Speaker 1: Thursday Night Trivia has been our anchor from the very start.
Speaker 1: The bar is glowy and familiar. Magan and Sarah are
Speaker 1: deep into the wine and arguing playfully about how many
Speaker 1: squares are on a chessboard. But I feel like a
Speaker 1: placeholder at the corner of this table, the kind of
Speaker 1: person holding someone else's chair. Daniel's glass pint of IPA
Speaker 1: with the little itched logo he likes. He always orders
Speaker 1: the least flush. He sits in touch beside mine, sweating
Speaker 1: over a coaster. I keep glancing at it, even though
Speaker 1: I know he's not coming. His text had common now before,
Speaker 1: right as I was lining up for the bus. Can't
Speaker 1: make it slanted at work again? Sorry, Liss, smash a
Speaker 1: round for me. The word sound hurried even in my mind.
Speaker 1: Megan leans over, nudges my elbow. Hey, don't go soft
Speaker 1: on us, Lisa. We need you locked in. Daniel, abandoning
Speaker 1: us means you're a ringer, right, I laugh a bit
Speaker 1: too quickly. He's not abandoning anything. He's just exhausted. Seriously,
Speaker 1: they are grinding him into us this quarter. I think
Speaker 1: he's almost sleeping at his desk, which isn't fair. But
Speaker 1: honestly kind of impressive. Sarah gives me a skeptical little
Speaker 1: ibrow raise. He used to drag us all here, even
Speaker 1: on his worst weeks. Remember last spraying with the book
Speaker 1: he caught at the design conference. Thought he'd infect half
Speaker 1: the barb, but wouldn't let us up without him. I
Speaker 1: smile at the memory Downhill, hunched in a hoodie, muttering
Speaker 1: city capitals with fever flushed cheeks while avoiding Sarah's eyes.
Speaker 1: Here while promotion hit him like a truck. I'd be
Speaker 1: obliterated personally. She shrugs. It's your relationship, Lisa, but if
Speaker 1: you start baling, we're toast. The trivia host is warming
Speaker 1: up the mic. All right, wordos and wizards, first category,
Speaker 1: famous movie flops. Everyone at our table leans in, but
Speaker 1: my attention's deluted. I'm half here, half in Daniel's empty space,
Speaker 1: trying to ignore how this is our third Thursday in
Speaker 1: a row with a missing chair and a flat apology.
Speaker 1: I tell myself, real life, grown up jobs, This is
Speaker 1: how people miss things. Sometimes you'll show next week. It
Speaker 1: won't even register as a blip in a few months. Still,
Speaker 1: I find myself glancing at the sticky door every time
Speaker 1: it swings. Why I want to see him striding in,
Speaker 1: eyes tired, begrinning, to apologize him for being late, weaving
Speaker 1: through the regulars to stand beside me. It's ridiculous. I
Speaker 1: try harder to tune into the room, making shouting about
Speaker 1: Kevin Costner, wine glasses chattering. I laugh at the right moments.
Speaker 1: I make myself due the rounds for tea morral, reciting
Speaker 1: trivia facts like a muscle memory. The night ends with
Speaker 1: us loosening to our rival table again, and when I
Speaker 1: walk out, phone heavy in my hand, Daniel's last text
Speaker 1: is still un answered, blinking quietly in the lock's green glow.
Speaker 1: I promise myself not to care so much about trivia,
Speaker 1: about schedules and ritual, about which knights are for whom.
Speaker 1: Then I go home and arrange his glass beside mine
Speaker 1: in the drawing rack, two parallel shapes, waiting for whatever
Speaker 1: happens next. There's a kind of choreography to the way
Speaker 1: we always used to prep for trivia. Back before all
Speaker 1: that's kicked off, I wander from room to room, hare
Speaker 1: still away from the shower, calling out capitals as Daniels
Speaker 1: ipped up his favorite bluehrdie, teasing me for blanking on
Speaker 1: the Caribbean. He'd wave his phone. You schedule the Eyuber,
Speaker 1: I'll order the first round and don't ye dare Google
Speaker 1: on the way, that's cheating. He'd update our Goggle calend
Speaker 1: over the little wine glass Emojia's share joke like the
Speaker 1: lock to the night. Our friends always laughed, said we
Speaker 1: were like a married couple years ahead of scheduled, that
Speaker 1: Richels liked trivia night only work if you both got them,
Speaker 1: I'd beam, hiding the fleck of worry that a friellance
Speaker 1: had never really kept house, at least not the traditional ones. Dinel,
Speaker 1: always the one with morning meetings, had a way of
Speaker 1: making his seventy hour weeks seem like destiny. There was
Speaker 1: a steadiness to us, people said, mutual friends erin Marcus
Speaker 1: dandless corps we'd built, admired at our team psychical link.
Speaker 1: They meant how we drifted perfectly together through parties or
Speaker 1: long walks, guessing each other's answers. But to me it
Speaker 1: meant more intrusive things. How I almost always forgave Daniel's
Speaker 1: late arrivals, how he always always walked me home the
Speaker 1: first sight the cross walked by the park and clutching
Speaker 1: an umbrella even though it wasn't raining. This is a checkpoint,
Speaker 1: he'd said, serious and shy, first of many. Right, we
Speaker 1: may promises here and their little ones to keep trivia.
Speaker 1: Night's sakre because anchor points keep you saying to eat
Speaker 1: lunch on the balcony once a week, regardless of workload,
Speaker 1: to check in every night, even if it was just
Speaker 1: a mem or a grocery liss our system worked. I
Speaker 1: handled mutability. Daniel coffs certainty into things. There were cracks
Speaker 1: sometimes when I lost a client, and Daniel would side
Speaker 1: and half joke about envying my freedom sort of, but
Speaker 1: it never felt damn. But when at envy, how passionate
Speaker 1: he could get about blueprints, specific buildings that I never
Speaker 1: really understood. Next chapters coming for us, he swore three
Speaker 1: months after his promotion, and all of this is the
Speaker 1: ramp to something better. He could be prickly about what stuff,
Speaker 1: rolling his eyes at my endless coffee stopped because he
Speaker 1: missed deadlines he set for himself. I could be defensive,
Speaker 1: needling him about not answering texts, then softening because he
Speaker 1: meant well. There was a symmetry to it even in
Speaker 1: the unspoken. He shouldered ambition a provided oxygen. Our fights
Speaker 1: won't fight small like collisions of weather. I looked back
Speaker 1: for warning signs of shifting of tectonic plates, but memory
Speaker 1: is always smooed by comfort and inside jokes. Daniel at
Speaker 1: his drafting table, sketching out trivia categories, insisting will win
Speaker 1: this year. You'll see because we actually love each other
Speaker 1: more than any one else here. The line made me laugh,
Speaker 1: but it stayed with me because I believed it, Because
Speaker 1: anchored meant anchor. Even when they current cut raff, I
Speaker 1: used to imagine a future or future built on these rituals,
Speaker 1: the trivier trophies, the balcony brunches, the scaffolding of tiny
Speaker 1: shared decisions. Maybe that sounds naive, but it's what made
Speaker 1: everything before this feel possible. The thing about working freelances,
Speaker 1: you don't have those door slamming returns at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. Some nights, I'm still at my laptop
Speaker 1: at eleven, hunched over a logo design baited in the
Speaker 1: blueglow while the city outside hushes down. Dinol's late night
Speaker 1: texts were routine, but lately I noticed they had a
Speaker 1: different click to them on a Wednesday with the apartment
Speaker 1: actually smells like lemon, appalls for a brick. Scroll through
Speaker 1: Dinolds Instagram. Not because I don't trust him, just curiosity, boredom,
Speaker 1: that casual girlfriend impulse, and there it is. No Goofy
Speaker 1: offers selfies for three weeks, No shots of blueprints, group lunches,
Speaker 1: not even a sarcastic shot of the snack table. For
Speaker 1: a man who once declared social medium. My ownly viz
Speaker 1: it stands out Later he calls, later than usual. His
Speaker 1: voice sounds gravely tired. Weres coming out under water, Hayles,
Speaker 1: do you mind if I bail on Triviaca in this?
Speaker 1: It's just this new project is an absolute bear, and
Speaker 1: I've got another two weeks minimum then things'll breathe. I
Speaker 1: hate it more than you do, I promise this genuine
Speaker 1: exhaustion in his tone, I'm about to say, sure, no problem,
Speaker 1: will keep the throne warm. Instead it comes out teasing.
Speaker 1: The team's going to write you off as a trader,
Speaker 1: you know, he laughs, But it's thin. Okay, Well, expect
Speaker 1: a full Trivia de brief. All right, I'll raid the
Speaker 1: snafft table in solidarity at work when I hang up.
Speaker 1: The city feels noisier. I'm annoyed with myself for noticing,
Speaker 1: for carrying, for rehearsing explanations in my head, for Daniel's absence,
Speaker 1: as if I'm the one being tested. Brunch that weekend
Speaker 1: is at our usual bestro all of us crowded around
Speaker 1: tiny tables under the leafy awning, and Eron is waving.
Speaker 1: I'm a most dangerously close to my phone. She's known
Speaker 1: both of us since college, watched our progression from uncertain
Speaker 1: friends to certain couple. She looks at me fors bright.
Speaker 1: I almost texted you the other night, Lisa. I ran
Speaker 1: into Daniel at levee. It was trivia night, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: My Fort Pau's is halfway to my omelet Levy. Daniel, yeah,
Speaker 1: with some blonde I didn't want to interrupt. It looked
Speaker 1: like a serious work thing. He look good, though, wand
Speaker 1: up but good. Maybe it was kind musing. He and
Speaker 1: the girls seem deep in conversation. She refills her glass, oblivious.
Speaker 1: I shake off the chill. Daniel never mentioned this. There's
Speaker 1: probably some explanation. Drinks with project partners, or maybe a
Speaker 1: quick sponsor meeting. I laugh along with the group. Dismiss
Speaker 1: it with a wave. But when the check comes gilt pricks.
Speaker 1: Why does it matter which Barry goes to you or
Speaker 1: with whom adults can have worked drinks even on truvia nights.
Speaker 1: It's not a crime. Still back at the apartment, I
Speaker 1: remember how easily my smile snapped into place when Aaron
Speaker 1: mentioned the blonde. That Daniel never said a thing, not
Speaker 1: even as a faraway. Later that night, I make a
Speaker 1: mental note to bring it up lightly when things are
Speaker 1: less frantic. There's always an explanation if you value someone right.
Speaker 1: I brush my teeth at that thought, blink myself to sleep.
Speaker 1: Pattens reveal themselves in sideways glances. I start to see
Speaker 1: a new Daniel, one given to trailing answers and half smiles.
Speaker 1: Over dinner Tuesday delivery again, because neither of us can
Speaker 1: be bothered. He answers questions in single syllables, never fully
Speaker 1: looking up from his phone. I mentioned landing a small
Speaker 1: rebranding gig. He says, nist and swipes away, already out
Speaker 1: of the conversation. The change is in nuclear. It's molecular.
Speaker 1: We used to trade winds and fails every night, make
Speaker 1: fun of each other's worse clients and worst bosses. Now,
Speaker 1: if I mention a new project, he nods absently, that's
Speaker 1: really great. Lace, but its background noise to whatever is
Speaker 1: happening on his side of the screen. Colls to's office
Speaker 1: numberg and answered to voicemail, laughter, voicemail, no quick call back.
Speaker 1: He takets swamp call later, and sometimes he does most nights,
Speaker 1: though he says he's at the office till after midnight,
Speaker 1: by which point I'm asleep, laptop closed over some half
Speaker 1: finished proposal. Our shared Google calendar starts to tip weirdly
Speaker 1: in his direction. Where he used to block meetings so
Speaker 1: I'd know when to schedule a snacks or runs or
Speaker 1: date nights, there are now hazy blocks labeled late meeting,
Speaker 1: a project, catchup, or sight walk. There are less specific
Speaker 1: than before. It doesn't feel like detail so much as camouflage.
Speaker 1: I'm not the sort who tracks anyone's calendar obsessively autonomy
Speaker 1: it our thing, But the third late meeting on a
Speaker 1: Thursday catches my eye. I click to see if any
Speaker 1: comments or invites are visible. Internal is all it says,
Speaker 1: no details. I close the browser and tell myself it's
Speaker 1: none of my business. Except its sort of is when
Speaker 1: those nights used to be for us. Daniel's gotten less
Speaker 1: generous with the explanations too. At first, if he was late,
Speaker 1: he text if Onimeme or a picture of the construction site,
Speaker 1: guys in hard hats mugging for the camera. Now it's
Speaker 1: just sorry late again. Wish I could join. I tell
Speaker 1: myself it's to nature of the beast. Big promotions come
Speaker 1: with big sacrifices. I'd only really notice the charges because
Speaker 1: money's been tied over the past couple months. My freelance
Speaker 1: gake's dip and we'd agree to monitor spending. I pull
Speaker 1: up our joint banking app to double check if my
Speaker 1: latest client paid. The little stack of transactions runs the
Speaker 1: usual groceries, rent coffee, a single Britique's bloge marked me.
Speaker 1: Then two charges catch my eye, only a week apart.
Speaker 1: Levey forty eight dollars and again sixty one dollars. Both
Speaker 1: fall on Thursday nights. Both not insignificant, especially if Daniel's
Speaker 1: been at the office. It takes me a whole two
Speaker 1: hours to talk myself out of bringing it up. He's
Speaker 1: probably just covering a tab for work. I reason may
Speaker 1: be meeting a client and picking up food for two
Speaker 1: desks wor the people. These things pile up at his level.
Speaker 1: I go to bed practicing how not to sound suspicious
Speaker 1: about forty odd bucks. Our date nights become increasingly conceptual.
Speaker 1: I try to schedule a movie a comedy club. Daniel's
Speaker 1: already washed up by whatever project is him in a
Speaker 1: choke hold. When he does get home early, he spends
Speaker 1: most of the time flipping through endless slack notifications or
Speaker 1: calling Mom to check in, or stirring just past me
Speaker 1: as if were calculating some invisible equation. A week later,
Speaker 1: Ern throws a dinner at her place. Daniel comes, but
Speaker 1: he's stiff, more like a guest than a partner. The
Speaker 1: conversations loop around him, but he interjects only to drop
Speaker 1: linds about market volatility and the pain of managing up
Speaker 1: All friends joke and prod trying to poke him back
Speaker 1: into his old self. He deflects, makes a joke about stress,
Speaker 1: aging him them with FROs into the kitchen. Later, when
Speaker 1: I ask if he's okay, he just says, it's all
Speaker 1: a lotless. Sorry if I killed the mood. I find
Speaker 1: myself collating evidence I don't want the trich in his smile,
Speaker 1: the way his phone sits screened down by his plate,
Speaker 1: the way he hugs me like a formality when we
Speaker 1: leave one night, feeling a touch melodramatic, but also desperate
Speaker 1: for reassurance. I raise Levy with Erin that night you
Speaker 1: saw Daniel at the wine barri. You're sure it was work.
Speaker 1: Couldn't have been a neighborer. I sneak the question in
Speaker 1: between stories, during my best impression of Cavil. She waves
Speaker 1: it off, smiling serenely. Honestly, Probably just a client, Lisa,
Speaker 1: He's always got those. Don't stress, okay. He and the
Speaker 1: goir were deep in laptop land. You know Daniel, he
Speaker 1: flirts with work harder than he flirts with anyone else.
Speaker 1: The joke lands flat, but she doesn't seem to notice.
Speaker 1: Later that evening, with the weight of her easy aunt
Speaker 1: to hanging heavy, I realize how quickly I want to
Speaker 1: believe her, How baddy I want this altar resolve into nothing.
Speaker 1: I tried Daniel again the next day. Was there a
Speaker 1: new project manager at Levey last week? Eron thought she
Speaker 1: saw you there, but figured she shouldn't interrupt. He's defensive
Speaker 1: immediately the kind of tight, fetching look he gets when
Speaker 1: his integrity is even gently questioned. Yeah, Anna, she's new.
Speaker 1: HR's idea, bringing her up to speed, throwing her in
Speaker 1: the deep end. NUSTLEI liss, I wish you trust my
Speaker 1: judgment on this stuff. I tense, knowing the script he's
Speaker 1: trying to run. Are you annoyed I asked? Or annoyed
Speaker 1: someone saw you? He sighs, just works under the microscope already.
Speaker 1: I don't want to drag you into office politics right now. Please,
Speaker 1: I'm doing my best just to keep up. I let
Speaker 1: it go. He looks so tired. I tell myself he
Speaker 1: always hated my cromanagement, except now he's managing the narrative too.
Speaker 1: We used to share so much of his work life.
Speaker 1: Daniel would bring home c ad renderings, elaborate diagrams of
Speaker 1: green spaces, and explain what was revolutionary about this pathway.
Speaker 1: At that stage, he dumb a pile of contracted jokes
Speaker 1: on me. Now, if I show a sliver of interest,
Speaker 1: he shrugs. Honestly, the new stuff wouldn't interest you. We're
Speaker 1: in the wheat. It's not glamorous, trust me. He closes
Speaker 1: his laptop as soon as I enter the room, not once,
Speaker 1: but often enough to notice my dubtstable then have in
Speaker 1: a maddening rhythm, I entertain alternate explanations. Maybe it's just oppression,
Speaker 1: maybe impulsive syndrome. Maybe he's covering for Collie or hinting
Speaker 1: at a layoff. Every rational answer dissolves into a dozen tinier,
Speaker 1: harder questions. That's the trickiest biteached discovery. Each quite withdrawal
Speaker 1: gives me just enough to justify an action. The closer
Speaker 1: I get to certainty, the more I find myself doubting
Speaker 1: every certainty I have. Anniversaries have always been our circuit
Speaker 1: breaker's days when we agreet to but the real world
Speaker 1: on hold. Maybe that's why, after a particularly silent Tuesday
Speaker 1: dinner frozen pizza, Daniel, barely glancing up from email, I
Speaker 1: float the idea of a week and getaway, just us,
Speaker 1: no trivia, no clients, just an unremarkable ab manar outside
Speaker 1: the city. He hesitates, says, I can't promise I'll make
Speaker 1: it early. There is an essential sight visit Saturday, but
Speaker 1: I'll drive up after. I say that's fine, Come when
Speaker 1: you can. We'll hit riset. He actually does. He shows
Speaker 1: up late suit case in hand, and for the first
Speaker 1: time in months, Daniel seems to relax. He opens a
Speaker 1: bottle of wine, tells me about a contractor who nearly
Speaker 1: crushed a bobcat, jokes about how ridiculous his bosses have become.
Speaker 1: We sit on the porch as headlights blink down the
Speaker 1: highway and talk about what we do if we finally
Speaker 1: went to Portugal, like we used to dream about. He apologizes, earnestly, awkwardly.
Speaker 1: I know I've been absent for real. Things will settle soon,
Speaker 1: less by promise. He's touching my hair, his voice a low,
Speaker 1: honest rumble. For a night, everything feels possible again. The
Speaker 1: first morning back, I wake up lighter, humming as the
Speaker 1: slice oranges. I run my hand over Daniel's shoulder as
Speaker 1: he bends over his phone, and for a moment, the
Speaker 1: world makes sense again. Monday's brisk and hopeful. I even
Speaker 1: text errand trip was good. We might survive corporate capitalism
Speaker 1: after all. My noon hope is brittle. I get a
Speaker 1: group photo from Mocks, a mutual friend, never detail oriented,
Speaker 1: never editorializes the pictures from last Thursday at Levee, a
Speaker 1: regular trivia night in the open background. Daniel is clearly
Speaker 1: visible next to the same blond there and described Diana.
Speaker 1: I now presume he's not in work gear. There's a
Speaker 1: bottle between them, smiles on both faces. Whine glass is
Speaker 1: held loosely, as though nothing in the universe can touch them.
Speaker 1: He a claim to be working late, out of reach.
Speaker 1: There's no way this is business as usual, no matter
Speaker 1: how my heart tries to rationalize away the static in
Speaker 1: my chest. I message Marcus crazy, throw her back. When
Speaker 1: was this, he replies in seconds, Ha, just Thursday. You
Speaker 1: two regusts these days. I want to scream, I don't.
Speaker 1: I just stare at the photo, flipping between Daniel's empty
Speaker 1: calendar that night and the time samp on the image,
Speaker 1: wondering if my voice would even come out if I
Speaker 1: tried to call. I try to produce a normal night
Speaker 1: in our apartment, but the photo is a black hole.
Speaker 1: Daniel is laid again, sending a clip text about Klein
Speaker 1: fire aunt, sorry rain check on dinner when all lie
Speaker 1: in bed, his absence spread out beside me, a scolding blank.
Speaker 1: I never thought I'd be the person searching through her
Speaker 1: partner's things. But when Daniel leaves for supposed Saturday working session.
Speaker 1: I noticed his work clapped up, lit up on the couch, green,
Speaker 1: left and locked. Some part of me means only to
Speaker 1: pique to clarify the ache, but after seeing the folder,
Speaker 1: I can't let it alone. The machine is organized with
Speaker 1: architectural precision. I poke at his browser, mostly news, work software,
Speaker 1: nothing off. I almost give up before strained notification pops
Speaker 1: up personal slack. We don't slack each other for home staff.
Speaker 1: Why would we? I click? The channel is named personal slash, Anna,
Speaker 1: and I recognize the icon from Daniel's descriptions the new
Speaker 1: project manager. I tell myself it's nothing, but the messages
Speaker 1: read like an open palm laid on my nerves. Anna,
Speaker 1: glad we can keep Thursday nights to ourselves now at
Speaker 1: least much better club than real trivia. Daniel not sure
Speaker 1: they'd let us back even if we wanted to. They
Speaker 1: diviscerate us Biersunna practice for our real thing. Later further back,
Speaker 1: a mix of project complaints and jokes, sometimes winking, sometimes
Speaker 1: simply professional. Then the tone shifts. Last time was perfect.
Speaker 1: Can we do levy again? Or too risky? Or don't
Speaker 1: pretend you aren't dying for my ironic movie facts. Most
Speaker 1: of it is cloaked, maybe intentionally, but the effect is
Speaker 1: a classic Daniel flirt, plausible deniability but soaked in inside references.
Speaker 1: I scroll, feeling my chest press against itself, hollow and densip.
Speaker 1: Once I don't push further, I quickly close the window.
Speaker 1: Why Benny open tabs? Stand up? I wash my hands
Speaker 1: to steady them. That evening, I'm quieter than usual. Daniel
Speaker 1: tux he'll be late, but comes home in hour sooner
Speaker 1: than expected. He glances over, hangs up his keys, searches
Speaker 1: my face like he consents the story written there. You're
Speaker 1: really quietless Everything okay? I smile thinly, just tired, trying
Speaker 1: to deliver a brief on time for once to I'll
Speaker 1: be fine, he seems unsure. But let's a drop I
Speaker 1: feel really for, immediately followed by gilt cobbling in my stomach.
Speaker 1: Why am I the one carrying this weight? He shouldn't
Speaker 1: get to dictate the terms of my worry. I try
Speaker 1: to sleep. The apartment's too big, even though it's only
Speaker 1: two rooms. I call erin the next morning, heart thoughting.
Speaker 1: She picks up on the second ring, voice warm, Hey,
Speaker 1: how's Daniel? You too? Look relaxed after your weaken I
Speaker 1: choke er. Can I ask you something about the other night?
Speaker 1: You're sure you only glimpseed him at Levey. I just
Speaker 1: something doesn't feel right. She's quiet on the other end,
Speaker 1: longer than I expect, Lisa. I hear her take a breath.
Speaker 1: I actually saw him twice that week. Honestly, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to overstep. There's been some talk, like whispers at
Speaker 1: work parties about him and Anna. Nothing come, Creed, but
Speaker 1: I figured you'd ask if you wanted the truth. There's
Speaker 1: a beat where I can hear us both realizing how
Speaker 1: late it is, how little leader one of us wants
Speaker 1: to say the words spiraling. I searched my text night's
Speaker 1: Daniel insisted I not swing by his office. The new
Speaker 1: insistence on don't bring food, I'll be busy. It all clicks,
Speaker 1: dominoes of absences and new rules falling into her kind
Speaker 1: of order. Anna hasn't just been part of meetings. If anything,
Speaker 1: she's the contact, not the surprise. Still, there's almost no
Speaker 1: solid evidence until I think of the slack again. I
Speaker 1: wait until Daniel's in the shower. I pull open his laptop,
Speaker 1: trembling search his d ms. The last message from Annas
Speaker 1: dated two nights ago late last night, was perfect. I
Speaker 1: wish he didn't have to pretend with her it's enough.
Speaker 1: I quietly forward the conversation to myself, then delete the
Speaker 1: scent item. I stare at the screen for a long minute.
Speaker 1: Even with everything nearly certain, I feel myself fracture, one
Speaker 1: half clinging to what I thought we had, the other
Speaker 1: already building a world where Daniel's portrayal isn't the most
Speaker 1: important thing about me. But the question that keeps circling
Speaker 1: is the simplest. If I hadn't looked, would anything have
Speaker 1: ever changed? And is knowing better than pretending nothing's wrong.
Speaker 1: I don't sleep much that night. Every few minutes I
Speaker 1: check that, and his message is still in my in books,
Speaker 1: as if during those quiet hours someone might erase it,
Speaker 1: as if doublone could wipe digital proof off the map.
Speaker 1: The city outside is muffled by raying streaks against the window,
Speaker 1: and in that soft white noise of insauniac thinking. I
Speaker 1: try to arrange the puzzle pieces what I saw, what
Speaker 1: I heard, what he has said and not said, into
Speaker 1: shape that isn't betrayal. Maybe Anna's message is a joke.
Speaker 1: Maybe Daniell let the flirtation go in to make the
Speaker 1: new hire feel comfortable. Maybe it's a work thing, like
Speaker 1: everything else is supposed to be. Maybe the word eats
Speaker 1: up everything else. The next morning, daniels up before me, already, dress, shoes, lace, tie,
Speaker 1: slightly askewe. He brushes past with the mumbolt, can you
Speaker 1: vemmo me for groceries? Keys in hand, Let's press together
Speaker 1: like he's spent the whole night building armor. Sure, I say,
Speaker 1: voice unfamiliar to my own earrors. I mean to ask
Speaker 1: about his meeting, something benign, but he's already half way out.
Speaker 1: The door closes with a slight tremor an ordinary more
Speaker 1: morning becomes something else. The hours un spoil into routine,
Speaker 1: responding to invoices, pushing pixel shapes across my screen, losing
Speaker 1: whole stretches of time, reviewing branding concepts I can't bring
Speaker 1: myself to care about, but I can't stop flinching every
Speaker 1: time my email pings or a Slack notification blinks. Once midday,
Speaker 1: Deno tacks hope your day isn't too chaotic? Coffee on
Speaker 1: me to night. I stare at the message, wondering if
Speaker 1: Anna is included in his and me if sincerity can
Speaker 1: coexist with duplicity. For a minute, I wonder how other
Speaker 1: people do this, how they move through the world with
Speaker 1: their hearts lodged in their throats, their trust stuck midair,
Speaker 1: I ping erin again, not for more details, but just
Speaker 1: to hear a friend's voice at full volume. Can we
Speaker 1: grab a drink? I text, I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about Daniel, or maybe I do, or maybe I'll just
Speaker 1: talk about dogs. For an hour choos game. We meet
Speaker 1: a noisy place, the kind way you can't hear your
Speaker 1: own pulse that alone, focus too hard on what's inside
Speaker 1: your head. We order fries. Margeraita's lean into the chaos
Speaker 1: of other people's stories. For the first half hour, I
Speaker 1: resolutely avoid bringing up Daniel's name. She finally does. Do
Speaker 1: you actually want to talk about it? She asks, tilting
Speaker 1: her glass, her face open, quietly protective. I'm starting to
Speaker 1: wonder if I ever really knew him, I say, finally,
Speaker 1: the words coming out in a rush, equal parts rage
Speaker 1: and shame. Or if I only ever saw the part
Speaker 1: he wanted me to trust. She reaches for my hand.
Speaker 1: Whatever this is, whatever shape it takes for You're not crazy, Lisa,
Speaker 1: even if everybody acts like it's your problem for noticing.
Speaker 1: I press my thumb into the checker tablecloth. What's worse
Speaker 1: do you think not knowing or knowing and not being
Speaker 1: able to do anything? I think it's all just grief
Speaker 1: in slow motion, she says softly. But you can still
Speaker 1: choose what you do next. I gnawd signal for another drink.
Speaker 1: Let the conversation drift to easier landscapes. A comfort is
Speaker 1: like a weighted blanket, grounding, but not enough to put
Speaker 1: me fully at ease. As I leave her place, I
Speaker 1: see a miscall from Daniel. He leaves a voicemail, his
Speaker 1: voice pitched awkwardly bright. Hope you're having fun, miss you tonight.
Speaker 1: Good luck on that big pitch tomorrow. There's no way
Speaker 1: I love you. I replay the message, listening for subjects
Speaker 1: that may o may not exist. For a day or so,
Speaker 1: I try normally again. I send draft work to a client,
Speaker 1: make myself an elaborate breakfast, scrub the coffee pot, do
Speaker 1: all of the tact tell things that say, and still
Speaker 1: here Dino's at work till late. Another routeam dinner, another
Speaker 1: post project catch up. I tell him I'll probably be
Speaker 1: asleep when you get home, feeling the hollowness punch out
Speaker 1: each syllable. Around midnight, the sound of the lock wakes me.
Speaker 1: I don't leap up. I listen to the kitchen fridge
Speaker 1: door water running than the slow measured footsteps toward the bedroom.
Speaker 1: He slides under the covers without touching me. I feel
Speaker 1: the warmth of my back, but don't turn to look.
Speaker 1: There's no apology and no reach, no explanation. In the morning,
Speaker 1: we act like too professional, solving for efficiency. Who will
Speaker 1: take out the recycling, what time groceries will be delivered,
Speaker 1: whether we still need more oat milk? His gaze skitters
Speaker 1: are on line, and I feel I can trespassing in
Speaker 1: my own home. I go to Trivia Thursday because if
Speaker 1: I don't, the whole group will have me with well
Speaker 1: meaning texts and coals plus some more p logic says
Speaker 1: if I show up, if I signal faith in routines,
Speaker 1: maybe he'll appear at the door and the status corps
Speaker 1: will write itself. Sarah calls, Lisa's here reunited, and it
Speaker 1: feels so good. The dript doesn't land, but I force
Speaker 1: a grin use it to prop myself up for another hour.
Speaker 1: The team loses spectacularly. I wander home through half lit streets,
Speaker 1: phone cold in my pocket, wondering if Daniel will notice
Speaker 1: I left myscoff behind at the bar he always used to,
Speaker 1: texting a photo of it draped over his shoulder. By Friday,
Speaker 1: I'm still holding both lives in my hands, the one
Speaker 1: where this is all explainable and the one where it's not.
Speaker 1: My worst habits reassert themselves, re checking Anne's last message
Speaker 1: in my in books, annalyzing Daniel's new late meetings in
Speaker 1: the calendar. I look for a pattern, something to tell
Speaker 1: me if this is extraordinary or merely inevitable. That's when
Speaker 1: rifling through our mail basket for a missing invoice, I
Speaker 1: find an unfamiliar envelope. It addressed to Daniel, but there
Speaker 1: is no return address. I flip it open, expecting junk
Speaker 1: mail may be some architecture of Society Bush. Instead a
Speaker 1: handwritten card, flowy, feminine, grouped Thanks for the talk the
Speaker 1: other night. I think I finally get why you love design.
Speaker 1: On my east day, Let's get out of the office
Speaker 1: next time. Eh. It's not signed Anna, but the initial
Speaker 1: makes me richer. I put the card back hart pounding
Speaker 1: so hard my hands tremble. Why would a colleague send
Speaker 1: a thank you card home instead of the office. I
Speaker 1: obsess over this question, trying and failing to formulate a
Speaker 1: context that's normal, that doesn't end with the body blow
Speaker 1: to my trust. Saturday, Daniel's out for lunch with an
Speaker 1: old friend. Of an excuse so bland at sounds rehearsed.
Speaker 1: I tidy the apartment with extra fury, running the washing
Speaker 1: machine at an absurd hour, just to give my hand
Speaker 1: something to do. As I stripped the bed, my hand
Speaker 1: brushes Daniel's phone on the night stand, his face down.
Speaker 1: I don't touch a twelve rules ancient trust, but I
Speaker 1: find myself resenting every screen, every notification, every secret held
Speaker 1: just beyond my reach. When he comes home, the house's neat,
Speaker 1: lemon bry from all my cleaning. He stretches in the door,
Speaker 1: sighs like he's coming back from battle. You okay, he asks, gentle,
Speaker 1: maybe even hopeful. I want to tell him it's all fine.
Speaker 1: I want to not know what I know. Instead, I say,
Speaker 1: do you want to maybe have dinner together tomorrow? Just
Speaker 1: as no phones? I'll cook. He looks surprised as small
Speaker 1: guilt flicker in his eyes, then nods, yeah, I'd like that.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I've been lost lately. We have a meal
Speaker 1: lit by candles, hostil wine, no TV for most of it.
Speaker 1: He's attentive, even sweet. For an hour, I'll let myself
Speaker 1: pretend we don't talk much about work. He says, let's
Speaker 1: just be here, and I'm so relieved by the request
Speaker 1: i almost cry. He touches my wrist, laughs aty years
Speaker 1: old inside joke, and I'm startled by the depth of
Speaker 1: my longing for that version of him. Later, lying in bed,
Speaker 1: he moves close, spooning me with a tentsive arm. For
Speaker 1: a long stretch we're quiet, Then just before he drops off,
Speaker 1: he mumbles, things are going to be okay. List I wait,
Speaker 1: still half craving, half dreading the press of confession at
Speaker 1: my back, But there's nothing more, and I'm left measuring
Speaker 1: out the gap between us millimeter by millimeter. Monday brings
Speaker 1: the old tempo again. Daniel's up early, off to a
Speaker 1: prodict consult, leaving me to my blue lit frillancer cave.
Speaker 1: I'm increasing thee aware of how much time I fill
Speaker 1: with the voodence noise, counseling, headphones and necessary errands. Checking
Speaker 1: our online banking for payments and now patterns. It hits
Speaker 1: me there in an alert for a new withdrawal Daniel
Speaker 1: pol cash at Levez atm on a Thursday night for
Speaker 1: one hundred twenty dollars. We never use cash. Our agreement
Speaker 1: addictive for me in its transparency has been all costs shared,
Speaker 1: all digital, all visible. I run through explanations covering for
Speaker 1: the team at happy hour. May be a split bill,
Speaker 1: maybe God, maybe a gift. The thought stings. I stir
Speaker 1: down the transaction, heart racing, thinking, this is what happens
Speaker 1: when you go looking for monsters. Sometimes you find them.
Speaker 1: By now, I recognize the pointlessness of my second guessing,
Speaker 1: but there's an a lure in the ritual, the feeling that
Speaker 1: if I just line everything upright, the truth will reveal
Speaker 1: itself as benign, not catastrophic. Tuesday, I go to the
Speaker 1: building where Daniel's office sits. I don't mean to snoop,
Speaker 1: I tell myself I have a meeting with a downton client,
Speaker 1: and that's true enough. I get coffin hereby what passes
Speaker 1: lobby window, expecting to maybe see the top of his head,
Speaker 1: that familiar hunch posture over blueprints. Instead, there's a small
Speaker 1: crowd gathered inside, laughing near the security desk. Anna stands
Speaker 1: among them, easy to spot from photos on the company side.
Speaker 1: Daniel's not with her, still seeing her in three dimensions
Speaker 1: animated puts a fine point on everything. She looks younger
Speaker 1: than I expected, brighter, somehow I don't linger. I walk
Speaker 1: away before anyone can catch me, loitering, feeling both patty
Speaker 1: and empty. I text Daniel, hope your days manageable. Need
Speaker 1: Digg's on your way home. He replies, sorry, crazy day.
Speaker 1: I'll try, but can't promise. Love you. Love you for
Speaker 1: a moment, it means everything, then nothing. I try for
Speaker 1: another day or so to simulate faith, I set up
Speaker 1: a quiet workspace in the living room, work on client logos,
Speaker 1: even organize a possible double date with Sarah and her husband.
Speaker 1: Daniel puts me off, Let's see how this week shakes up. Okay,
Speaker 1: might be swamped. I want to scream instead, I agree,
Speaker 1: marveling at my own passivity. Two more charges at levee
Speaker 1: crop up, two thursdays in a row, always after Daniel
Speaker 1: promises another late walk evening always when trivia night happens
Speaker 1: without him, the sums are uneven and combined with the ATM,
Speaker 1: look less like work meals and more like knights on
Speaker 1: the town. But he never comes home tipsy, never brings
Speaker 1: the send of wine or baugh nuts, just the neutral
Speaker 1: aftershape of someone who's careful not to leave evidence. The
Speaker 1: trivia group has become used to me. Arriving alone, Megan
Speaker 1: teases me gently, you're carrying the team list. Think we
Speaker 1: can poach Danel for the tournament finals. She doesn't know.
Speaker 1: She's hitting nerves while meaning nothing. Maybe'd I say, laughing
Speaker 1: more softly than I mean to. I text Daniel before bed,
Speaker 1: telling him we missed him, which is both true and
Speaker 1: not at all the point I call my brother someone
Speaker 1: who exists far outside this circle, whose emotional honesty has
Speaker 1: always been blunt, sometimes brutal. Let me ask you a question,
Speaker 1: I say, trying for casual. If you thought your partner
Speaker 1: was acting weird, would you say something or just leave it? Honestly,
Speaker 1: I'd say something, he tells me, voice full of static
Speaker 1: from his bluetooth. If you have to ask, you already
Speaker 1: know there's a problem. Doesn't mean it's cheating, but you
Speaker 1: deserves straight talk. I mumble thank you, feeling both vindicated
Speaker 1: and lonelier. The next morning, returning from an ill advised jog,
Speaker 1: I pass Anna on our block. There's no mistaking her.
Speaker 1: She's in jim clothes her buts half out heading the
Speaker 1: opposite direction. She's on the phone, laughing quietly, not looking
Speaker 1: up as we cross for a second. I imagine saying something,
Speaker 1: breaking the spell of anonymity, but something inside me resists.
Speaker 1: I come home, sweaty, anxious. Daniel is already gone. I
Speaker 1: shower and try to remind myself that correlation is not causation.
Speaker 1: Our neighborhood houses hundreds of people. But as I towel
Speaker 1: off our new memory's surfaces Daniel laughing a month ago
Speaker 1: about Anna looking at apartment nearest to trim her commute.
Speaker 1: I hadn't cocked it, just office talk at the time. Now,
Speaker 1: with everything else, it throbs with new meaning. I want
Speaker 1: more than anything to be wrong. That night, I try
Speaker 1: confronting Daniel again. Gently, you didn't tell me Anna was
Speaker 1: thinking of moving to our area, He pauses, measuring his
Speaker 1: words with surgical care. She mentioned it. I don't know
Speaker 1: if she's seriously looking she wants a short to commute.
Speaker 1: That's all, not like it's a big secret. Do you
Speaker 1: like working with her? I ask, my voice too tight,
Speaker 1: betraying more than I mean. He looks at me. Really,
Speaker 1: he looks, as if trying to calibrate his response to
Speaker 1: the right temperature. She's fine, quietly, competent, good at what
Speaker 1: she does. But I don't bring work home tea, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to careless. He manages a small laugh
Speaker 1: to practice to be natural. I barely have time for
Speaker 1: one relationship, let alone more. Can we not do this now?
Speaker 1: Something in his conviction makes me second guess myself. I
Speaker 1: nod and retreat, feeling childish, specious, exhausted by my own
Speaker 1: interior drama. He puts on the streaming show, inviting me
Speaker 1: to join with a half pat on the couch. I comply,
Speaker 1: feeling my insights hollow a little more, wondering how many
Speaker 1: weeks a person can live inside of doubt before cracking
Speaker 1: open the next Trivian night, I skip Megan tax all good,
Speaker 1: need us to come over. I thank her claim on
Speaker 1: fighting a cold. I spend the evening on our balcony,
Speaker 1: watching the city's sodium lights blur, telling myself the silence
Speaker 1: is necessary, medicinal, as if avoiding social contact could heal
Speaker 1: this quiet fracture between me and Daniel. We're a nine.
Speaker 1: Daniel tucks home soon, want to talk for a bit.
Speaker 1: This isn't his usual style. I brace myself, thinking finally
Speaker 1: may be a conversation that matters. He gets home, shrugs
Speaker 1: out of his coat and looks at me as though
Speaker 1: the words have been pre shaken, carefully selected. But all
Speaker 1: he wants to talk about is work is ongoing stress,
Speaker 1: the pressure of approval cycles. The new boss is my comanagement.
Speaker 1: He shows at length about the building project's hurdles, complaints
Speaker 1: about city planners, gripes about late deliveries. It's almost normal,
Speaker 1: the kind of venting that's more habit than dialog. I
Speaker 1: nod commiserate, but my mind is elsewhere, in a small lull,
Speaker 1: I say quietly, do you wish you could take more
Speaker 1: time for us? He hesitates, as if thrown by the
Speaker 1: shift of course. I do just not possible right now.
Speaker 1: I need you to be patientless. Everything's on a knife
Speaker 1: edge at work, but it'll even not soon. We'll get
Speaker 1: back to our rituals. Ey swhere his hand graze is
Speaker 1: mine I want to believe him so badly I almost
Speaker 1: choke on it. When he slips away to the bedroom,
Speaker 1: I remain on the couch. I'm moving for a long time.
Speaker 1: My phone buzzes with a slack notification from a client. Reflexively,
Speaker 1: I check Downiel's computer. He's locked out. The brief window
Speaker 1: from before must have been an accident. To night, every
Speaker 1: door is locked, shell shirt. I consider texting Anna myself,
Speaker 1: some wild impulse force the issue past the point of politeness.
Speaker 1: I will write the message over and over her, then
Speaker 1: delete it. I can't quite decide whether I want to
Speaker 1: prove my own suspicions tru or keep the mass propped
Speaker 1: up a little longer. The week end approach is like
Speaker 1: a storm front Dan who commits to our late Friday
Speaker 1: work during s team celebration. He says, I go to
Speaker 1: Erin's instead, kneading company, craving her warmth and irreverence. She
Speaker 1: pauses gen and toarnic and mismatched mugs, and lets me
Speaker 1: fall apart quietly in her living room, one sentence at
Speaker 1: a time. What would you do? I ask her? Finally,
Speaker 1: the question sir wrought nearly sticks in my throat. Erin
Speaker 1: doesn't hesitate. You already know what's happening, Lisa. The real
Speaker 1: question is what are you prepared to do about it.
Speaker 1: You can confront him to night or keep rolling the dice,
Speaker 1: but you don't deserve limble. You're not crazy. He's hiding something.
Speaker 1: Don't let us denial. Make it out your own sanity.
Speaker 1: I sit small and frightened, carp in the mug close
Speaker 1: in my chest. I want to be wrong so badly.
Speaker 1: She touches my knee. You're not, but you're strong enough
Speaker 1: to hear the answer anyway. I nod, shay, keep it steadier,
Speaker 1: A decision quietly forming in my chest. The city outside
Speaker 1: hums Anne burdened. I wonder if one day I'll walk
Speaker 1: through it like that again. The night is endless. Daniel
Speaker 1: Tak's at midnight, crashed at Marcus's. Don't wait up. It
Speaker 1: isn't the first time he stayed out. But to night
Speaker 1: a lands differently. I put my phone face down, close
Speaker 1: my eyes, but sleep doesn't come easily. I get up early,
Speaker 1: make coffee, what sun ray slip between buildings. I open
Speaker 1: my email, read Anna's message for the fifth time, feeling
Speaker 1: its edge is file down. My resolve, I promise myself.
Speaker 1: To morrow, or maybe to night, I'll confront him, But
Speaker 1: for now, in the quiet pause before certainty, I'll let
Speaker 1: the evidence settle in my chest, as heavy and inevitable
Speaker 1: as thunder. The city has just begun to bleed light
Speaker 1: around the blinds. When Daniel comes home from wherever he's been,
Speaker 1: I hear the dead ball, the cautious sound his shoes
Speaker 1: make on the hardward, as if he's trying not to
Speaker 1: set off an alarm. I'm sitting at the kitchen table,
Speaker 1: a mug of half cold coffee cradled in my hands,
Speaker 1: lapped up closed. Anna's message still opened like a splinter
Speaker 1: in my in books. I have hedn't slept, I didn't
Speaker 1: even try. My body feels stretched and thin, nerves singing
Speaker 1: with a kind of high, exhausted clarity. He doesn't say
Speaker 1: anything right away, drops his keys in the same bowl
Speaker 1: as always, some ceremony of normalcy I find almost unbearable. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't look up, not yet. I hear him walking
Speaker 1: down the hole, dropping his bag softly at the bedroom threshold.
Speaker 1: May be hoping I'll be asleep, maybe hoping I'll confront
Speaker 1: him so he doesn't have to choose the night before
Speaker 1: has left my thoughts raw but focused. The time for
Speaker 1: rehearsed casualness is over the time for letting his silence
Speaker 1: fill the apartment is over it too. He finally drifts
Speaker 1: into the kitchen, hair masked, face washed but not fresh.
Speaker 1: He leans against the counter, physically close enough to touch,
Speaker 1: emotionally years away. Can I make coffee? He asks, his voices,
Speaker 1: study and effortlessness, already made essay, sliding the pot in
Speaker 1: his direction without looking at him. Thanks, He replies the
Speaker 1: word flat, clumsy in a quiet he pause, keeps his
Speaker 1: eyes on the mug. I can feel the weight of
Speaker 1: his expectation. He's braced for something, but not sure which
Speaker 1: version of me is going to show up. I break
Speaker 1: the silence. He were out late, I say, tone as
Speaker 1: steady as I can make it, He shrugs. Marcus's after
Speaker 1: work ended up crashing there? The light is dump already
Speaker 1: curling in the air between us. Did you have fun?
Speaker 1: He hesitates, just a moment too long. Yeah, beer's thrushed TV.
Speaker 1: You know how he is? His lips srich affraction. It's
Speaker 1: a face he wears when he thinks a performance might
Speaker 1: work if he can stand still in it. Long enough.
Speaker 1: I shake my head, almost managed to laugh. I pushed
Speaker 1: the laptop gently toward him, flicked the screen of Wike
Speaker 1: sir Anna's words, saying out in the unreadable half light,
Speaker 1: can you explain this, Daniel? He flinches his thumb, drums
Speaker 1: once on the mug handle. His eyes dart from the
Speaker 1: screen to me. What is this? He feigns confusion, but
Speaker 1: his skin's gun query intense. Don't, Daniel, I say we're
Speaker 1: softer than I expect. Don't insult me. I found it
Speaker 1: by accident. He left your computer on. If you want
Speaker 1: to say I'm violating your privacy, say it and get
Speaker 1: it over with, or you can actually talk to me.
Speaker 1: There's a lurchin and singates, winging wide inside him. Hel
Speaker 1: Whi's the laptop away, mouth opening and closing. Lisa, whatever
Speaker 1: you think there is, it's not what you've It's ad
Speaker 1: And I say, you told me you were working late,
Speaker 1: that you barely knew her. He said, you'd never I
Speaker 1: stop forcing myself not to sound hurt, not to beg
Speaker 1: for the votion of him. I want this is you, Daniel,
Speaker 1: talking about practice trivia night, about keeping Thursdays just for
Speaker 1: you and her, about pretending with me. Please just tell
Speaker 1: me the truth. He puts both hands on the counter, knuckles.
Speaker 1: Why it's work. It started out as she's stressed. I'm stressed.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we go for a drink. It helps her fit in.
Speaker 1: That's my job, Lisa onboarding new people, keeping the project
Speaker 1: on track. I never meant for it to get weird.
Speaker 1: It is weird. I say, it's so fucking weird that
Speaker 1: you had to hide it. He looks at me, then
Speaker 1: a flash of something that might be shame, or just
Speaker 1: the fear of someone's anger when they finally stopped dancing
Speaker 1: around the facts. I didn't want you to worry. I
Speaker 1: knew it would seem, don't I hiss, pushing back from
Speaker 1: the table. I don't make this about how I would react.
Speaker 1: You led. You brought her to Abbah the nights we
Speaker 1: were supposed to be together. He sneaked her around her
Speaker 1: routines our friends. He opens his mouth, then shut it,
Speaker 1: looking truly lost less. I'm sorry. I never planned things.
Speaker 1: Things at work have been bad. I didn't feel like
Speaker 1: I could talk to you about it, not the way
Speaker 1: I could with her. She's in it. She gates every
Speaker 1: part of what's falling apart in the job, and you
Speaker 1: adjusted a hard painspects behind my eyes, and I'm just what.
Speaker 1: He looks, stricken, searching for the right word, the right exit.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean you're not in the building every day.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't want to deal with that, Believe me, anything,
Speaker 1: I'd rather be lied to. His jaw fluxes. He holds
Speaker 1: master for a long time. No, have you slept with her?
Speaker 1: The words are sudden and cold, all prudence gone. He blanches,
Speaker 1: eyes darting away, mouth tight as though forming a confession
Speaker 1: by force. It wasn't just work, he says at last,
Speaker 1: voice breaking sideways. Not any more, not for some weeks now.
Speaker 1: I press both hands to my chest, feeling the air
Speaker 1: leave me. But I don't cry, not here, not yet.
Speaker 1: Did you ever plan to tell me, I ask? He
Speaker 1: shakes his head, tears. Well, I I don't know. I
Speaker 1: thought i'd handle it. I thought I thought maybe I
Speaker 1: could fix it, or that it would just end. I
Speaker 1: let the silence settle, feeling all the years between us
Speaker 1: contract into something sharp and unrecognizable. He tries to reach
Speaker 1: for me, but I recoil, pressing ghack the urge to scream.
Speaker 1: I need you to leave, I say, I need not
Speaker 1: see you right now. My voice is small, but irons bind.
Speaker 1: He stands nearly begging Liz, please, I'm so sorry. You
Speaker 1: don't know how bad it's been. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to ask for help. I shake my head, biting down
Speaker 1: anything kind. I'm done carrying your secrets for you. Get out,
Speaker 1: go anywhere, just not here. He staggers to the hallway,
Speaker 1: shoulder slumped, dragging his bag from the bedroom. Before he leaves,
Speaker 1: he stands in the doorway, lost hand, shaking mouth for me,
Speaker 1: a word that dies in the air. I don't meet
Speaker 1: his eyes. I listened to the door close, tied in
Speaker 1: my throat, fighting back a wave of nausea. Every part
Speaker 1: of my body wants to collapse into the chair, fall
Speaker 1: apart in a heap. But I make myself stand. I
Speaker 1: pack a bag, shirts, jeans, the book I never finished,
Speaker 1: charger toothbrush, I tax erin my finger's stiff. Can I
Speaker 1: crash with you for a while? No explanation, She doesn't
Speaker 1: need one. The reply is instant, of course, always. I
Speaker 1: gram my keys, check that Anna's message is still in
Speaker 1: my embarks, as if the facts now require constant proof.
Speaker 1: Before I go. I leave Daniel's glass still smeared from
Speaker 1: last trivia night in the wreck. Let him stare at
Speaker 1: the shape of absence. The city outside is loudly indifferent.
Speaker 1: They are stinging as I step through the door, bag
Speaker 1: pulling on my shoulder. I'm not thinking past the next hour,
Speaker 1: just getting to errands, feeling solid ground. I move because
Speaker 1: the alternative is to freeze. Her apartment is warm, over lit,
Speaker 1: strewn with laundry and magazines. She folds me into a
Speaker 1: quick hug, no questions asked, just soft space. I don't
Speaker 1: cry until she hands me a glass of water. The
Speaker 1: tears come fast. She presses my hand, lets me ride
Speaker 1: out the boast without commentary or demands. We sit until
Speaker 1: the sun is high, not talking about Daniel, not talking
Speaker 1: about the future. She tells a story about a neighbor's dog,
Speaker 1: and I listen, comforted by how ordinary this pain already feels.
Speaker 1: In our kitchen. Daniel decks, I'm sorry, Please let me
Speaker 1: explain better. I need to talk another. I didn't mean
Speaker 1: for this to happen, I miss you. Can we just talk?
Speaker 1: I don't reply. I set my phone on her kitchen counter,
Speaker 1: face down, and let myself disappear into the gentle background
Speaker 1: hum of Erin's dishwasher. New spreadsmirples through our group, Sarah, Meghan, Marcus,
Speaker 1: some check and with platitudes, some with clip sympathy. My
Speaker 1: phone vibrates with divided loyalties all evening, as if people
Speaker 1: think there is a right thing to say, as if
Speaker 1: there is any version in which the facts are less
Speaker 1: than what they are. Eron's couch becomes my landing pad.
Speaker 1: I line up the back by the bed, dig out
Speaker 1: actual pajamas, try to remind myself that a life can
Speaker 1: survive even when a story holding it together collapses. Overnight,
Speaker 1: I stare at the ceiling through cartoons of city light,
Speaker 1: feeling washed straw, but not destroyed. The pain is simple,
Speaker 1: not sharp. The betrayal, stark and legible, offers a strange
Speaker 1: kind of peace. On Thursday, I go to trivia alone.
Speaker 1: The same old group is there, minus Danel. No one
Speaker 1: asks about him. Megan hugs me a be too long.
Speaker 1: Sarah makes a badge yoake about all reliable team mates.
Speaker 1: I play along, letting the details of the night anchor
Speaker 1: made away. They once did a manual facts answers and jokes.
Speaker 1: I don't win, but I don't break either there is
Speaker 1: a shape to my absence in Daniel's orbit one, I
Speaker 1: start to fill with something like relief. When the night's done,
Speaker 1: I walk home the city alive in a cool spangl vash.
Speaker 1: There's no text from Daniel waiting, no last minute demand
Speaker 1: for understanding, no new apology to pass. At Erin's door,
Speaker 1: I realize my hands are steady. My voice when I
Speaker 1: say good night to her is my own again. I
Speaker 1: leave my phone in the kitchen and settle into bed,
Speaker 1: blank and tired, but free of explanations to anyone but myself.
Speaker 1: Friday comes on soft feet, some washing, the city impretens
Speaker 1: and noise, and still I know one near used to
Speaker 1: the new shape of things. At Errand's, our breakfast is
Speaker 1: weak coffee and left over biggles, Our talk carefully secure,
Speaker 1: its work, a landlord's infuriating bird feeder, a viral video
Speaker 1: about feral city turkeys. Every topic but Daniel, every topic
Speaker 1: in truth, but the wound pulsing beneath my careful smile.
Speaker 1: Erin leaves for a client meeting, soft trailing comfort across
Speaker 1: my shoulder without a word. I stay behind, alone with
Speaker 1: the buzz of her fridge. The chip mug in my palm,
Speaker 1: thinking I could live like this forever, spended and touchable
Speaker 1: and tethered, almost safe, accept and not Eron's couch is
Speaker 1: a raff, not ashore. My frone vibrates with a new
Speaker 1: flood of muted slivers of Daniel's life, pushing at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the screen. One text, then too, then a string.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I know you need space. Can we
Speaker 1: talk please, Lisa? Even his name and notifications feels like
Speaker 1: a foreign object. Orn noon, Sarah colls, I'm making sup
Speaker 1: for the trivial losers wanting. I almost say yes, almost
Speaker 1: reach for the normal, but the word pauses are my tongue.
Speaker 1: I feel a charge in the air, a sense that
Speaker 1: my life is calling for something, a confrontation, or maybe
Speaker 1: just release instead. I say not to day, but thanks, sir,
Speaker 1: rain check next week. Her answer is so soft, I
Speaker 1: almost miss it. If you want company, ye know where
Speaker 1: to find us. I try not to read into their
Speaker 1: gentle distance the way nobody demands explanations. Maybe they don't
Speaker 1: want to pick sides. Maybe for once, the drama round
Speaker 1: my life isn't interesting enough to disrupt their own. A five.
Speaker 1: My phone glows with an unknown number. My first wild
Speaker 1: thought is Anna, But it's Daniel calling from work using
Speaker 1: the land line. My heart beats like panic, but I
Speaker 1: let it ring once twice, then pick up Lisa. His
Speaker 1: voice has a strange precision, the old Daniel, as if
Speaker 1: through static and exhaustion. I say nothing. The quiet for
Speaker 1: once is a power I can hold. Please, can we meet,
Speaker 1: just to talk. I'm not going to to come back.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what task for I just to
Speaker 1: He swallows, the sound, small and awful. I need to
Speaker 1: see you, even if it's just for five minutes. I
Speaker 1: pinched the burge of my nose. You know everything's changed, right.
Speaker 1: His SiGe rolls through the line. Defeat it. I know,
Speaker 1: I know I fucked it up. Less. I just want
Speaker 1: to see a face to face and say the whole thing.
Speaker 1: There's a long moment where I weigh relief against dread.
Speaker 1: I say, fine, public Place seven, Wilton Park, the picnic tables.
Speaker 1: My voice is unfamiliar to me. He agrees instantly. I
Speaker 1: spend the next two hours circling the apartment, not really reading,
Speaker 1: not really thinking, mainly waiting for the clock to tilt forward,
Speaker 1: to force the next sin to happen. Because sitting still
Speaker 1: is worse. At the park, the sun is weirdly beautiful,
Speaker 1: slicing low across the grass. The sound of distant traffic
Speaker 1: and the jangle of leash dogs marks out the boundaries
Speaker 1: of the world. Daniel is already there, kneed in a
Speaker 1: crisp shirt, posture approach, but somehow smaller, nodded into himself
Speaker 1: in a way I've never seen. He stands when I approach,
Speaker 1: but doesn't reach for me. He looks older than are,
Speaker 1: the ghost of the man who used to drag me
Speaker 1: away from deathlines just to watch the city lights from
Speaker 1: a blanket on the same grass. Thank you for coming,
Speaker 1: he says, quiet as air. I fold my hands, shake
Speaker 1: my head. Just talk, Daniel, don't waste our time. He nods,
Speaker 1: mouth pursing with restraint. I'm not going to make excuses.
Speaker 1: I should have told you the thing with dinner it started.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember when. Honestly, she was new, she
Speaker 1: was overwhelmed, and I felt needed the way I hadn't
Speaker 1: in months, which is not your fault. That was never
Speaker 1: about you not being enough. I resist the urge to interrupt.
Speaker 1: He searches my face, blinking fast. I liked the way
Speaker 1: she saw me like I could fix things, like I
Speaker 1: hadn't already failed the one person, He muttered. I thought
Speaker 1: it would stop at drinks, ID joked. I needed the escape,
Speaker 1: I told myself. But I didn't mean for it to
Speaker 1: cross the line. It did. My voice is thain but hard.
Speaker 1: He lied to my face. He let me defend you,
Speaker 1: your friends. He canceled our rituals and filled the space
Speaker 1: with her. Why didn't you just end it with me
Speaker 1: when it started? He is crying now, silently, quickly, one
Speaker 1: hand scouring his cheek. Because I thought I could wall
Speaker 1: it off, because ending us felt unthinkable even when I
Speaker 1: was with her. I wanted to believe I could come
Speaker 1: back and be myself with you again. I got addicted
Speaker 1: to the escape. Then I was addicted to the lang.
Speaker 1: The next question comes pride open. Did you love her?
Speaker 1: His exhale was ragged. No. I thought maybe once for
Speaker 1: a minute, because she made everything feel easy. But it
Speaker 1: was nothing like us. It was never home. A loop
Speaker 1: of anger, pity, and deep fatigue winds through me. Would
Speaker 1: you have told me if I hadn't found out? He
Speaker 1: meets my eyes, this time, not flinching. I don't know,
Speaker 1: Maybe not, maybe I would have just kept pretending until
Speaker 1: you left anyway, or until she got tired of it,
Speaker 1: or until something broke it he already has. I want
Speaker 1: to say, but the words feel redundant. He rocks on
Speaker 1: his heels, wringing his hands. I know I don't deserve forgiveness.
Speaker 1: I'm not even asking for it, but I need you
Speaker 1: to know. Everything with her is over. That was over
Speaker 1: the second you found out she texted. I didn't respond.
Speaker 1: I'm ending everything at work. I'm even looking for new jobs. Ijustice,
Speaker 1: I stop him, lifting a hand, don't spin. This is
Speaker 1: a fresh start, not for us. He brook something I
Speaker 1: don't want to fix. He broke something in me I
Speaker 1: don't want to find again. We stand like that, separated
Speaker 1: by the rise and fall of late day wind, strangers,
Speaker 1: stranded between two versions of a life that can't be reconciled.
Speaker 1: He barely nods, accepting the verdict. Folding inward, he says,
Speaker 1: almost inaudible, I'll get my stuff from the apartment this weekend.
Speaker 1: Let me know if you want me to leave anything.
Speaker 1: Leave the keys on the hook, I say, I'll be gone.
Speaker 1: He doesn't try to touch me. No lost hug, no
Speaker 1: plea for a match. He stands there, the emptiest I've
Speaker 1: ever seen him, and a turn away before the scene
Speaker 1: can calcify into pity at errands, the apartment feels more
Speaker 1: like refuge than negtile. I drop my bag by the door,
Speaker 1: message Sarah and Meghan, I'm okay, I'll be out of
Speaker 1: touch for a bit, Thanks for caring. Truly. Erin appears
Speaker 1: from her bedroom, already reading my face, offering tea space,
Speaker 1: anything this time. I only shake my head, pulling a
Speaker 1: blanket around my shoulders, letting the hush wrap me tight.
Speaker 1: Daniel's flood of messages has stopped. A few hours later,
Speaker 1: I compose a message to Daniel, please don't contact me
Speaker 1: unless it's about the logistics. And that's all. No wish
Speaker 1: for the best, no above it all, forgetness, just a
Speaker 1: request BARONNEU to preserve my own air. By the next morning,
Speaker 1: my phone is quiet, no new turbulence, no illusions of repair.
Speaker 1: Sarah takets a simple heart. Meghan suggests another trivia night
Speaker 1: when I'm up for it. I sense the perimeter of
Speaker 1: a support system, gentle and present, ready to take its
Speaker 1: signals from me. I let the loneliness affuse me fully
Speaker 1: for a day, walking, eating, barely, skimming emails without meaning,
Speaker 1: sleeping in stretches before something inside and twists minutely. I
Speaker 1: don't look at Anna's message any more. I delete it
Speaker 1: and the copy in my track USh folder, feeling the
Speaker 1: tiny a nihil asian pinhumo chest. On Thursday, I walk
Speaker 1: by my old apartment on the way to trivia. Watch
Speaker 1: a moving truck parks darkly by the curb. I keep moving,
Speaker 1: not slowing, not stopping, not looking up at the bar.
Speaker 1: Laughter spikes from afar, but I settle into an edge seat,
Speaker 1: letting the bus pass through me. The team asks no questions,
Speaker 1: doesn't mention Daniel. I answer a few rounds, smile when
Speaker 1: someone else wins, and drift out early when the final
Speaker 1: scores are red. The city doesn't know, O care what changed.
Speaker 1: Its bright windows, his crossing lights, and hidden alloways are
Speaker 1: all arranged for any possible story. I walk slower than usual,
Speaker 1: feeling my pulse steady, noticing the shape of my breath
Speaker 1: for the first time. At the crosswalk where everything began,
Speaker 1: I pause, letting cars rush by, the world moving perfectly
Speaker 1: indifferent around me. My bag is lighter, my pocket's empty
Speaker 1: of keys that no longer belong to features I didn't choose.
Speaker 1: When the signal changes, I step into the street, coat
Speaker 1: zipped against the night, and for the first time, don't
Speaker 1: look over my shoulder for footsteps to sync with. The
Speaker 1: city swallows me up a life strong, singular, and I
Speaker 1: walk on