to move through the apartment, picking up
Speaker 1: stray mugs and recycling fliers on the counter. I rearranged
Speaker 1: some plants to where the sun could reach them, changed
Speaker 1: the sheets again, and forced myself out for a walk
Speaker 1: around the block. Spring had finally arrived, magnolia petals curling
Speaker 1: through the gutters, shop windows bright with new displays, couples
Speaker 1: passing by with tote bags, and lazy meandering steps. For
Speaker 1: the first time, I didn't duck my head at the corner.
Speaker 1: I bought myself a flat white at our old cafe,
Speaker 1: the one I'd avoided since the split. The barista recognized me,
Speaker 1: making no mention of the past, only smiling as she
Speaker 1: handed over the cup. Later, Monica popped over, wielding a
Speaker 1: grocery bag as a substitute for conversation. She unpacked cheese
Speaker 1: and crackers, chocolate, even an overpriced bottle of bitters for
Speaker 1: when you want a drink, or just want to feel
Speaker 1: fancy making soda in a glass. We ate in silence,
Speaker 1: then together clean the kitchen so thoroughly it sparkled Monica, loudly,
Speaker 1: insisting we leave no evidence of David's bad taste in
Speaker 1: spice blends. We burst out, laughing, real laughter from the bellies,
Speaker 1: not the careful kind reserved for sorrow. After she left,
Speaker 1: I put on music and let the songs idle through
Speaker 1: the apartment. There was freedom in choosing whatever I liked,
Speaker 1: No more negotiations between tastes, no awareness of some one
Speaker 1: else shifting in the other room. By midnight, my mind
Speaker 1: was softer, the pain less jagged, the need for answers
Speaker 1: quiet at last. But drama, even when you're done with it,
Speaker 1: is rarely done with you. Two days later, as I
Speaker 1: sorted through more old files, another knock landed at the door.
Speaker 1: I'd learned finally to check the peep hole. Paranoia or
Speaker 1: self protection, it hardly mattered. I saw David alone, holding
Speaker 1: a battered paper bag, eyes bruised with exhaustion. He'd come
Speaker 1: for the last of his two ules, he said, and
Speaker 1: stood awkwardly by the threshold, waiting for permission to step inside.
Speaker 1: For a half second, I considered sending him away without
Speaker 1: even that, letting whatever apology or request he'd rehearsed fall
Speaker 1: useless in the hallway. But I let him in wordlessly,
Speaker 1: watching as he went to the closet, collected his things,
Speaker 1: and steered well clear of my gaze. When he finished,
Speaker 1: he lingered, holding the bag tight. I meant what I
Speaker 1: said last time, he blurted, voiced small about being sorry.
Speaker 1: I know I can't fix any of it. I just
Speaker 1: he trailed off, looking as if he wanted to ask
Speaker 1: for something but didn't know how. I held up a hand.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go over it again. It's done.
Speaker 1: I have nothing else I need from you. Please just
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. The words surprised me. They sounded
Speaker 1: like a closing note. He stood, hands squeezing the paper
Speaker 1: bag until the sides crumpled, then nodded, turning for the door.
Speaker 1: No promises, no more experts, pla nations, only defeat. When
Speaker 1: it finally closed, I slid the dead bolt and leaned
Speaker 1: my forehead against the wood, breathing shallow but steady. I
Speaker 1: didn't cry, not this time, not when the real thing
Speaker 1: lay so far behind me. It felt as distant as
Speaker 1: some one else's quarrel. Afterward, I packed up the last
Speaker 1: objects that belonged to him, his spare winter gloves, an
Speaker 1: old architectural digest with his sticky notes, the ceramic mug
Speaker 1: he bought me from a conference on sustainable housing. None
Speaker 1: of these things hurt any more. They were only pieces
Speaker 1: of aversion of us that had already vanished. I brought
Speaker 1: the box to the roof top as golden hour waned,
Speaker 1: laying each object out in the fading sun. I tipped
Speaker 1: it open, let the gloves and magazine and mug rest there,
Speaker 1: refusing to turn any of it into a ritual. There
Speaker 1: would be no burning, no wailing, no one to see
Speaker 1: or care except for the birds on the neighboring rail.
Speaker 1: Just one last act to unburden myself. I stood a
Speaker 1: long time, watching shadows creep along the skyline, until lights
Speaker 1: began to stutter awake, one by one, windows flickering alive
Speaker 1: in other people's homes. For a moment, I felt wobbly, uncertain.
Speaker 1: Then slowly, gently, I let myself set the box down,
Speaker 1: step back, and close my eyes. The hurt was still there,
Speaker 1: but finite. At last, below the city glimmered, indifferent but
Speaker 1: steadier than anything I'd built in the past decade. I
Speaker 1: let my hand fall from the note book, fingers curling
Speaker 1: around the cool edge of the roof top rail, with
Speaker 1: the weight of loss, sharp and simple. Now I let
Speaker 1: the quiet settle in my chest, raw, yes, but eerily clean,
Speaker 1: as if the air itself could be trusted again for
Speaker 1: the first time in too long. I breathed in, stayed
Speaker 1: with the silence, and waited, this time for no one.
Speaker 1: And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and
Speaker 1: I will see you in the next one.