Speaker 1: I had always loved the way the third rail felt.
Speaker 1: On a Thursday evening, right before trivia got started, warm
Speaker 1: in the corners, old bricks softening the street noise, the
Speaker 1: bartenders already working their second round of jokes. The regulars
Speaker 1: trickled in, dropping insulated jackets and shaking rain out of
Speaker 1: their hair, that low murmur swelling as everyone started picking
Speaker 1: their teams. I must have looked out of place that night,
Speaker 1: alone at the batted table beneath the Knon black Hawks
Speaker 1: Forever sign, frowning into my cider with my phone propped
Speaker 1: against the napkin holder. It was closing in on seven
Speaker 1: forty five, past the time Ben would usually sweep in
Speaker 1: with that lopsided grin and an armful of greasy takeout
Speaker 1: containers for our trivia team, him, Me, Jess, sometimes Janine
Speaker 1: if her shift ended early emails pinged at him well
Speaker 1: into the night. Lately, but as recently as last week,
Speaker 1: he'd still made it a priority Thursday trivia, no matter what.
Speaker 1: We even called it our tiny marriage. If either of
Speaker 1: us broke the ritual, the joke went, we'd need to
Speaker 1: renegotiate our vows. But to night Ben was absent, citing
Speaker 1: a work dinner with a huge new client at this
Speaker 1: upscale Panasian place in River North. He'd texted me at
Speaker 1: six eleven, Babe, I'm tied up. Don't wait up, love
Speaker 1: you crush them at trivia. That should have put my
Speaker 1: mind at ease, except it didn't. Jess slid into the
Speaker 1: seat beside me as I was contemplating a second cider.
Speaker 1: Already bored without your other half, ha, she teased, nudging
Speaker 1: my knee. I grinned, grateful for the distraction. As our
Speaker 1: team debated which batman Villan's real name was Edward Nigma,
Speaker 1: Jess caught up with me, laughing over some mishap at work,
Speaker 1: and for a while it felt almost like any other Thursday.
Speaker 1: We lost round one spectacularly, as always. Then, just as
Speaker 1: the scorekeeper announced the bonus round, my phone buzzed a
Speaker 1: new text from Jess, but sent to me directly, not
Speaker 1: our group thread. Didn't know you were into indie rock,
Speaker 1: saw Ben at the hideout band was wild. There was
Speaker 1: an image attached, grainy, blurry, clearly shot mid song without
Speaker 1: a flash. I felt a weird pulse in my finger
Speaker 1: tips as I tapped the photo to enlarge it. There
Speaker 1: unmistakably was Ben. Same dark curls, same shoulders, stacked in
Speaker 1: the way i'd recognize from across a city block. He
Speaker 1: was half turned away from the camera, but not looking alone.
Speaker 1: He hunched over, speaking to a woman, long red hair,
Speaker 1: an easy laugh, hand curling on his arm, like they
Speaker 1: were old friends, or maybe something more. My stomach flickered
Speaker 1: before I could react. Jess My Jess looked at me
Speaker 1: and said, so, who's winning our team? Or your phone?
Speaker 1: Her own text unread on her device obviously, Oh nothing,
Speaker 1: I said, too quickly, maybe, but I turned the phone
Speaker 1: over work. Ben says, hey, she wrinkled her nose. He'd
Speaker 1: text from that robo dinner. I shrugged, trying for cool.
Speaker 1: In my head, I'd already decided it probably was Ben,
Speaker 1: some one who looked like him, or maybe his co workers.
Speaker 1: The hideout wasn't even close to that River North restaurant. Besides,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't lie about a thing so small. The rest
Speaker 1: of trivia unfolded without calamity. We lost, but not as
Speaker 1: badly as usual. As our team split outside to call lifts.
Speaker 1: I pulled out my phone and stared at Jess's photo again.
Speaker 1: I nearly typed are you sure that was Ben? Before
Speaker 1: deleting it, not wanting to plant seeds of drama instead,
Speaker 1: I called my own lift, told myself I was being silly,
Speaker 1: and replayed Ben's last message as the driver looped on
Speaker 1: to Ashland. But as we pulled up to our apartment,
Speaker 1: the one with the paint chipped mail boxes and that
Speaker 1: sign Ben's swore was haunted. I hesitated on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: I fiddled with my keys longer than usual. The building's
Speaker 1: out a glass as reflected me slightly distorted. Inside our
Speaker 1: apartment was dark, the couch's plaid throw folded neatly, the
Speaker 1: trivia trophy glinting from its shelf. Usually, walking into our
Speaker 1: space alone felt peaceful to night. Something was off. Not
Speaker 1: a siren blaring alarm, more like a thread of worry
Speaker 1: winding through me, tightening. As I set my bag down,
Speaker 1: I did what I always do when unsettled. Watered the
Speaker 1: droopy snakeskin plant by the kitchen window, straightened Ben's abandoned magazines,
Speaker 1: and checked my own calendar for the morning. I kept
Speaker 1: glancing at the door, as if I expected to catch
Speaker 1: Ben walking in at some unguarded moment holding a take
Speaker 1: out container. And the punch line to a private joke.
Speaker 1: But it was nearly ten thirty when I heard his
Speaker 1: key in the lock. He crept in, startled to see
Speaker 1: me still up. You waited, he said, voice light, loosening
Speaker 1: his tie in that distracted way of his. Did you win?
Speaker 1: I lied and told him we did. He grinned, pressing
Speaker 1: a kiss to my forehead. He kissed me in that absent,
Speaker 1: almost rehearsed way, and I let my eyes close, ignoring
Speaker 1: the faint scent on his jacket, spicier than the cologne
Speaker 1: I bought him last Christmas. Not sweat, not quite food,
Speaker 1: something new. Ben drifted into the tiny living room, complaining
Speaker 1: about powerpunt decks and lackluster spring rolls. I watched him
Speaker 1: from the kitchen, feeling this odd displacement, as if I'd
Speaker 1: stumbled onto a movie set where the actors were reading
Speaker 1: lines I'd never seen before. Lying in bed beside him,
Speaker 1: I replayed every detail of Jess's text. Maybe she was mistaken,
Speaker 1: Maybe that was Ben at the hideout. Even as I
Speaker 1: tried to will myself to sleep, the question pressed in
Speaker 1: persistent cold beneath my ribs. If I trusted him, why
Speaker 1: couldn't I let this go. The next morning arrived with
Speaker 1: all the heavy routine of a late March Friday, sleet
Speaker 1: against the windows, the neighbor's dog barking through two layers
Speaker 1: of dry wall, Emil's pinging. Before I'd had coffee, Ben
Speaker 1: was already in the kitchen, humming some pop song, scrambling
Speaker 1: eggs with too much pepper, his signature, he always joked.
Speaker 1: The memory of the previous night barely clung to him.
Speaker 1: He was already mid routine, scrolling through his phone's news alerts.
Speaker 1: I held my mug, watching the steam curl toward the ceiling,
Speaker 1: trying to decide if I was a fool for wanting
Speaker 1: answers or a fool for not needing them. He sounded
Speaker 1: so ordinary, laughing about an email chain gone rogue, his
Speaker 1: blue Oxford shirt, untucked hair, a little wild, like he'd
Speaker 1: slept rough. Before I could talk myself out of it,
Speaker 1: I said, Jess texted last night. She said she saw
Speaker 1: you at the hideout. I thought you had that dinner thing.
Speaker 1: His reaction was quick, but not panicked, just speedy enough
Speaker 1: that I clocked it as something rehearsed. Yeah, crazy, right.
Speaker 1: Dinner ended early, and the client wanted to check out
Speaker 1: some local music, so we hopped by for a drink.
Speaker 1: Sorry I missed trivia. Maybe next week. I forced a smile,
Speaker 1: too aware that my face could easily betray me. Who's
Speaker 1: the client? Any one important? He launched into a canned
Speaker 1: agency story, some hot shot from La Super into the
Speaker 1: local scene, and then turned the conversation to my own
Speaker 1: weekend plans. Did I want to try that TI brunch spot?
Speaker 1: Maybe check out the new gallery show? I smiled back,
Speaker 1: letting the current of his charms sweep me along, but
Speaker 1: saw out of the corner of my eye his shoes
Speaker 1: as he crouched to tie them new expensive leather and
Speaker 1: green rubber, the kind of trend hugging style he'd always mocked.
Speaker 1: Those are new, I said, keeping it light. Ben glanced
Speaker 1: down shrugged. YEA scored a deal. Kind of had to.
Speaker 1: You know, directors can't look like they just rolled out
Speaker 1: of bed, he laughed, but his joke missed its usual target.
Speaker 1: He'd always prided himself on being the most underdressed man
Speaker 1: in the pitch room. It was a detail I tucked away.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was just stepping up his game. Maybe I
Speaker 1: was just overthinking everything. Projecting last night's uncertainty on to
Speaker 1: something innocent. That Saturday, rain scudded sideways against the coffee
Speaker 1: shop windows. As I lounged in bed, sending half hearted
Speaker 1: texts to lure Ben into joining me at my favorite
Speaker 1: thrift store. He begged off, gotta hit the dry cleaners
Speaker 1: than the hardware store. I'm in fix it mode to day.
Speaker 1: Hours later, he returned with a brand new shirt. It
Speaker 1: was on clearance, he said, already peeling off the tags.
Speaker 1: Impulse by we still doing that Pete Sander movie night,
Speaker 1: I asked, Watching him as he folded his new shirt
Speaker 1: along the seams, he ducked his head, smiling. Rain check
Speaker 1: work pile exploded. He tapped his phone, which seemed glued
Speaker 1: to his hand. For the rest of the evening, I
Speaker 1: busied myself with a new font for a freelance gig,
Speaker 1: the glow of my laptops swallowing the hours until midnight.
Speaker 1: Every now and then I caught Ben's reflection in the
Speaker 1: living room window, pacing while on another call, voice pitched
Speaker 1: low and bright. When he finally collapsed on the sofa
Speaker 1: beside me, he was present, but his mind seemed elsewhere,
Speaker 1: a sort of restless energy pinballing behind his eyes. Sunday
Speaker 1: was all errands and little jokes, but I kept rewinding
Speaker 1: conversations in my head. Was I paranoid or was he different?
Speaker 1: I reminded myself how work stress could shift any one's mood,
Speaker 1: especially Ben's. He tended to overcompensate with charm, leaning hard
Speaker 1: into stories about big winds, little victories, reminding us both
Speaker 1: that we were climbing upward. Still, I noticed that, for
Speaker 1: the first time, he locked his screen before leaving it
Speaker 1: on the kitchen table. He'd never done that, not once
Speaker 1: in five years, And I told myself that's just what
Speaker 1: people do now. But still the gesture had an air
Speaker 1: of closure. Monday, as I hustled through a revision blitz
Speaker 1: for a restless client, my phone chirped with a notification
Speaker 1: about our shared brunch fund, a small withdrawal, not for
Speaker 1: food but for cafe dart. I asked Ben about it
Speaker 1: when he came home, just out of curiosity. He shrugged again,
Speaker 1: looking distracted. Oh yeah, I grabbed coffee with a client.
Speaker 1: Cute place, weird music, not your scene. He kissed me
Speaker 1: on the head, nearly missing me. It wasn't that he lied.
Speaker 1: It was the ease, with which he explained like he
Speaker 1: knew the script. When Ben rolled in from his Wednesday
Speaker 1: client dinner, I noticed a different scent on his collar,
Speaker 1: perfume sweet and herbal. Neither of us wore anything remotely
Speaker 1: like it. He ducked straight into the shower, humming a
Speaker 1: tune I didn't recognize. I brought it up as a joke.
Speaker 1: Now you smell like a cephora exploded, but he just grinned,
Speaker 1: lathering his hair. He'd always been a solid rock, the
Speaker 1: guy I trusted to split lift for and pick up
Speaker 1: my dry cleaning, and remember my dumbest inside jokes. For
Speaker 1: as long as we'd been together, I'd never wondered where
Speaker 1: he was, or who he was with, or if Thursday
Speaker 1: Trivia was still us. The new unease wasn't a sharp knife,
Speaker 1: not yet, just a constant irritating it. Work kept me
Speaker 1: busy the following week, a design proposal for a local distillery,
Speaker 1: a webheader for a shoe store opening soon. My own
Speaker 1: schedule was packed, and in the past Ben used to
Speaker 1: beam when I landed a new client. Lately he barely
Speaker 1: registered the news, mostly responding with that's awesome, babe, before
Speaker 1: veering back to his email or side project. I tried
Speaker 1: to dismiss it as ordinary overload. Thursday arrived again, and
Speaker 1: for the first time in two years, Ben announced at breakfast,
Speaker 1: can't do trivia. Sorry, the agency's making me stay late.
Speaker 1: Another client dinner. Tara's in from out of town. She's
Speaker 1: a big deal. His casualness caught me off guard. Who's Tara,
Speaker 1: I asked, matching his breeziness, he rattled off her job title,
Speaker 1: already scrolling his phone. She's the client from last week,
Speaker 1: same one. Agency's rolling out the red carpet since she's
Speaker 1: basically bankrolling the next quarter. The phrase rolling out the
Speaker 1: red carpet stuck to me. Ben hated corporate cliches, but
Speaker 1: there he was speaking in them. Jess side eyed me
Speaker 1: that night when I showed up solo again. He's with
Speaker 1: that big client. She skewered an olive and slid it
Speaker 1: over you. Guy's good, yea, just work. He'll be back
Speaker 1: to normal by next week. I tried to laugh, but
Speaker 1: even to myself, the words didn't sound convincing. That night,
Speaker 1: as I wrestled the fitted sheet onto our bed, I
Speaker 1: paused in the middle of the room, sheet balled in
Speaker 1: my arms, and let my thoughts roll over me. How
Speaker 1: his phone was now always tucked away, face down, sometimes
Speaker 1: even in the bathroom. How he was never up for
Speaker 1: US Saturday runs or gallery afternoons, and how he always
Speaker 1: sighted client deadlines as his excuse. The little detail stuck
Speaker 1: coffee shops he never mentioned before, three pairs of new
Speaker 1: dress socks, messages on his phone from d M, or
Speaker 1: just initials, nothing that registered in our shared social circle.
Speaker 1: Each discovery was its own drop in a bucket. I
Speaker 1: pretended wasn't filling up. Then. That second Friday, Ben came
Speaker 1: home late, as usual. I was on the couch, half
Speaker 1: dozing in front of a documentary, but sat upright when
Speaker 1: he slumped inside, peeling off his jacket. His wrists sported
Speaker 1: a neon blue band, the kind you get at a
Speaker 1: concert or club. You win something, I asked, gesturing at
Speaker 1: the band. He followed my gaze, then smiled sheepishly. Oh this.
Speaker 1: The client wanted to check out some music after dinner.
Speaker 1: They handed these out at the door, a raffle for
Speaker 1: drink tickets. I barely stayed. He flicked it off, dropping
Speaker 1: into the junk drawer. He stood behind the kitchen counter,
Speaker 1: opening mail and I stared at him like I was
Speaker 1: waiting for a slip, a clue, something that would make
Speaker 1: it all fall into place. Ben caught me looking and winked,
Speaker 1: don't worry, I'm not running off to join a band.
Speaker 1: Nothing was technically wrong, no fights, no missed bills, no
Speaker 1: obvious disconnection, and yet the rhythm we'd spent five years building,
Speaker 1: little rituals, the lazy couch sundays, the running banter over
Speaker 1: New York Times cross words had become spotty, paper thin.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was just the stress of careers that didn't
Speaker 1: quite sink up any more. I told myself time would
Speaker 1: pass and things would rearrange. But on Sunday I checked
Speaker 1: our credit card statement, half searching for fraud, half looking
Speaker 1: for normalcy, and found a ninety two dollars charge at
Speaker 1: Rogue and Co, a boutique in wicker Park that Ben
Speaker 1: had never mentioned. He'd always sneered at the boutiques sixteen
Speaker 1: bucks for socks, no thanks. I brought it up that evening,
Speaker 1: as casually as possible, you find something good at Rogue
Speaker 1: and Co. He smiled, But it looked like work gift
Speaker 1: for a colleague, secret Santa thing, super last minute. I panicked,
Speaker 1: picked out a scarf. He teased my investigative tone I
Speaker 1: let him. That week, I first typed how to tell
Speaker 1: if your partner is lying to you into Google. I
Speaker 1: flushed with shame, staring at the suggested links. Ten signs
Speaker 1: of infidelity? What counts as emotional cheating? I closed the
Speaker 1: browser and told myself to stop. This was the sort
Speaker 1: of thing couple's therapy blogs warned you against building stories
Speaker 1: out of dust. Were invited to a housewarming at Janine
Speaker 1: and Michele's new place, a beautiful, plant strewn high rise
Speaker 1: on Milwaukee Arve. Ben, who'd always dominated the center of
Speaker 1: any party with his particular brand of stories and wisecracks,
Speaker 1: was more reserved. At one point I caught him at
Speaker 1: the snack table talking to a tall woman with coppery hair,
Speaker 1: no one I recognized. They exchanged a half joking look.
Speaker 1: After Ben made some crack about his new client look.
Speaker 1: He caught me looking slightly embarrassed. Ratch wan some cheese
Speaker 1: plate before it's gone. I forced a smile, but when
Speaker 1: Jess sidled up to me by the drinks later, her
Speaker 1: question stopped me cold. You and Ben are like doing okay? Right?
Speaker 1: He just seems a little I deno distant when the
Speaker 1: gang goes out, Well, you know, Ben, I joked, he's
Speaker 1: probably plotting a new heist or something. Jess laughed and
Speaker 1: let it drop, but I could feel the scrutiny beneath
Speaker 1: her concern. All night I caught Ben's eyes skidding away
Speaker 1: from mine. At home, I chopped carrots for a late dinner,
Speaker 1: listening to Ben's joke about how his agency was upgrading
Speaker 1: him her client mandate. He quipped, next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll have to start drinking oat milk. It was delivered
Speaker 1: with vintage Ben humor, but something about the phrasing felt practiced.
Speaker 1: I finished the meal asking if he wanted to join
Speaker 1: me for a morning run, a bit of fresh air
Speaker 1: before the week started. Another time Babe swamped to morrow.
Speaker 1: Another time came and went. Work stacked up for both
Speaker 1: of us, a sudden three project crushed for me, a
Speaker 1: campaign launched for Ben. We slept later eight, standing up
Speaker 1: and communicated, mostly in calender reminders and texts about groceries.
Speaker 1: I offered to help him polish a pitch deck for
Speaker 1: the big client. After all, I'd worked in branding too,
Speaker 1: and once he'd have jumped at the chance to show off,
Speaker 1: looping me into a late night pizza fueled brainstorm. This
Speaker 1: time he turned prickly. I've got it. These clients like
Speaker 1: a certain process. Too late, notice the air went tight.
Speaker 1: I tried to retreat, offered tea, suggested a night off,
Speaker 1: but he brushed past, closing his laptop. After that, nothing
Speaker 1: was explicit, but I noticed more things. Ben's jim sessions
Speaker 1: stretched off longer, his jim bags stuffed with clothes. I
Speaker 1: didn't recognize texts pinging at odd hours from numbers not
Speaker 1: in my phone, and his phone always angled away, as
Speaker 1: if the light itself was an intrusion. At first, I
Speaker 1: thought maybe it was all just a big work push.
Speaker 1: People evolve right, schedules shift, new friends enter the scene,
Speaker 1: styles up date inside joke's fade, But each change felt deliberate,
Speaker 1: like he was moving one foot at a time out
Speaker 1: of the patterns we'd built. Our place was still full
Speaker 1: of artifacts, live show fliers on the fridge, grinning polaraids,
Speaker 1: the thrift shop painting we rescued together months ago. Everything
Speaker 1: looked the same, but the air felt different, muted, tense,
Speaker 1: as if I was waiting for a punch line that
Speaker 1: never came. Sometimes I almost caught myself believing it would
Speaker 1: level out, that these were just the growing pains of
Speaker 1: an ambitious couple in a busy city. Two jobs, two calendars,
Speaker 1: not enough time. Sometimes I could almost ignore the itch,
Speaker 1: But sometimes I'd glance up while Ben was talking and
Speaker 1: see that shimmer of something hidden quick behind the eyes.
Speaker 1: Our fifth anniversary snuck up. I spent an afternoon designing
Speaker 1: a playful logo for us, our nicknames spelled in sharp script,
Speaker 1: a call back to our first inside joke. Ben loved it,
Speaker 1: or said he did, but didn't plan anything special. Let's
Speaker 1: get through the pitch, he promised. Then we'll take a
Speaker 1: weekend off, maybe head up to Milwaukee, just the two
Speaker 1: of us. It sounded like hope, and I believed it
Speaker 1: for half a second. He was home late that night.
Speaker 1: I waited, scrolling through photos of our last getaway, wanting
Speaker 1: to recapture something, something simple, just his hand on my
Speaker 1: knee as we wound down Lake Shore Drive, A picture
Speaker 1: of him laughing at a roadside diner in a shirt
Speaker 1: he'd surely never wear now. Then another evening, as I
Speaker 1: came in from a client meeting, Ben breezed past me.
Speaker 1: In the kitchen. You're working later, ag, I teased, voice casual.
Speaker 1: He flashed a smile, Agency's death march. Don't wait up.
Speaker 1: The phrase shot through me. I tried to brush it off,
Speaker 1: made tea, and slept alone. The next morning, he was
Speaker 1: up before me, making perfect coffee, acting like everything was
Speaker 1: as it should be. This limbo stretched on for days,
Speaker 1: then weeks. My dreams scrambled a muddle of past and present.
Speaker 1: Waking up certain Ben was in the other room, only
Speaker 1: to remember he'd never come home the night before. I
Speaker 1: told myself it was the city noise, the caffeine, the
Speaker 1: lingering work pressure. One cold Monday, I woke before dawn
Speaker 1: and found Ben in the living room asleep in his
Speaker 1: jim clothes. Laptops still glowing on the ottoman. I moved
Speaker 1: to close it and caught a glimpse of a slack
Speaker 1: thread titled Tea Parker Agency Explorers. The last few messages
Speaker 1: were filled with inside jokes and little memes. Ben roused, sleep,
Speaker 1: bleary and soft, pulling the laptop out of my reach
Speaker 1: almost reflexively. He blinked, what ray you doing up? No edge,
Speaker 1: just confusion. I couldn't sleep. I said you should come
Speaker 1: to bed. He joined me, arms folded tight around himself,
Speaker 1: already half elsewhere. I raided more of our shared calendar.
Speaker 1: There were dinners, drinks, client obligations, almost always bookended by
Speaker 1: decompressing with a walk or extra Jim. When I gently
Speaker 1: suggested reviving our old habit of Saturday morning market runs,
Speaker 1: he claimed a backlog of emails or once an urgent
Speaker 1: run for groceries we didn't need. It was a ritual
Speaker 1: that finally broke through. The Wednesday night we used to
Speaker 1: set aside for pizza and a show, a throwback to
Speaker 1: our second date. This time ben bylaid entirely, sighting back
Speaker 1: to back client calls. I ate my pizza alone, Netflix
Speaker 1: humming in the background without him. I told myself it
Speaker 1: didn't matter, but that old ache in my chest suggested otherwise.
Speaker 1: Later that week, ben forded me a photo from his
Speaker 1: agency dinner group shot a crowded table, his coworkers on
Speaker 1: either side, smiles wide in the middle. Slightly out of focus,
Speaker 1: sat that same woman from the hideout photo, this time
Speaker 1: with her head tipped toward ben Mouth's mid laugh, her
Speaker 1: hand up in a blurry wave. Tara, Now I had
Speaker 1: a name when I asked, so, Tara's the main client.
Speaker 1: Ben nodded, a little too quickly runs the whole account.
Speaker 1: She's sharp, kind of intense, I asked. She seems cool.
Speaker 1: You two get along, Just curiosity, I told myself. Ben nodded,
Speaker 1: eyes flickering. She's got strong opinions, keeps everyone on their toes.
Speaker 1: I smiled, reaching for reassurance, but got only a thin
Speaker 1: slice of his attention. Even my sleep fractured. I dreamt
Speaker 1: of loud bars, strange women talking in riddles, Ben slipping
Speaker 1: out the back exit. I'd wake up, unsure if I
Speaker 1: was angry, sad, or just tired. Late one night, I
Speaker 1: googled Tara's full name. Her LinkedIn glowed with agency accolades,
Speaker 1: stylish photos, branded events under her highlights. I found photos
Speaker 1: of her and Ben at concerts, at a branded whiskey
Speaker 1: launch never just as colleagues. I scrolled through months, piecing
Speaker 1: together an informal record of dinners, drinks, and late night outings.
Speaker 1: My pulse quickened, still, I wasn't certain every bit of
Speaker 1: evidence could be written off as coincidence, professionalism, a peculiarly
Speaker 1: close client relationship, or maybe not. One evening, Ben came
Speaker 1: home earlier than usual, gifts in tow a quassa from
Speaker 1: my favorite place, an apology for being a zombie lately.
Speaker 1: I almost melted at his simple effort, some buried hope flaring.
Speaker 1: We talked about nothing about the city, about his plans
Speaker 1: for us to finally escape on a trip. When the
Speaker 1: work tornado cleared the next morning, I almost texted Jess,
Speaker 1: ready to laugh at my own paranoia. But that night,
Speaker 1: as I folded laundry, I saw a brown bag from
Speaker 1: Wilder and Wilder, another boutique Ben had never set foot in.
Speaker 1: Inside was a receipt two scarves, one with a note
Speaker 1: to Tea, hope this brings you luck. Ben grinned, nonchalant
Speaker 1: client birthday, he said, spinning the story. Almost before I
Speaker 1: was done reading. I started to catalog the contradictions, the shoes,
Speaker 1: the changed routines, the scarf, the perfume. Not outright lies,
Speaker 1: but a mosaic of little shifts, each one explainable yet
Speaker 1: collectively deeply strange. Sometimes Ben was extra warm, attentive, like
Speaker 1: he'd missed me. Other Times he was distracted, buried in
Speaker 1: work or lost in his phone. I mentioned Jess's band
Speaker 1: gig Saturday, suggesting we go, trying to reclaim normalcy. Ben apologized,
Speaker 1: eyes bright with gilt or exhaustion. I couldn't tell. Tara's
Speaker 1: team is intell, more dinners, more hand holding. I nodded,
Speaker 1: feigning support, telling myself I was being good, patient, supportive.
Speaker 1: I loved him. Wasn't that enough? A week passed with
Speaker 1: little change. Then, on a wind blown evening, Ben swept
Speaker 1: through the door carrying a single white rose, unannounced, no
Speaker 1: card attached, just because he offered, as though nothing were wrong.
Speaker 1: I took it smiling, and for a few hours things
Speaker 1: felt almost right. We stayed up late arguing about which
Speaker 1: band would headline Pitchfork this year. I woke hopeful, ready
Speaker 1: to rewrite my own doubts, but even hope thinned. Jes texted, gently,
Speaker 1: checking in, you seem off Ben okay? I wanted to answer,
Speaker 1: maybe not. Instead I wrote, he's just stressed, work stuff.
Speaker 1: I tucked my phone away, feeling the line between reality
Speaker 1: and pretense thinning to nothing. I realized I had started
Speaker 1: to dread the ritual, the trivia nights where I sat alone,
Speaker 1: the empty mornings, the weight of our shared bed. I
Speaker 1: missed the way Ben used to announce every small win
Speaker 1: the way we'd double up, laughing over old internet memes,
Speaker 1: his cheerful teasing about my compulsive color coding. He changed
Speaker 1: Before shore, we'd de grown up side by side, new jobs,
Speaker 1: new neighborhoods, new groups, and always found our way back
Speaker 1: to us. But this was different. This felt like someone
Speaker 1: letting go in slow motion, only letting you notice after
Speaker 1: they'd already shifted their weight. My Google search history got darker.
Speaker 1: How to save a relationship before it's too late? Why
Speaker 1: do people hide from their partners? Sometimes Ben would come
Speaker 1: to bed late, leaning over to kiss me, but his
Speaker 1: eyes would wander over my shoulder at the quietly blinking
Speaker 1: light of his phone. I counted up his absences, the
Speaker 1: dinners he claimed were professional, the long showers after late nights,
Speaker 1: the half smiles and drifting conversations. I wondered if he
Speaker 1: noticed the same in me, if he felt the ache
Speaker 1: I did, or if he'd simply put up newer, thicker walls.
Speaker 1: Still my hope flickered. Maybe this was just our rough patch.
Speaker 1: Maybe the tension was all mine, and I'd look back
Speaker 1: in a month, relieved at how temporary it all was.
Speaker 1: Yet I counted the days until the big pitch was delivered.
Speaker 1: Ben assured me it'll all ease up. After that, I
Speaker 1: tried to believe it, holding on to what we'd built,
Speaker 1: all the rough edges and secret comforts that made up
Speaker 1: our shared life. I wanted to believe love was just work,
Speaker 1: that effort could bridge any gap. But every little change,
Speaker 1: every new detail, pulled the thread of doubt tighter. And
Speaker 1: still I waited for Ben to come home, hoping honesty
Speaker 1: was the next thing through the door. The next few
Speaker 1: days passed like the city's gritty april drizzle, constant abrasive,
Speaker 1: with just enough sunshine between squalls to stop me from
Speaker 1: putting up an umbrella. Each night, Ben came home just
Speaker 1: late enough for me to track the time, just chipper
Speaker 1: enough that if I pressed any protest would sound shrill,
Speaker 1: not loving. He'd bring back some story from work, pitches
Speaker 1: gone wild, group texts with hashtags. I didn't understand the
Speaker 1: aggression of agency politics, and I'd try to listen, feigning
Speaker 1: lightness even as my focus shifted to the details. He
Speaker 1: didn't say, was Tara at that dinner? Who else was there?
Speaker 1: Did you laugh at the same things with her that
Speaker 1: you once did with me? But I caught myself. These
Speaker 1: were the kind of questions you weren't supposed to ask,
Speaker 1: not if you wanted to keep a relationship above water
Speaker 1: and anyway, what would that look like, interrogating his schedule,
Speaker 1: demanding receipts, tracking his every word. It wasn't me, or
Speaker 1: at least it hadn't been. Even when my friends told
Speaker 1: stories about ex's with too many secrets. I used to
Speaker 1: be proud of our trust. I'd never logged into Ben's
Speaker 1: email in five years, never even considered it. Tuesday brought
Speaker 1: a round of messages from Janine reminding us about the
Speaker 1: pot luck for her promotion Ratch Desert. Yes on you right,
Speaker 1: Ben said he'd bring drinks. I stared at that text,
Speaker 1: replaying the last time Ben and I had been a
Speaker 1: team in anything social, trying to recall when exactly our
Speaker 1: us against the world had turned into parallel lives with
Speaker 1: matching keys. Ben came in just as I was spooning
Speaker 1: dough on to cookie sheets, already on a call, waving
Speaker 1: with one hand. I whispered Janine's expecting you to carry sodas,
Speaker 1: but he just mouthed, got it, babe, and ducked into
Speaker 1: the bedroom screen, glowing blue against his palm. A beat later,
Speaker 1: I padded after him, meaning to ask what time he'd
Speaker 1: be done, if he'd have time to help pack the car.
Speaker 1: But as I stepped into the hallway I overheard a
Speaker 1: thread of his conversation. The pitch of his voice was different, softer,
Speaker 1: lilting with private amusement. No you did not, he said,
Speaker 1: a laugh tucked into his chest. Then lower, don't tempt me.
Speaker 1: My wife would kill me, he paused, yea Thursday, Maybe
Speaker 1: I'll text. My stomach clenched small. I retreated to the kitchen,
Speaker 1: pressing my hands into the edge of the countertop, and
Speaker 1: forced myself to think rationally. He d said, my wife,
Speaker 1: as if that proved something. And yet there was something
Speaker 1: about the tone, the warmth and ease I didn't recognize,
Speaker 1: that made the hairs at the back of my neck rise.
Speaker 1: That evening, dropping the cookies into tupperware, I caught Ben
Speaker 1: in the living room, still half immersed in texts. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of bringing rhubarb bars too, I said, too, cheerily,
Speaker 1: old school, one of your favorites. Remember that party when
Speaker 1: we first got together. He blinked, as if I were
Speaker 1: speaking through static. Oh, totally, those were awesome, Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: sounds good. His eyes drifted back to his phone, thumbing
Speaker 1: out another message with a rapidity that made something in
Speaker 1: me ache. This too, I told myself was normal. We
Speaker 1: all faded in and out of the light, caught up
Speaker 1: in whatever drama owned us that week. At Janine's potluck,
Speaker 1: the air was thick with congratulations and the clatter of
Speaker 1: mismatched utensils. I stayed close to Jess and Michele at first,
Speaker 1: afraid of awkward silences or accidental revelations. Ben showed up late,
Speaker 1: bearing a case of canned cocktails and an apologetic grin.
Speaker 1: He made a quick show of hugging Jeanine, toasting to
Speaker 1: big moves, then vanished into a circle of agency people
Speaker 1: I barely knew, pulled as if by invisible wire, into
Speaker 1: a corner where the laughter was just a little louder.
Speaker 1: I scanned the room, watching him, how he arched his
Speaker 1: shoulders when speaking to a tall man in a pink button,
Speaker 1: and how his phone glowed at regular intervals on the sideboard,
Speaker 1: and he'd check it just for a second every time.
Speaker 1: It was the first time I realized he now set
Speaker 1: his phone to vibrate. No notification tones, no little chime.
Speaker 1: I de once teased him about Hey, you okay. Jess
Speaker 1: sidled up with a plate of olives, pulling me back.
Speaker 1: You're looking a little lost at sea, I found a
Speaker 1: quick smile. Just tired, too much deadline, not enough news.
Speaker 1: She tilted her head unconvinced, but let it go. After dessert,
Speaker 1: Ben was nowhere to be found. I slipped down the
Speaker 1: hallway to the fire escape, drawn by the sound of
Speaker 1: distant voices through the cracked door. I caught a few words.
Speaker 1: Ben's voice animated another woman's, higher pitches cutting in. I
Speaker 1: recognized a peal of laughter than a hush, and the
Speaker 1: sound of a bottle cap pinging off concrete. I edged closer,
Speaker 1: but stopped short of eavesdropping. I wouldn't give in to that,
Speaker 1: not yet. Later on the train home, Ben sat next
Speaker 1: to me, telling a story about Janine's karaoke mishap. His
Speaker 1: hand draped over my knee, fingers restless. It should have
Speaker 1: felt reassuring, the press of skin, the shape of ordinary affection. Instead,
Speaker 1: all I could think of was that small private pause
Speaker 1: when he disappeared onto the fire escape mid party for
Speaker 1: a conversation. I wasn't part of lying in bed I
Speaker 1: watched the orange city glow pattern across our ceiling through
Speaker 1: cheap blane. Ben red beside me, his breath even and unburdened.
Speaker 1: I reached for him, curling my hand against his side,
Speaker 1: needing something solid, and he turned, not quite awake, looping
Speaker 1: an arm over me before drifting off. I lay still,
Speaker 1: listening to his heartbeat, wondering if love could outlast secrecy,
Speaker 1: or if I were simply bargaining with my own loneliness.
Speaker 1: There were good days, early morning runs, when he was
Speaker 1: in a bright mood and told me, grinning, you could
Speaker 1: be a distance runner if you just lose the headphones
Speaker 1: coffee at our tiny table, his hair sticking up like always,
Speaker 1: laughing at the crossword clues I'd filled in wrong. He
Speaker 1: still sent me memes at work, usually ridiculous animal videos,
Speaker 1: sometimes just a snap of his new coffee mug captioned
Speaker 1: in all caps, big meeting mood. But there were the
Speaker 1: other days, too, the now constant feeling that Ben's attention
Speaker 1: slid right past me, like oil over water. I'd wake
Speaker 1: up to mist calls, texts written but unsent, the house
Speaker 1: breathless with things unspoken. On a gray Friday, a package
Speaker 1: arrived addressed to Ben. He wasn't home, so I left
Speaker 1: it on the counter cardboard. Unremarkable but heavy. That evening,
Speaker 1: curiosity got to me and I peered at the label
Speaker 1: sandword marine cologne. I snorted. Ben had always sworn off cologne,
Speaker 1: said it was for people with nothing to hide. He'd
Speaker 1: sniffed my suggestions at macy S with derision. Too spicy,
Speaker 1: too sweet, meh. When Ben got back from the gym,
Speaker 1: flushed and freshly showered, he found the package and his
Speaker 1: face registered surprise. Then a beat too late, he grinned,
Speaker 1: slicing it open, got it on sale. Agency bigwigs expect
Speaker 1: us to dress for success and smell like it. Apparently,
Speaker 1: he waved the bottle in the air. The scent was bracing, expensive, unfamiliar.
Speaker 1: I tried to tease you, caving to peer pressure. Now
Speaker 1: he rolled his eyes, fingers light on my shoulder. Well,
Speaker 1: Tara said her whole team wears the figured I'd give
Speaker 1: it a try. He was searching my face for a reaction,
Speaker 1: but I just nodded, unsure if I could trust what
Speaker 1: I'd heard. After dinner, as we cleared the plates, my
Speaker 1: phone buzzed a d M on Instagram from Lana, an
Speaker 1: old acquaintance and sometime party friend. Hey, weird question, but
Speaker 1: is Ben dating? Anybody? Knew? Saw him at Pitchfork with
Speaker 1: a red haired woman. Looked super cute together. If that's awkward,
Speaker 1: ignore my bad. She deattached a photo crowd, stage lights,
Speaker 1: blurry silhouettes, but in the corner unmistakable. Ben's profel alongside
Speaker 1: that same woman from before, long red hair falling over
Speaker 1: his shoulder. Her laughter caught mid motion. My brain stopped
Speaker 1: for a second. I scrolled up to check the date,
Speaker 1: last Saturday, the day Ben claimed the big client's team
Speaker 1: had a strategy dinner. I felt my breath flatten. Without thinking,
Speaker 1: I typed a reply, Nope, still together, Maybe a mistaken identity. Harh.
Speaker 1: I hit send, hands shaking a little. I excused myself
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, splashing water on my face. Staring into
Speaker 1: the mirror, I tried to force myself into calm. It
Speaker 1: can't be, I whispered, that's not what it looks like.
Speaker 1: Except in that image. Ben didn't look like a man
Speaker 1: cornered by obligation. He looked happy, relaxed, almost tender. When
Speaker 1: I returned, Ben was texting again. Phone screen angled ever
Speaker 1: so slightly away from my view. I considered pushing right then. Instead,
Speaker 1: I tidied up, hugged him, and said nothing. Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: I woke up determined to take action of some kind,
Speaker 1: anything to ground myself. I opened his laptop under the
Speaker 1: pretext of looking up a brunch spot. Two notifications popped
Speaker 1: up from Slack, one from a group titled client Love
Speaker 1: I rolled my eyes, another from Tea Parker Agency Explorers.
Speaker 1: The last few messages in the latter were full of
Speaker 1: inside jokes, weird links, plans for next Thursday night, and
Speaker 1: our secret spot, photos of food memes, A string of
Speaker 1: hearts reacted to a dog video. I hovered at the edge.
Speaker 1: I considered scrolling, but the idea of snooping, truly snooping
Speaker 1: beyond surface level curiosity troubled me. Wasn't it a violation?
Speaker 1: Weren't we beyond this? But my hand hovered over the
Speaker 1: trackpad anyway, brain running wild with half remembrances. The messages
Speaker 1: all exuded a level of playfulness and ease that I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen from Ben in months. I closed the laptop
Speaker 1: and pressed my forehead to the cool wood of the table.
Speaker 1: A vibration shuddered through the surface. My own phone. Jess again,
Speaker 1: coffee after your run, I'll bring moral support. I dressed
Speaker 1: for the gym, put my headphones on, and let my
Speaker 1: thoughts scatter. The run went longer than usual. My legs
Speaker 1: swore at me the entire last mile. When I met Jess,
Speaker 1: my face was blotchy and my nerves frayed. We sat
Speaker 1: in a corner booth at Hero Coffee Roasters, the steam
Speaker 1: from the mugs curling between us. Jess sipped her Larte,
Speaker 1: watching me quietly. You see miles away lately. Want to
Speaker 1: talk about it. I decided it was time. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: think Ben's I don't know, distracted may be worse. My
Speaker 1: hand trembled as I steered the mug in slow arcs
Speaker 1: across the table. She leaned in voiced, gentle, You've always
Speaker 1: been honest with me. Ratch. If something's wrong, say it.
Speaker 1: What tumbled out was a half version. He's just distant.
Speaker 1: Work's crazy, He's glued to his phone, always out late
Speaker 1: with this new client, Tara. I keep seeing weird signs,
Speaker 1: new clothes, cologne, little lies. I left out the d
Speaker 1: M from Lana and the photo at the festival. I
Speaker 1: wasn't ready to say the words yet. Jess took a
Speaker 1: deep breath, Want me to pry? I shook my head, No,
Speaker 1: not yet. I think maybe I just need to talk
Speaker 1: to Ben. Set some boundaries, remind him what matters. She
Speaker 1: squeezed my hand. You too are solid. Don't take any shit,
Speaker 1: but don't jump at shadows if you don't have to.
Speaker 1: Walking home, I rehearsed what i'd say, Something gentle, something real.
Speaker 1: I want it to be heard, not accusatory. That afternoon,
Speaker 1: I tidied the apartment with calculated care, fluffing the pillow.
Speaker 1: Ben called his thinking throne, reheating soup. When he got home,
Speaker 1: there was a rush of chilly wind, scattered leaves, a
Speaker 1: late afternoon brightness cutting across our battered floors. I caught
Speaker 1: him as he hung up his coat. My heart performing
Speaker 1: circus tricks in my chest. Hey, I said, as naturally
Speaker 1: as I could. Can we talk a sec? Things have
Speaker 1: been heavy lately. He eyed me for a moment, then, maybe,
Speaker 1: sensing a reckoning, set his bag aside. Of course, what's
Speaker 1: app I nearly lost my nerve, but pressed on. I
Speaker 1: just feel like we're out of sink. I know, work's nuts.
Speaker 1: But I miss you, the US parts of us. You're here,
Speaker 1: but not really, you know, He softened, visibly, letting down
Speaker 1: his guard for the first time in weeks. I know, ratch,
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry. Work's just been held lately. The pressure
Speaker 1: to land Tara's account is nuts. Agency brass are sweating
Speaker 1: her crew is so they need all this hand holding
Speaker 1: dinners FaceTime. If we mess up, it's on me. I
Speaker 1: promise once we pitch next week, things will calm down.
Speaker 1: I looked straight at him. You promise, he nodded, drawing
Speaker 1: me into a hug. For a moment, the world steadied.
Speaker 1: He smelled unfamiliar, a hint of sandwood and something sweeter
Speaker 1: I couldn't place, but his hands were reassuringly solid on
Speaker 1: my back. Things will settle. Let's go out for dinner
Speaker 1: to night. Okay, your pick. We did tie food, wine,
Speaker 1: two hours of something close to normal. We joked about
Speaker 1: our first date, reminisced about old concerts and disasters in
Speaker 1: foreign cities. For the first time in a long month,
Speaker 1: I let myself believe things might realign. The next few
Speaker 1: days were a soft golden blur. Ben became more attentive
Speaker 1: in tiny ways, cooking breakfast, sending lunchtime texts, looping me
Speaker 1: in on a mean thread with his agency friends. He
Speaker 1: left his phone out openly, even sharing an article that
Speaker 1: made him laugh. We watched a movie in bed, made
Speaker 1: rude jokes about the plot, recaptured a fragment of lost rhythm.
Speaker 1: I found myself relaxing, hopes slowly returning, shame burning about
Speaker 1: every paranoid thought I'd entertained. On Thursday, Ben texted mid afternoon,
Speaker 1: late again, Sorry babe, final prep with Tara, but Pietza
Speaker 1: this week end Scout's honor. I texted back a gift
Speaker 1: of a Scout salute heart light. Friday, a package arrived, again,
Speaker 1: addressed to Ben, this one smaller and wrapped in bright paper.
Speaker 1: I set it in the hall with the rest of
Speaker 1: his mail, not thinking much of it until I recognized
Speaker 1: the logo wicker Park Boutique. It was the bootique with
Speaker 1: the ninety two dollars charge months back. When Ben came home,
Speaker 1: he grinned, grabbing the box. Gift for Tara. She pulled
Speaker 1: off miracles for the agency. Every one's chipping in. I nodded.
Speaker 1: The regularity of her name on his tongue became a
Speaker 1: strange refrain. Tara wanted this. Tara suggested that it sounded
Speaker 1: like a work wife, a platonic fixture. For the first
Speaker 1: time in weeks. I almost envied that simplicity. Late that evening,
Speaker 1: I was scrolling Instagram when a new d M popped up,
Speaker 1: this time from Morgan, a photographer acquaintance who floated in
Speaker 1: our periphery. Saw Ben an empty bottle, that new girl
Speaker 1: friend of his is a trip. Caught them splitting fries
Speaker 1: and shots you guys on a break or another photo
Speaker 1: more shadow than substance, but clear enough. Ben head bent
Speaker 1: close to red hair, both hands braced on the bar,
Speaker 1: the woman's mouth mid smile. I replied, still together, that's
Speaker 1: his client. I think, less exclamation marked than shield. It
Speaker 1: would have been easy to storm out demand explanations, but
Speaker 1: something in me cracked. Then, some old reluctance to turn
Speaker 1: suspicion into confrontation unless I truly knew. The next night,
Speaker 1: I waited until Ben fell asleep, then borrowed his phone
Speaker 1: under the guise of finding a playlist. He'd left it unlocked.
Speaker 1: The message notifications were usual agency friends, Tara, one or
Speaker 1: two unknown numbers. I clicked through to a text thread
Speaker 1: with Tara. It was crowded with gifts and inside jokes,
Speaker 1: no naked flirting, but no strictly business tone either. One
Speaker 1: message to night was perfect, thanks for the rescue. I
Speaker 1: needed that laugh, another Ben replying, you make the worst
Speaker 1: bars worth the tread. Don't let the la people scare
Speaker 1: you off. A selfie from some dimly lit booth. Ben
Speaker 1: and Tara both red faced from laughter. Heads close a
Speaker 1: friend in the background holding up a cheers the time
Speaker 1: stamp last Thursday, the same night as trivia, the world
Speaker 1: blared unable to stop. I checked Ben's email a recent
Speaker 1: message thread e tickets to two upcoming shows, both midweek,
Speaker 1: both sent as gift in joy restaurant confirmations dinner for two.
Speaker 1: Scrolling through our shared calendar, I cross referenced two of
Speaker 1: those nights lined up with client dinner's Ben had said
Speaker 1: ran late. Another the night later saw him at the
Speaker 1: festival was casually marked as therapy catch up. I closed
Speaker 1: the laptop, gently stood and stared out at the flickering
Speaker 1: string lights between our buildings. The city sang the same lullabies,
Speaker 1: people stumbling out of bars, the l train rattling through
Speaker 1: interc It struck me as cruel that nothing had changed
Speaker 1: for any one but me. I called Jess, voice trembling.
Speaker 1: I need you to tell me if you've seen Ben
Speaker 1: with Tara. If I'm going nuts, just say so. Jess
Speaker 1: was quiet. Ratch. I ran into them at Parsons last Friday.
Speaker 1: I actually thought it was you. They were that close.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to stir anything if it was nothing.
Speaker 1: The honesty felt like a slap, sharp but clarifying. Thanks,
Speaker 1: I whispered. I hung up. Every nerve tuned to a
Speaker 1: new frequency. I needed one final thread. I dug through
Speaker 1: our Google Drive receipts shared for taxes, Ben always said.
Speaker 1: In April, a line item appeared Silvan Hotel, Overnight, King's
Speaker 1: Sweet the date a night I remembered sleeping at Michelle's
Speaker 1: to crash on a last minute design rush. The email
Speaker 1: confirmation bore his name, and the check out time was
Speaker 1: after noon. Every assurance, every smile, well, every story of
Speaker 1: late client dinners flashed through my mind, a film strip
Speaker 1: of partial truths and perfect deflections. I saw the nights
Speaker 1: i'd sat alone at Trivia, the dinners I had eaten
Speaker 1: in front of Netflix, the mornings. Ben bounced out early, cheerful,
Speaker 1: and eager, smiling at texts I would never see. I
Speaker 1: sat very still, letting it all wash over me. The
Speaker 1: next time Ben breezed through the door, I tasted the
Speaker 1: grief before I could even meet his eyes. I must
Speaker 1: have stood there for a full minute after Ben walked
Speaker 1: into the apartment, keys jingling, dropping his bag by the door,
Speaker 1: with that unconscious confidence he'd always carried, like this space
Speaker 1: belonged undeniably to both of us. Lights slanted across the
Speaker 1: living room, coloring everything in that gold brittle way spring
Speaker 1: evenings do almost beautiful. Only I couldn't draw a full breath.
Speaker 1: He shook off the chill, flashing a tired smile, Hey, stranger,
Speaker 1: you hungry, can order tie or he stopped, noticing something
Speaker 1: in my face, the stiffness in my shoulders. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but his mouth twitched. I saw a flicker of the
Speaker 1: old charm force just for me. I stepped behind the
Speaker 1: kitchen island, bracing my hands on the slick countertop. For
Speaker 1: the first time, there was no rehearsing, no script, only
Speaker 1: a row of truths thrumbing in my chest and the
Speaker 1: bone deep knowledge that nothing would ever be the same.
Speaker 1: We need to talk. I said, forcing my voice to steady.
Speaker 1: He hesitated mid step, one foot in the day's routine,
Speaker 1: one in the aftermath. He could sense, but not yet name.
Speaker 1: He tried to laugh, keeping it light. God, you make
Speaker 1: that sound like an ambush. I shook my head. No,
Speaker 1: not an ambush, but you need to sit. It was
Speaker 1: the way he didn't immediately challenge me, the way he
Speaker 1: finally looked, really looked at me, reading my face. He
Speaker 1: lowered himself on to the edge of the couch, spreading
Speaker 1: his fingers on his knees. Studying the floor between the
Speaker 1: apartment was too quiet, the hum of the fridge, the
Speaker 1: click of a neighbour's heels going down the hall, afar
Speaker 1: off siren threading the night. For the first time, our
Speaker 1: home felt like a set piece. The trophies, the records,
Speaker 1: the happy detritus of five years background to the scene
Speaker 1: I'd never pictured. I started slowly. I know, I said,
Speaker 1: and my voice broke just a little. I know there's
Speaker 1: more to your client, Dinners. I know about Tara. His
Speaker 1: eyes shot up wide, lips parted in a question he
Speaker 1: didn't dare say, I steadied myself. I know about the
Speaker 1: hotel Ben, I've seen the receipts, the photos, the e mails.
Speaker 1: I need you to just stop staring at him, waiting.
Speaker 1: I could hear my own blood pounding in my ears.
Speaker 1: Each word landed like a pebble tossed in a pond,
Speaker 1: small ripples, but each one clear, unstoppable. Ben opened his mouth,
Speaker 1: closed it. He rubbed his jaw like he was wiping
Speaker 1: away someone else's words. When he spoke, his voice came soft,
Speaker 1: shuddering at the edges ratch. You have to believe me.
Speaker 1: It wasn't supposed to be like this. God, I never
Speaker 1: wanted to hurt you. He let his head hang, avoiding
Speaker 1: my eyes. Something inside me, some last ribbon of mercy,
Speaker 1: nearly rushed to fill the space between us, but I
Speaker 1: held it tight, waiting. Just tell me the truth, all
Speaker 1: of it. Stop spinning stories. Tara's not just a client,
Speaker 1: is she? He swallowed silent before finally looking back at me. No,
Speaker 1: she was a client when it started then she I
Speaker 1: don't know. She just got it everything at work, the pressure.
Speaker 1: She made me feel like I mattered, like I was
Speaker 1: still I don't know worth something. His hands shook. I
Speaker 1: should have told you I thought I could handle it.
Speaker 1: I thought, God, I don't even know what I thought
Speaker 1: any more. The exhaustion in his voice was real. The
Speaker 1: old bravado had fallen away. Still, I pressed, quietly, relentless.
Speaker 1: How long he didn't flinch, didn't look away. Since February,
Speaker 1: after the agency party, it was slow dinners, concerts. At first,
Speaker 1: it was just fun work, I told myself. I believed
Speaker 1: it for longer than I should. Have. A silence stretched
Speaker 1: between us, swollen with everything I'd ignored, every apology, every
Speaker 1: casual dismissal, every work dinner he dressed up for. It
Speaker 1: was Jess's voice I heard, telling me not to take
Speaker 1: any shit. Soothing, but not enough. Were you ever going
Speaker 1: to tell me, I asked, voice catching. He opened and
Speaker 1: closed his fists on his knees. I wanted to. I
Speaker 1: just kept thinking, maybe it would fade, Maybe I'd snap
Speaker 1: out of it, fix things, and you'd never have to know.
Speaker 1: I kept lying. I told myself it was just a
Speaker 1: phase at work. But it was and the hotel. Tell
Speaker 1: me the truth, Ben, He nodded, once, draw tight, YEA.
Speaker 1: Once that night you slept at michel S. He closed
Speaker 1: his eyes for a half beat. It wasn't just once, though.
Speaker 1: We kept seeing each other some nights after work or weed.
Speaker 1: He trailed off. I know I ruined everything. I could
Speaker 1: feel tears rising, hot and thick, but I was done
Speaker 1: blinking them away for his comfort. And all those nights
Speaker 1: you didn't come home work dinners, he met my stare,
Speaker 1: shaking his head close to tears himself. Now all of them,
Speaker 1: I think about you. It wasn't about not loving you.
Speaker 1: It was just I don't know. I was lost, stupid, selfish.
Speaker 1: You lied every day for months. You made me think
Speaker 1: I was the one slipping away, that I was paranoid.
Speaker 1: My voice broke across every word. He nodded, gilt flattening
Speaker 1: his face. I give anything to undo it, but I can't.
Speaker 1: He looked at me, real abject for the first time.
Speaker 1: I deserve whatever happens now, but I swear ratch it
Speaker 1: never meant I stopped caring about you. I I never
Speaker 1: wanted to lose you. I stood hands baled at my side,
Speaker 1: unable to look away. I could see the memories over
Speaker 1: l the trivia nights, the dumb polaroids, the way we
Speaker 1: used to share every fear, every hope, and felt them
Speaker 1: all sharp as fresh cuts. Ben reached for my hand,
Speaker 1: but I recoiled, the intimacy between us ruined by how
Speaker 1: easy it had been for him to shatter. He whispered,
Speaker 1: can you forgive me? I almost laughed, a single ragged sound.
Speaker 1: I don't even know who you are. He sat, hunched
Speaker 1: and sobbing quietly. I turned away, heart pounding, breath, shallow,
Speaker 1: rage and grief rising inside me in equal measure. The
Speaker 1: apartment seemed to contract and expand at once, too small
Speaker 1: for both of us, too empty to hold all that
Speaker 1: I had lost. That night, after Ben staggered into the
Speaker 1: bedroom and closed the door, I sat in the hushed kitchen,
Speaker 1: scrolling through his last messages, the desperate apologies, the weak explanations,
Speaker 1: the raw please for another chance. Each moment felt like
Speaker 1: watching myself from a great distance, the girl who believed
Speaker 1: in him, stretched thin by reality. The next morning, the
Speaker 1: city outside was mercilessly bright. I moved through the apartment,
Speaker 1: gathering the essentials, my laptop, two sweaters, a cracked mug,
Speaker 1: my tooth brush. Ben's smell lingered everywhere in the threads
Speaker 1: of our bed, spread in the outline, his shoes left
Speaker 1: in the hallway. The trivia trophy glared at me from
Speaker 1: its shelf, an artifact of who we'd been. I called Jess.
Speaker 1: My voice was small. Can I stay with you for
Speaker 1: a while? Her answer came without pause, of course, bring
Speaker 1: whatever you need. I'm here. I packed in silence. Ben
Speaker 1: was still in the bedroom, door half shut, his presence
Speaker 1: a dull ache in the air. I paused with my
Speaker 1: coat in hand, debating whether to knock, to offer some
Speaker 1: last word. In the end, I couldn't force a good
Speaker 1: bye from the ruins. As I zipped my bag, Ben emerged,
Speaker 1: eyes ringed red and jaw set. Please don't go. We
Speaker 1: can fix this. There's nothing left to fix, I said, quietly,
Speaker 1: not trusting myself to say more. He followed me to
Speaker 1: the door, voice pleading, hands trembling. Just don't leave like this, please, Rachael.
Speaker 1: I need space, I need to think. Don't call me, please,
Speaker 1: he whispered, his voice breaking, But I was already slipping
Speaker 1: out into the hallway, lungs burning, I felt cold all over,
Speaker 1: scraping together one last measure of control. On the walk
Speaker 1: to the train, Ben's texts came in broken lines, apologies, declarations,
Speaker 1: begs for forgiveness, but I muted the notifications, unable to
Speaker 1: read any more. Jess's apartment smelled of incense and old books.
Speaker 1: She made tea, settling me on to her battered couch
Speaker 1: with a blanket, watching me carefully, I told her what
Speaker 1: I could between bursts of panic and stretches of empty silence.
Speaker 1: Her hand on my hand was the only thing tethering
Speaker 1: me to the present. The next few hours blurred, answering
Speaker 1: a handful of d ms from friends mo Quet just
Speaker 1: needs space, and messaging our landlord about the lease. I
Speaker 1: put my work emails on Aught to reply. The practicalities
Speaker 1: a small comfort. That night, I lay awake on Jesse's
Speaker 1: too short couch. Ben's last unread message burning in my pocket.
Speaker 1: I love you, ratch, don't give up. The ache was
Speaker 1: huge and fathomless, but somehow not enough to cover everything else.
Speaker 1: I blocked him everywhere. A week later, the trivia team
Speaker 1: group chat was silent. For the first time since I
Speaker 1: could remember. I told my parents I was leaving Ben,
Speaker 1: only the broadest details. My mom's silence over the phone
Speaker 1: conveyed more sympathy than any words. The apartment became just
Speaker 1: another address in my memory, my routines shifting, my body
Speaker 1: slowly recalibrating to a world without Ben's orbit. I gathered
Speaker 1: my courage, and one later after afternoon, ducked back in
Speaker 1: with Jess to gather the last of my things. The
Speaker 1: space was equie, half his, half mine, and mostly ghosts.
Speaker 1: I closed the door softly behind me, not looking back.
Speaker 1: I canceled my spot on the lease, set up mail forwarding,
Speaker 1: and sent a single message to the landlord, I need
Speaker 1: to sublet personal emergency. When I got back to jess S,
Speaker 1: I poured every photo of Ben and me into a
Speaker 1: single box, sealed it, and shoved it out of sight.
Speaker 1: My hands shook, but the gesture felt final in a
Speaker 1: way nothing else had yet. That night, after tea and
Speaker 1: soup I barely tasted. I wrapped myself in my favorite
Speaker 1: old sweater, the one Ben always said was too frumpy.
Speaker 1: I watched the city take on its dust, glow from
Speaker 1: Jess's balcony, smoke rising from neighboring chimneys, the wind threading
Speaker 1: leaves along the asphalt below. One last ping from Ben
Speaker 1: appeared on my phone. I'll always love you. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I deleted the message without reading the rest. My hands
Speaker 1: steady for the first time in days, I stood there,
Speaker 1: city unfolding under the bruised sky alone and not quite broken,
Speaker 1: waiting for the moment when every ache would settle into
Speaker 1: something like acceptance. I stood on Jesse's balcony until the
Speaker 1: sun was only a thin apricot line behind the sky lane,
Speaker 1: listening to a far away car alarm stuttering out its panic.
Speaker 1: The city kept moving, little sounds stacking one upon another,
Speaker 1: Buses wheezing at the curb, voices echoing in stairwells. The
Speaker 1: elevator in Jess's building chimed, once low and mechanical. Each
Speaker 1: new noise steadied me in a strange way. I was
Speaker 1: three layers deep in my old sweater, fingers tracing the
Speaker 1: scar on my knee. I got the summer before I
Speaker 1: met Ben. The world was cold, but not brutal, just honest.
Speaker 1: Above me, the sky had no message to offer at all. Inside,
Speaker 1: Jess had fallen asleep on her side of the couch,
Speaker 1: knees drawn up. A paperback ghosted across her chest. I
Speaker 1: tiptoed past to get more tea, still not ready to
Speaker 1: check my phone. My mind kept unspooling each scene in
Speaker 1: our apartment, each gesture of Ben's, every sign I had
Speaker 1: rewritten until the meaning was finally unavoidable. I could not
Speaker 1: pin down what was worse, the humiliation, the rage, or
Speaker 1: just the quiet devastation of discovering how love could shapeshift
Speaker 1: into something unrecognizable. Even eating felt mechanical, the simple click
Speaker 1: of spoon to bowl, the warmth of soup, barely making
Speaker 1: a dent in the hollow where my appetite once lived.
Speaker 1: By the second night with Jess, the text notifications had
Speaker 1: dried to silence, as if Ben understood at last that
Speaker 1: no constellation of words could drag me back into orbit.
Speaker 1: Even the trivia group chattered, stilled. It wasn't until I
Speaker 1: checked my e mail, buried between client contracts and forgotten newsletters,
Speaker 1: that I saw a message from Michel. He says he
Speaker 1: loves you, he seems broken. Please call if you need
Speaker 1: to talk, no judgment, I'm here. I didn't reply. I scrolled,
Speaker 1: considering what that even meant. Once our friends would have
Speaker 1: rallied for us as a unit, Now every one was
Speaker 1: quietly trying to figure out which part of the old
Speaker 1: map they belonged to. It became clear how swiftly consequences multiplied.
Speaker 1: Ben's betrayal wasn't just a fisher in our home but
Speaker 1: a shock wave that rippled outward. Friends suddenly partitioned routines.
Speaker 1: I couldn't reclaim the comfort of my usual yoga studio,
Speaker 1: now poisoned by memories of Ben's stories at post class brunch,
Speaker 1: even food, His favorite granola, still tucked in Jess's pantry,
Speaker 1: reminded me I'd lost not just him, but the context
Speaker 1: of half my own life. After three days, Jess returned
Speaker 1: from work clutching two cartons of pad tie and a
Speaker 1: stack of fliers. Figured you needed more than tea and toast,
Speaker 1: she said, trying to lift my spirits. Her smile was gentle,
Speaker 1: but edged with the same helplessness I could see reflected
Speaker 1: in my own eyes In the hallway mirror. Janine texted,
Speaker 1: she says she's not taking sides, but she loves you,
Speaker 1: and her words will kill Ben with a tiny ham
Speaker 1: if she has to. I laughed, the sound rusty because
Speaker 1: the picture of petite Janine wielding Deli meat as a
Speaker 1: weapon was unexpectedly perfect. For a moment, I was reminded
Speaker 1: that love, when real left tracks, you could follow out
Speaker 1: of ruin. Still, the consequences piled up. My freelance work suffered,
Speaker 1: projects missed, messages left unanswered. I watched the red past
Speaker 1: dew Dot's bloom on my to do list. I tried
Speaker 1: to steel myself enough to answer a client call, but
Speaker 1: the impulse to spill everything into the void nearly overwhelmed me,
Speaker 1: so I mumbled an excuse and let it go. The
Speaker 1: practicalities pressed in the landlord's reply, curt but sympathetic, offered
Speaker 1: a sublet application, if you want to leave before the
Speaker 1: end of the mine will work something out. Sorry, hope
Speaker 1: things look up. I filled out the form, the act
Speaker 1: of listing my own emergency, a sobering reminder that home
Speaker 1: was no longer a place I controlled. Word got around,
Speaker 1: as it always does. I got texts from old friends
Speaker 1: thinking of you, let's get drinks sometime if you need
Speaker 1: to talk, I'm actually here. Each one felt like a
Speaker 1: small boy, but I ignored most, content to float on.
Speaker 1: The silence effort felt dangerous. What if I collapsed at
Speaker 1: a well timed question. What if I couldn't answer at all.
Speaker 1: I only left Jess's twice the first week, once to
Speaker 1: get the last of my things from the apartment. Ben
Speaker 1: managed not to be there. His absence rang as loud
Speaker 1: as a slammed door and again to hand off keys
Speaker 1: to a girl from Craigslist, who eyed the faded trivia
Speaker 1: trophy with polite confusion, nodding as I told her out
Speaker 1: of habit about the good tie place down the block.
Speaker 1: Jess hovered near by both times, not intruding, but too
Speaker 1: far away. Her presence are necessary, uncomplicated comfort. She asked
Speaker 1: if I wanted to talk, or yell or throw something.
Speaker 1: She even produced a pack of stress balls in neon pink,
Speaker 1: just in case. I tried squeezing one hard enough to
Speaker 1: split it, but mostly I clenched it in one hand
Speaker 1: until it grew warm. The consequences did not lose their
Speaker 1: sharpness with time. The trivia night came and went, my
Speaker 1: phone silent. It was like watching someone else's life, the
Speaker 1: one where laughter is loud and relationships are messy but
Speaker 1: secure through a pane of thick, unbreakable glass. I became
Speaker 1: a ghost in my own story, present but untethered. It
Speaker 1: was only when a mutual friend, Darius, sent a careful text.
Speaker 1: Saw Ben at the hideout. He was there alone. He
Speaker 1: looked really bad. Just thought you should know that something
Speaker 1: shifted again alone, really bad. I stared at the words,
Speaker 1: wanting to feel satisfaction, but only numbness. Settled in Ben's
Speaker 1: suffering didn't undo what was broken. There was no satisfaction
Speaker 1: in seeing him lost, just the echo of what I'd lost.
Speaker 1: Along the way, Jess noticed the new stillness in me.
Speaker 1: You're not responsible for fixing him, she reminded me gently.
Speaker 1: You weren't the one who broke it. I turned her
Speaker 1: words over in my mind, marveling at how simple the
Speaker 1: truth could sound out loud. But consequences cut both ways.
Speaker 1: I lost the safety of the word we. We love
Speaker 1: this neighborhood. We hate Indie rock before noon. We always
Speaker 1: split dessert. Every message from the outside world forced me
Speaker 1: to translate anew Rachel solo, Rachel in exile. Grief kept shape, shifting,
Speaker 1: not so much sadness as an itch to reclaim something unnameable,
Speaker 1: something unspoiled. There was an unexpected e mail from Ben's boss,
Speaker 1: just a review request for a campaign, nothing personal, but
Speaker 1: even that felt like being haunted. No place in the
Speaker 1: city seemed neutral, none untouched by a memory of us, laughing, moving, living.
Speaker 1: Even the yoga mat in Jesse's living room belonged to
Speaker 1: the couple with the polaroid wall, not just me. By
Speaker 1: the following week end, the air outside was sharp enough
Speaker 1: to sting. I decided on impulse to run an errand
Speaker 1: pick up groceries for Jess, anything to make myself useful.
Speaker 1: Instead of heading straight home, I walked for almost an
Speaker 1: hour through unfamiliar blocks, eyes on my shoes, keeping pace
Speaker 1: with the certainty that something fundamental had shifted inside me,
Speaker 1: even as the world outside had barely noticed. Back at
Speaker 1: jess S, I found her re arranging the living room
Speaker 1: feng shuie, she explained, pushing the couch at a weird angle,
Speaker 1: or maybe just boredom. She paused, looking at me, Are
Speaker 1: you O K? I was? And I was? I will be,
Speaker 1: I finally said, hearing the truth in how hollow it sounded.
Speaker 1: Later that night, curled in a nest of blankets, I
Speaker 1: realized I was past waiting for Ben's name to appear
Speaker 1: on my foe. I'd reached a point where even hope
Speaker 1: seemed like another habit I could outgrow. Three days later,
Speaker 1: I woke to a single Emil subject line that made
Speaker 1: my hands go cold. Urgent apartment access, final request. Ben
Speaker 1: had moved out whatever remained of his or perhaps simply
Speaker 1: needed me to sign off on repairs. I hesitated, staring
Speaker 1: at the glowing screen, nerves buzzing low in my gut.
Speaker 1: Jess watched me as I grabbed my coat, the resolve
Speaker 1: forming over breakfast. Want me to go with you? I
Speaker 1: shook my head. I have to do this myself. The
Speaker 1: city was all wind and gray light. As I approached
Speaker 1: the old building, the landlord, aging watchful, waited with a
Speaker 1: clip board in the lobby. Should be quick, he said,
Speaker 1: just want your stuff out, give you your deposit back.
Speaker 1: He already cleared his hearf. Climbing the steps, the echo
Speaker 1: of my boots on tile sounded too loud in the emptiness. Ah,
Speaker 1: My place was airless. Most of the shelves cleared. Just
Speaker 1: a few stray objects left, my battered mug, some old sketches,
Speaker 1: the trivia trophy abandoned at the back of a dusty
Speaker 1: book shelf. I boxed the last few items in a daze,
Speaker 1: pausing to feel the room around me. Its blank walls,
Speaker 1: the memory of laughter, the peculiar weight of vanished comfort,
Speaker 1: no sign of ben except for a single tie fallen
Speaker 1: behind the radiator, still knotted. I left it where it was.
Speaker 1: I gave the keys to the landlord. Thank you, I said,
Speaker 1: voice dry. He nodded awkwardly. He seemed to want to
Speaker 1: say something, but couldn't. I left without another word, the
Speaker 1: metal of the keys heavy in my palm until I
Speaker 1: handed them over for good. Back at Jesse's I tossed
Speaker 1: the keechin into the deepest pocket of my coat and
Speaker 1: took a hot shower, determined to wash the old apartments
Speaker 1: sent out of my hair, every muscle ached with the
Speaker 1: peculiar strain of ending things you hadn't chosen to end.
Speaker 1: That night, while Jess was at dinner with Michel, I
Speaker 1: sat on the balcony with the battered Trivia trophy in
Speaker 1: my lap. I weighed it in my hands, trying to
Speaker 1: decide whether keeping it would mark a refusal to forget
Speaker 1: or a refusal to let pain define the memory. After
Speaker 1: a minute, I set it next to the potted sage
Speaker 1: let it gather rain. Either way, it would outlast both
Speaker 1: my sentiment and my anger. The next morning, I stripped
Speaker 1: the bed sheets from Jesse's extra bed and folded my
Speaker 1: sweaters with almost religious care. Item by item, I wrote
Speaker 1: a list of things I needed to buy, things that
Speaker 1: were only mine now dishes, a kettle, towels, a set
Speaker 1: of cheap plates. My list grew more anchor than errand
Speaker 1: proof that I could restart, even if every small task
Speaker 1: was haunted by the knowledge of its necessity. As the
Speaker 1: days unfolded, the city began to feel different under my feet,
Speaker 1: less a gauntlet, more palet yet to be filled. A
Speaker 1: new lease agreement came through a one bedroom in an
Speaker 1: underloved corner of Ukrainian village, cheap and anonymous. The prospect
Speaker 1: of solitude was both a relief and a challenge. No
Speaker 1: one to make coffee for me, no crowding in a
Speaker 1: single bathroom, no leftovers gone mysteriously missing in the night,
Speaker 1: no ben, no us. I signed the contract feeling every
Speaker 1: syllable echo, but the consequences kept following. Jess helped me
Speaker 1: drag the last sealed box into her trunk, both of
Speaker 1: us laughing, shivering in the cold, and for the first
Speaker 1: time in weeks, the future felt not bright, but possible.
Speaker 1: She drove me past the unlit windows of the old apartment,
Speaker 1: and I didn't look back. The past tucked away behind
Speaker 1: a wall of shadows. On my first night alone in
Speaker 1: the new space, unfamiliar pipes ticked in the walls, and
Speaker 1: neighbor's music thumped like a distant memory. I unpacked my sweaters,
Speaker 1: lining them up with a precision. I knew Ben would
Speaker 1: have mocked for weeks. Too orderly, too monastic. I let
Speaker 1: the quiet claim me, every breath soaked in the scent
Speaker 1: of clean laundry and emptiness. I left my phone off
Speaker 1: for the rest of that night, letting the world pass by,
Speaker 1: finding comfort in the absence of notification pings, in the
Speaker 1: long stretches of time that belonged solely to me. The
Speaker 1: following morning, with the sun sneaking between borrowed blinds, I
Speaker 1: realized life wasn't done demanding decisions from me. There were
Speaker 1: contracts to sign addresses, to update a dozen clients, to
Speaker 1: reassure that work would go on as usual. I stared
Speaker 1: at my laptop for a solid hour, unable to start
Speaker 1: a single thing, but I answered three e mails, rescheduled
Speaker 1: two deadlines, and made a list of old friends I
Speaker 1: needed to return to some day. That night, walking home
Speaker 1: from the corner store with a bag of groceries pressed
Speaker 1: to my chest, I saw a couple laughing at something
Speaker 1: private in the window of a bar. Their reflections twinned
Speaker 1: on the dark glass, and for a second the old
Speaker 1: ache surged, envy, anger, regrets. But it passed, leaving something quieter, smaller,
Speaker 1: a space that belonged only to me. Back in my apartment,
Speaker 1: as I arranged cups in the cabinet and set the
Speaker 1: trivia trophy, now freed from its past, on an empty shelf,
Speaker 1: I felt the first real moment of calm, not closure,
Speaker 1: not forgiveness, just the absence of panic. The city outside
Speaker 1: was indifferent, but alive, and that felt like enough. And
Speaker 1: some time after midnight, when the insomnia returned and the
Speaker 1: fear started to flare, I reached for my own skin,
Speaker 1: the solid shape of my wrists, the familiar rhythm of
Speaker 1: my breath. I remembered Jess's words, You're not responsible for
Speaker 1: fixing him. I repeated them like a spell. I let
Speaker 1: them fill the empty room. Morning came gray and gusty,
Speaker 1: city buses hissing along the dirty curb, rains scattering in
Speaker 1: droves against my window. I rolled out of bed, turned
Speaker 1: on the radio, and let myself hum along out of tune.
Speaker 1: A mug of tea cooled on my window sill, collecting
Speaker 1: the soft yellow light that didn't quite break through the clouds.
Speaker 1: I drafted an email back to Lana, finally, months after
Speaker 1: her accidental reveal. Thanks, I'm doing okay. Hope you're well.
Speaker 1: I hits end, the click of the trackpad louder than
Speaker 1: it should have been, some small act of re entry. Later,
Speaker 1: as I wandered down to the courtyard, I saw a
Speaker 1: group of neighbors gathering around the little garden beds, plotting
Speaker 1: what to plant for summer. Some one offered me a trowel,
Speaker 1: joking about newby rites of passage. I smiled, excepting letting
Speaker 1: my hands sink into the black dirt, cold and alive
Speaker 1: between my fingers. For the first time, maybe it occurred
Speaker 1: to me I could build a life with no reference
Speaker 1: points but my own desire, no more reconfiguring my habits,
Speaker 1: my history around the silhouette of some one else. The
Speaker 1: past was still there, sharp and unyielding, but the future
Speaker 1: flickered on the horizon, tentative and imperfect, brighter in its
Speaker 1: unpredictability than any plan I had once carved in stone.
Speaker 1: I stood that afternoon on my new balcony, facing east,
Speaker 1: this time the city stretching past the river, winds slick
Speaker 1: between buildings. My sweater was wrapped around me, heavy and soft,
Speaker 1: its sleeves pushed over my knuckles. My phone rested on
Speaker 1: the ledge beside me, its screen quiet. I looked out,
Speaker 1: breathing deeply, letting the city noise blend into something almost melodic,
Speaker 1: the endless possibilities of my own, small, hard won freedom
Speaker 1: hanging in the air, and I let myself believe, for
Speaker 1: just a moment that answers didn't have to be perfect
Speaker 1: to mean something that in the ruin of what once was,
Speaker 1: I could find not forgiveness, not erasure, but something that
Speaker 1: looked an awful lot like a beginning.