Speaker 1: The kitchen was cold by eight thirty, humid only because
Speaker 1: of the steam still rising from the pot I'd left
Speaker 1: on the stove, hoping Brian would walk through the door
Speaker 1: any minute. Our tiny Boston apartment probably hadn't cooled below seventy.
Speaker 1: But my toes curled on the tile like they did
Speaker 1: in February, and my wine was down to the last
Speaker 1: swallow already lukewarm. I left his plate covered, flicked off
Speaker 1: the lights, and lingered by the window. The street down
Speaker 1: below was quiet. The neighbor's dog barked once at a
Speaker 1: passing skateboarder, and then fell silent again. My phone buzzed
Speaker 1: still at meetings. Sorry, that was all. No I love you,
Speaker 1: no smiley face, nothing else, just the same clipped reply
Speaker 1: he'd sent twice already this week. I watched our dinner call,
Speaker 1: two day old san Gio Vasi in my glass. Fuzeali
Speaker 1: tossed with the same spicy sausage he'd texted about craving
Speaker 1: last week end, the tiny basle leaves I'd pinched off
Speaker 1: the window box. Ritual, not romance. Still it was ours.
Speaker 1: I forced myself to open Instagram, trying to make waiting
Speaker 1: feel less pointless, a story at the top of my
Speaker 1: feed flashed Leela's name, Leelah, who'd arrived back in Boston
Speaker 1: after six years away, all big hair and bigger laughter.
Speaker 1: Brian's old friend from architecture school, my not so distant
Speaker 1: friend by marriage. I tapped it. The video was a
Speaker 1: quick panning shot of clinking glasses, a slosh of whiskey,
Speaker 1: cheerfully loud voices at the Sable Bar, the old battered
Speaker 1: place where Bryan and his colleagues always ended deadline weeks.
Speaker 1: But it was the next frame that caught me. Sable's massive,
Speaker 1: dirty mirror reflected a blur of faces crowded at the counter.
Speaker 1: For just an instant, I thought I recognized a silhouette,
Speaker 1: the line of a navy pea coat that looked exactly
Speaker 1: like Brian's, the color standing out even in the dim light.
Speaker 1: One hand half lifted as if flagging a server. The
Speaker 1: time stamp glowed neon in the corner eight thirty eight
Speaker 1: p m. I stared, rewinding the story with a gentle
Speaker 1: drag of my thumb, searching each fuzzy face and the
Speaker 1: bend of each sleeve, the details of a dozen backgrounds
Speaker 1: that only existed because some one else wanted to be seen.
Speaker 1: Was it Brian's jacket or just a trick of context,
Speaker 1: a reflection, a longing, a bit of projected hope. The
Speaker 1: thought strung, I slid my phone down the counter, heart thumping,
Speaker 1: only to immediately reach for it again, half eager for
Speaker 1: another notification. An hour crawled by, I lost myself in
Speaker 1: second guessing. I could call Leela, pretend it was spontaneous.
Speaker 1: But what would I say? Would she laugh about the coincidence,
Speaker 1: or would she pause, embarrassed and stumble into a story
Speaker 1: I would know was invented on the spot. I started
Speaker 1: to text Bran a second time, typing and deleting, worried
Speaker 1: about looking needy. He came home at exactly nine fifty seven,
Speaker 1: his keys scraped at the lock with a slowness that
Speaker 1: meant he'd stopped for a minute on the landing, as
Speaker 1: if steadying himself. When the door swung open, I smelled him, first,
Speaker 1: the tang of whisky and some faint herbal cologne, when
Speaker 1: he didn't wear, but sometimes carried home from crowded bars. Hey,
Speaker 1: he mumbled, almost carefully, not meeting my eye, as he
Speaker 1: headed for the stairs, jackets slung over one shoulder, phone
Speaker 1: in his hand, but to night. Instead of setting his
Speaker 1: phone down next to mine, he padded up stairs with it,
Speaker 1: only to return without it, gaze flickering past me like
Speaker 1: he'd forgotten where he left his keys. I watched him
Speaker 1: pass beneath the kitchen light, his hair must his eyes
Speaker 1: vague and tired. He made for the bathroom. The shower
Speaker 1: started up moments later, hot water hissing away. Whatever conversation
Speaker 1: I'd planned in my head all night, it was always
Speaker 1: something about Friday nights, the way we'd built our rhythm
Speaker 1: around these small rituals. Late pasta dinners, music blooming from
Speaker 1: the bluetooth speaker, dirty dishes stacked until morning. That night,
Speaker 1: I stood in the kitchen and watched my own reflection
Speaker 1: in the window. Suddenly unsure whether I was being paranoid
Speaker 1: or whether something in our routine had truly quietly split.
Speaker 1: I left his plate on the table. I brushed my
Speaker 1: teeth in silence. I folded alongside him in bed, out
Speaker 1: of similar habit, his body, still damp from the shower,
Speaker 1: already turned away from me. Before I could ask, was
Speaker 1: that you at sable to night with my friend? In
Speaker 1: the reflection? Instead, I pressed my hand to the small
Speaker 1: of his back, as I'd done for five years, waiting
Speaker 1: to feel the little squeeze of his hand over mine.
Speaker 1: That night, all I felt was the even weight of
Speaker 1: his breath, cool and indifferent until dawn. It's strange how
Speaker 1: a relationship, no matter how sturdy it feels, can hinge
Speaker 1: on routine so small you hardly noticed their absence until
Speaker 1: you're listening for them. When Brian and I met, it
Speaker 1: was cold out the end of a party on a
Speaker 1: beacon hill rooftop, crowded and buzzing and alive in the
Speaker 1: way only late city nights are. I had blisters from
Speaker 1: new shoes. He brought a flask of bourbon from his
Speaker 1: cousin's wedding earlier that day and offered it with a grin.
Speaker 1: We d found ourselves the last two holding court in
Speaker 1: the kitchen, ignoring everyone else's half hearted conversations, playing who
Speaker 1: would you be if you did something else? And daring
Speaker 1: each other to confess regrets. After that night came weeks
Speaker 1: of long rambling a m walks me and thrift chop outerwear.
Speaker 1: Brian with his endless barreton theories about cities as if
Speaker 1: the city was his own to explain. Our first kiss
Speaker 1: was on the tea second car, with a stranger's elbow,
Speaker 1: accidentally clocking me as he bent down. We moved in
Speaker 1: together after barely a year. Friends joked that hurried things
Speaker 1: never lasted, but everything about living with Brian felt, if
Speaker 1: not easy, at LEAs least familiar in a way that
Speaker 1: was comforting, the kind of comfort that doesn't ask for explanation.
Speaker 1: Our worlds overlapped neatly enough, both pushing ourselves at work,
Speaker 1: both the responsible siblings in messy families, both the ones
Speaker 1: to organize trips, drag everyone out at midnight for pizza.
Speaker 1: We made a point to block off Wednesday nights for
Speaker 1: no work talk date nights, sometimes elaborate, sometimes just cheap
Speaker 1: fur in Chinatown, always with the rule that phones stayed
Speaker 1: face down and ignored. We'd spent at least one weekend
Speaker 1: a month hiking old granite trails west of the city,
Speaker 1: or sprawled out on the couch pouring wine while Brian
Speaker 1: roasted something too precious to serve any one but me.
Speaker 1: The details mattered. We had a half dozen playlists for
Speaker 1: car trips. Brian hated mine, I secretly loved his breakfasts,
Speaker 1: were mostly hurried, Brian always slicing apples into thin, perfect wedges,
Speaker 1: me stirring yogurt and listening to podcasts. Even that felt
Speaker 1: like affection. Ways to feed each other on tight schedules.
Speaker 1: Every night, after teeth were brushed and lights clicked off,
Speaker 1: we'd murmur a secret good night squirrel, a call back
Speaker 1: to one drunken evening when Brian claimed with scientific certainty
Speaker 1: that I had rodent like persistence. His work had changed
Speaker 1: a year ago. He'd stepped up at his firm, landing
Speaker 1: contracts that now left him pouring over renderings at all hours,
Speaker 1: frequently hunched in the office's guest chair. At home, headphones in,
Speaker 1: only pausing for my hand at his shoulder or a
Speaker 1: kiss on the way to refill a mug. He was
Speaker 1: proud of his roll, and I was proud of him too.
Speaker 1: But I'd also watched as days blurred together, late meetings,
Speaker 1: deadlines that swallowed week ends dinners on his own side
Speaker 1: of the table, mouth full of apologies while his phone buzzed.
Speaker 1: He'd surprised me twice in the past year with getaways
Speaker 1: just for us, once a snowy cabin three hours north,
Speaker 1: complete with a scaf hunt, another time, a last minute
Speaker 1: flight to New Orleans for gumbo and jazz. These things
Speaker 1: mattered every time. My mother warned me that men always wander,
Speaker 1: I reminded her, not Brian. If I was ever nervous,
Speaker 1: it was about some client leading him into overwork, not
Speaker 1: someone leading him away from us. A core social world
Speaker 1: was tight, but varied. Brian's brother Eli acted like my
Speaker 1: own sibling. We swapped dumb memes, watched Bruin's games with
Speaker 1: him and his ever shifting roster of tinder dates. My
Speaker 1: own sister, Stacy, lived a subway ride away and handled
Speaker 1: my emotional weather with the dry humor only a family
Speaker 1: veteran could provide. Hikes included an assortment of architects, a
Speaker 1: couple of marketing expats from my job, and, most recently, Leelah,
Speaker 1: the wild Card. Leelah was magnetic and loud, impossible to ignore,
Speaker 1: the source of two A M. Saxophone stories and old
Speaker 1: nicknames nobody else could decipher. She'd known Brian longer than
Speaker 1: I had. Their friendship, four over all nighters in the
Speaker 1: designed studio, and shared hung over mornings after gallery crawls.
Speaker 1: I got along with her easily most days, but she
Speaker 1: and Brian carried a rapport that felt a little like
Speaker 1: watching siblings with a complicated secret language. Sometimes I envied
Speaker 1: their short hand, but mostly I was glad for it.
Speaker 1: Their energy never seemed threatening until maybe I started noticing
Speaker 1: that easy comfort shift. The first weekend after that, late Friday,
Speaker 1: Brian declined our planned hike with the old crew. He
Speaker 1: wandered down late to coffee, trailed by an apology so automatic,
Speaker 1: I half wondered if I'd already heard it. Swetch up
Speaker 1: at the office to day, he said, setting both hands
Speaker 1: on my hips for a split second, then letting them
Speaker 1: drop again. I promise I'll make it up to you.
Speaker 1: Think I'm a contender for most reliable Hermit. I laughed
Speaker 1: too loud. The trails missing your jokes, he snorted, but
Speaker 1: the smile never made it to his eyes. My Joe
Speaker 1: Oakes can't compete with project management trauma jewels. He was
Speaker 1: out the door before noon, tie haphazardly knotted, jacket already
Speaker 1: zipped as he kissed my cheek on the way out.
Speaker 1: I'd gotten used to his project marathons. While he was gone,
Speaker 1: I stared at my phone, flipped the hiking playlist on,
Speaker 1: and texted the group that Brian wouldn't make it, but
Speaker 1: I would. But by the time I'd pulled on my boots,
Speaker 1: the idea of hiking without him felt hollow. Instead, I
Speaker 1: called Stacy, who suggested we get lost in home good
Speaker 1: stores like real adults. That night, when Brian came home,
Speaker 1: he barely glanced at the TV as I replayed our
Speaker 1: favorite movie. He took his plate upstairs, ate in bed,
Speaker 1: and set the Spotify playlist to one of his old
Speaker 1: work mixes without asking if I cared for the music.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that he was cruel or unkind. He just
Speaker 1: wasn't really there. When I made a gentle jab about
Speaker 1: how tired he looked, he tensed, then smiled, Thinn, this
Speaker 1: is what you wanted, right for me to go big
Speaker 1: chase those new contracts. It's not as glamorous as it sounded,
Speaker 1: He said it while brushing crumbs off his shirt, eyes
Speaker 1: glued to unread blueprints. The next morning, I found his
Speaker 1: running shoes on the back step, muddy but untouched. He
Speaker 1: hadn't gone for his usual jog. Our shoes had sat
Speaker 1: shoulder to shoulder for months, laces intertwined. Now his look
Speaker 1: like they belonged to some one else. Midweek I had
Speaker 1: brunch with Leela, the kind of last minute catch up
Speaker 1: we'd always sworn by, a small attempt at stealing time
Speaker 1: from adulthood. She picked the bakery down town. Eyes rimmed
Speaker 1: with the same navy coal she'd worn back in college,
Speaker 1: hands decorated with a new trio of rings. Heard, Bryan's
Speaker 1: been working late, she asked, with that casual teasing grin,
Speaker 1: breaking off a piece of my quassar before I could answer.
Speaker 1: He always gets like this with a deadline. If you
Speaker 1: ever want to run away for a girl only spa day,
Speaker 1: just say the word, I hesitated, pushing a chunk of
Speaker 1: butter around with my knife. He's been more withdrawn than usual. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I miss him, I laughed, trying to make it sound light.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel like I've been replaced by his laptop.
Speaker 1: Leela offered a sympathetic sound, mouthful, then shrugged. You know
Speaker 1: how he gets jewels tunnels so deep he forgets the surface.
Speaker 1: I've even seen him around at events lately, always looking frantic.
Speaker 1: She paused a beat too long. I think he must
Speaker 1: be chasing some big fish, I studied her. You've been
Speaker 1: out that much since you got back, damn and the
Speaker 1: one who never leaves the house. She crinkled her nose.
Speaker 1: I mostly tag along for the free drinks. Everyone's networking
Speaker 1: these days Boston can make any one neurotic. That evening,
Speaker 1: when Brian finally came home, he was silent. I watched
Speaker 1: him eat cheese and crackers in the living room, scrolling
Speaker 1: news on his foe, responding to texts with an intensity
Speaker 1: I'd never envied. The silence was denser than usual. I
Speaker 1: want to joke with him the way I used to,
Speaker 1: especially about Leela's insight, but he seemed allergic to small talk.
Speaker 1: I tried. Leelah says, she's seen you at every afterwork
Speaker 1: thing since she moved back. Should I be worried you're
Speaker 1: the new it boy? He just grunted, making no eye contact,
Speaker 1: attention locked on his glowing screen. I bit back a retort,
Speaker 1: Am I being petty? Or with something? Anything? Really off?
Speaker 1: Days passed quickly, but awkwardly. Brian skipped most of our
Speaker 1: usual routines. Our Saturday hike became his office catch up,
Speaker 1: and Sunday morning shared breakfast turned into him reheating pancakes alone,
Speaker 1: offering one word answers from behind his mug. He started
Speaker 1: forgetting are inside jokes, defaulting to generic, tired commentary, or worse,
Speaker 1: not responding at all. When I prodded him about weekend plans,
Speaker 1: I noticed he didn't want to listen to any music
Speaker 1: during dry waves, not ours, not his. The playlists we'd shared,
Speaker 1: silly and sentimental alike, now fell silent. He never reached
Speaker 1: for my hand at stoplights, no matter how many times
Speaker 1: I left my palm open on the gearshift. It was
Speaker 1: so unlike him. He'd always seen physical touch as a
Speaker 1: sort of reassurance, two bodies occupying the world together, even
Speaker 1: if only in tiny, mundane ways. The first real shock
Speaker 1: landed late on a Wednesday. Brian came home after eleven,
Speaker 1: claiming again that the project was in Code red mode.
Speaker 1: But as he peeled out of his pea coat, a sour,
Speaker 1: sweet scent hung in the air, something smoother than his aftershave,
Speaker 1: unmistakably expensive, the kind of perfume his clients sometimes wore,
Speaker 1: but none I remembered from our friends. I trailed behind him, joking,
Speaker 1: you planning to loam me your jacket? Or did you
Speaker 1: pick up a side gig as a fragrance model. He
Speaker 1: barely managed a distracted smile. Just too many hugs at
Speaker 1: those damned dinners, he replied, setting the jacket near the stairs.
Speaker 1: His body angled away as he loosened his tie. I
Speaker 1: picked up the jacket the next morning, finding the scent
Speaker 1: even stronger after it warmed slightly against my hands, the
Speaker 1: soft hint of white jasmine, the one you only get
Speaker 1: from those tiny bejeweled bottles behind designer counters. I racked
Speaker 1: my brain. Who at the firm wore this? Was it? Rachel,
Speaker 1: the consultant from Toronto, had I met her? Was this
Speaker 1: normal in Brian's world? Client hospitality, like he said? Or
Speaker 1: something maybe too friendly? After drinks that Thursday, I decided
Speaker 1: to surprise Brian with lunch. I picked up a pair
Speaker 1: of sandwiches and showed up unannounced at his office, something
Speaker 1: I'd done a dozen times over the years, always welcomed
Speaker 1: like a small rescue from his mountain of paperwork. But
Speaker 1: the glass door was locked. The mane lights off. A
Speaker 1: custodian with headphones in and a pale blue uniform, smiled
Speaker 1: then nodded. When I asked about Brian left with a
Speaker 1: dy an hour ago. She said, matter of fact, brown hair.
Speaker 1: Not sure where they went, I just sweep. It could
Speaker 1: have been a colleague. Sure, it could have been Rachel
Speaker 1: or an associate, or a client dragging him to yet
Speaker 1: another coffee. But as I stood there, holding sandwiches rapidly
Speaker 1: going cold, I realized I didn't want my face to
Speaker 1: betray anything. I thanked the janitor and walked the long
Speaker 1: way back to my car, my head racing with questions.
Speaker 1: That evening, Leela texted one of her unpredictable invitations, odd
Speaker 1: timing as always, girls night out. I know you're probably
Speaker 1: buried in marketing mumbo jumbo, but I need a palette cleanser.
Speaker 1: I replied, sure, half dreading and half relieved for a
Speaker 1: change in company. But when we met at the bar,
Speaker 1: she acted cagy at Bryan's mention, fiddling with her rings,
Speaker 1: eyes darting to the television. As I probed, you've been
Speaker 1: hanging out with the architects a lot, any one I know?
Speaker 1: She giggled, but it sounded forced. Oh, you know, architects,
Speaker 1: they stick together. One day, it'll suck you in too.
Speaker 1: The words came out just a bit too fast, the
Speaker 1: smile not quite reaching her eyes. I pressed further as
Speaker 1: if hungry for information, I wasn't sure how to digest
Speaker 1: what about Brian? He mentioned maybe looping friends in for
Speaker 1: trivia soon, She pursed, her lips, glancing at her glass.
Speaker 1: He's always talking big game, but that guy can never
Speaker 1: remember movie titles. If he wants to organize a hangout,
Speaker 1: he'd better start with us. Her tone tried for levity,
Speaker 1: but her fingers fidgeted with her straw, like she was
Speaker 1: waiting for me to drop the subject. A few nights later,
Speaker 1: something small but significant shifted. I came downstairs after brushing
Speaker 1: my teeth to find the glow of Brian's phone in
Speaker 1: the hallway. He sat on the bottom step, screen turned
Speaker 1: sharply away. I made a joke about midnight texts from
Speaker 1: his favorite wife, expecting a smile. Instead, he startled, thumb
Speaker 1: tapping too quickly at the power button. This is Eli
Speaker 1: geys stuff, nothing exciting. His words were quick clipped, I'll
Speaker 1: be up in a minute. I stood there, heart pounding
Speaker 1: at a pace that felt ridiculous for what amounted to
Speaker 1: a late night phone use. I hated feeling like a
Speaker 1: detective in my own marriage. The following Saturday was our
Speaker 1: friends dinner the one with the hiking crowd, every one
Speaker 1: clinging to the idea that adulthood didn't mean losing touch.
Speaker 1: I texted Brian he was running late, and he replied
Speaker 1: curtly sorry, dinner with client, please cover for me. I
Speaker 1: arrived to find Lila already at the table, dress, rumpled,
Speaker 1: hair a little wild. When she spotted me. She glanced away,
Speaker 1: her voice unexpectedly soft as she greeted me, then busied
Speaker 1: herself opening a new bottle of wine. Throughout the meal,
Speaker 1: Leela avoided I contact our friends, fell on platitudes, works,
Speaker 1: insane har Julia, hope Brian gives you a raise for patience.
Speaker 1: But I noticed every flinch every time Leela's foot tapped
Speaker 1: anxiously beneath the table when some one mentioned architecture, or
Speaker 1: Brian or client dinners. I tried to relax, but I
Speaker 1: grew more vigilant, tuning in for the subtext in every exchange.
Speaker 1: When Brian finally arrived an hour late, he was apologetic,
Speaker 1: but awkward, laughter a tad too loud, eyes darting to
Speaker 1: Lila with what could have been gilt or simply nerves.
Speaker 1: When he leaned in to refill my glass, I noticed
Speaker 1: another scent, more muted, but the same foreign sweetness as before.
Speaker 1: These were subtle things, but they were cumulative. I started small,
Speaker 1: combing through receipts left out on the credenza tabs from
Speaker 1: Sable dated on nights. He insisted he'd been at the
Speaker 1: office late, nothing dramatic, but enough to stoke a simmering unease. Then,
Speaker 1: chatting with Eli one night, a rare Bruin's victory, beer's
Speaker 1: in hand, he casually referenced seeing Brian in back Bay
Speaker 1: earlier that week. Thought he was heading to the Sable,
Speaker 1: but I guess he got dragged in by some crazy
Speaker 1: architect crowd. But Brian had told me he'd been at
Speaker 1: the Sight meeting inspectors until midnight. Every inconsistency added weight
Speaker 1: to my doubt. Sometimes it felt like I was fighting
Speaker 1: off a slow, invisible tide of uncertainty. Other times it
Speaker 1: was a tidal wave of suspicion. I hated myself for indulging.
Speaker 1: Was I becoming the over suspicious spouse like my mother,
Speaker 1: always chasing ghosts of infidelity? Or did I know Brian
Speaker 1: and Leela and myself well enough to trust what I'd
Speaker 1: always known? Or was that blind faith just a story
Speaker 1: I told myself to avoid repeating history. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: about Brian. I started doubting Leela too, her eagerness to
Speaker 1: check in, to offer up small, awkward explanations for things
Speaker 1: I hadn't even asked about, her way of talking in circles.
Speaker 1: Whenever our weekend plans overlapped with Brian's, were they conspiring
Speaker 1: to include me or to avoid me? If it wasn't
Speaker 1: a fair, was it a joke at my expense? Some
Speaker 1: pathetic in group secrecy left over from a decade ago.
Speaker 1: One night, well past midnight, I found myself sitting on
Speaker 1: our porch in the dark, clutching a mug of cold
Speaker 1: cameramel tea and making a list, as if clues could
Speaker 1: settle the uncertainty late nights. The jacket, the unfamiliar perfume,
Speaker 1: the locked office, Leela's dodges, the late text exchanges turned
Speaker 1: away from me, the receipts, Eli's conflicting story. Each item
Speaker 1: wasn't enough to accuse someone. A thousand grains of salt
Speaker 1: not a landslide, But together they formed something heavy. I
Speaker 1: tried confronting Brian gently later that week. He seemed truly
Speaker 1: exhausted his face gaunt and closed off. Is everything okay,
Speaker 1: work or us? I asked, swallowing the lump in my
Speaker 1: throat that had become my constant company. You've been so
Speaker 1: far away lately. He set down his pen, staring at
Speaker 1: the blue line of his computer screen for a long moment.
Speaker 1: I'm under a microscope at work. This is just a
Speaker 1: rough patch, not you. I'm sorry. Is it all work?
Speaker 1: I asked. I tried to keep my tones soft, but
Speaker 1: my voice cracked in spite of myself. You know you
Speaker 1: can talk to me right, You always did before. He
Speaker 1: rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, sighing.
Speaker 1: It's just pressure, Julia. I don't want to bring you
Speaker 1: into it. If I drop this contract, my team gets cut.
Speaker 1: That's all. I'm just tired, He tried a smile, lips
Speaker 1: barely curving promise. I forced myself to believe him. For
Speaker 1: the next few days, I did everything I could to help.
Speaker 1: I packed extra food, sent him good luck texts, and
Speaker 1: even bake that two dense banana bread he pretended was
Speaker 1: his favorite. He responded in kind, showed up early for
Speaker 1: dinner twice that week. Let me drag him out for
Speaker 1: a short walk after work, even danced with me around
Speaker 1: the kitchen to a song from our wedding. It was
Speaker 1: almost normal. But on Thursday, Stacy called, you sound like
Speaker 1: your chasing your tail jewels. Why don't you come crash
Speaker 1: with me Saturday. Give him some breathing room, give yourself
Speaker 1: some too. I almost said yes, but then I hesitated.
Speaker 1: What if he needed me home? What if all this
Speaker 1: drama really was in my head, a legacy from my
Speaker 1: parents that I was unfairly projecting on to him. I
Speaker 1: chose to stay, pushing my doubts down yet again. The
Speaker 1: shift happened so slowly I almost missed it. Brian somehow
Speaker 1: seemed both more present and more remote, a little extra
Speaker 1: effort to do chores, cleaner coffee mugs in the morning,
Speaker 1: deliberate good night kisses, but at the same time, his
Speaker 1: eyes always seemed somewhere else. During conversation, his gaze would
Speaker 1: drop to my shoulder rather than my face when I
Speaker 1: asked about his day, No new jokes, no warm laughter.
Speaker 1: Three nights ago, I reached for his work phone, meaning
Speaker 1: only to plug it in. As the battery blinked red,
Speaker 1: the lock screen flared up with a pass code prompt
Speaker 1: new I had always known his number, A silly childhood injoke.
Speaker 1: I tried it out. It failed. When he saw me,
Speaker 1: his body tensed, sensitive clients, sorry, companies getting strict about leaks.
Speaker 1: The words came out fast, almost convincing. Almost Later that night,
Speaker 1: he stayed up late to Textilly again. The screen angled away,
Speaker 1: thumbs flying a low chuckle that didn't quite match the
Speaker 1: banter I heard when they were together. By then, I
Speaker 1: started making a list of questions and never had to
Speaker 1: ask before. Was my own insecurity about my parents infecting
Speaker 1: my marriage making me demand more attention than his fare?
Speaker 1: Was Brian really just overwhelmed or using his work as
Speaker 1: a shield from something he couldn't or wouldn't say out loud.
Speaker 1: Was Leela's sudden reappearance a comfort or a disturbance he
Speaker 1: needed to hide. When friends invited both of us to
Speaker 1: a mid week group dinner, a standing tradition every few months,
Speaker 1: Brian found a reason to bail last minute to back meetings.
Speaker 1: I owe you too. I arrived alone, harried from work,
Speaker 1: awkwardly explaining his absence. Leelah already a glass of wine, deep,
Speaker 1: seemed jumpier than usual, dropping forks, avoiding my gaze. Every
Speaker 1: time Brian's name came up in conversation. When someone cracked
Speaker 1: a joke about the good old days at Sable, Leela
Speaker 1: just said not all memories should be revisited and immediately
Speaker 1: excused herself for a smoke break, though she'd quit years ago.
Speaker 1: People noticed, even Eli asked later that week if Brian
Speaker 1: was fighting off a bug or something, because he never
Speaker 1: skips group dinners unless something's wrong. I was left holding
Speaker 1: the narrative alone, defending Brian's stress making excuses, even as
Speaker 1: I doubted every word coming out of my own mouth.
Speaker 1: One Friday night, after a particularly jittery work day, I
Speaker 1: watched him sit on the couch with his laptop perched
Speaker 1: on his thighs, brows furrowed so deeply his forehead seemed chiseled.
Speaker 1: I looped my arms around his neck, kissed the skin
Speaker 1: behind his ear. Come on, let's take a break. There's
Speaker 1: pastor in the kitchen, and I miss my husband, he sighed,
Speaker 1: closing his laptop, pressing his cheek to my hand. You
Speaker 1: know I love you, right, he said, quietly, his voice thick.
Speaker 1: It's just all this noise at work. I need to
Speaker 1: get through it. That small, sad moment nearly shattered my resolve.
Speaker 1: I wanted so badly to believe him, to chalk up
Speaker 1: every hollow moment to the kind of stress all couples
Speaker 1: weighed through, to ignore every small mystery for the sake
Speaker 1: of stability. Maybe I was inventing drama. Maybe my radar
Speaker 1: was broken, a relic from another ear of my life,
Speaker 1: my parents divorce echoing in my head, my mother's warnings
Speaker 1: rattling around. But then that same night, I noticed the
Speaker 1: Euber receipts in our shared account. Late night rides to
Speaker 1: neighborhoods far from his office, sometimes toward Leela's new place,
Speaker 1: once to a town house I didn't RECOGNI. They weren't frequent,
Speaker 1: maybe once every week or two, but they always aligned
Speaker 1: with nights he'd worked late. The pick ups were blocks
Speaker 1: from Sable, but the destinations inconsistent. When I asked about
Speaker 1: his route home, he'd shrug and sight net working night.
Speaker 1: It all started to weigh me down. The small lies,
Speaker 1: the slightly jagged jokes, the quiet way Leela's tone changed
Speaker 1: whenever Brian's name was mentioned. My anxiety alternated with guilt.
Speaker 1: Was I truly becoming paranoid over nothing? Reading the inevitable
Speaker 1: messness of adulthood as suspicious or was there something in
Speaker 1: these shadows that would keep growing no matter how tightly
Speaker 1: I tried to ignore it. A few days later, another
Speaker 1: detail pricked my nerves. I offered to co ordinate a
Speaker 1: networking event for Brian's firm, a thing i'd done before,
Speaker 1: A chance to show up for him. He hesitated, muttered,
Speaker 1: I think this one's members only, his face already drifting
Speaker 1: away as he scrolled his phone. When I gently reminded
Speaker 1: him that last year I'd attended as a spouse, he
Speaker 1: waved it off. New rules, not my call. My world
Speaker 1: started to feel filled with cracks every explanation, I'm tired,
Speaker 1: I'm late, I'm networking, sounding thinner with each repetition. At
Speaker 1: dinner the next night, when I handed him his plate,
Speaker 1: he smiled and squeezed my hand, lingering as if to
Speaker 1: prove something, But his grip loosened quickly and his gaze
Speaker 1: returned to his phone. Before I'd finished sitting down. I
Speaker 1: called Stacy after that meal, voice trembling, hating how it
Speaker 1: sounded like whining. What if I'm just flying off the handle?
Speaker 1: What if he's honest and I'm the problem It wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly a plea. I just needed a witness to the
Speaker 1: spiral I couldn't climb out of. She listened, then asked,
Speaker 1: are you afraid he's cheating? Or afraid to ask? In
Speaker 1: case you're right? I sat on the floor, back against
Speaker 1: the dishwasher, wondering when I'd started equating asking questions with
Speaker 1: new nuclear war. Sunday, while pouring coffee, I caught Brian's
Speaker 1: brother Eli after a pick up basketball game. I tried
Speaker 1: to make it casual. You and Brian still hanging at
Speaker 1: Sable after games. He shot me a sideways look. He's
Speaker 1: been all over the place. Sometimes he says he's headed there.
Speaker 1: Then I see him a few blocks away, always hustling.
Speaker 1: Don't think it's just work, jewels. Maybe you too need
Speaker 1: a getaway, Remember the cabin he smiled weakly. You're good together.
Speaker 1: Maybe we were. Maybe we weren't any more. Maybe I
Speaker 1: was the suspicious spouse, doomed to replay every painful childhood pattern.
Speaker 1: I kept searching for reassurance in every innocuous detail, shared playlists,
Speaker 1: old photos, the way Brian absent mindedly put his mug
Speaker 1: in the wrong cabinet, as if retracing an old, relaxing routine.
Speaker 1: I oscillated between shame, hating myself for snooping, and anger
Speaker 1: at Brian for making me question the structure of our
Speaker 1: I tried telling myself that love looked like giving the
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt, not conducting a covert operation built
Speaker 1: on taxi receipts and awkward glances. But at some point
Speaker 1: the weight of all those tiny clues pressed hard enough
Speaker 1: that I couldn't just let them go. I couldn't escape
Speaker 1: the knowledge that whatever I was afraid of, whatever shadow
Speaker 1: lurked beneath this new normal, had made itself a silent, steady,
Speaker 1: almost logical part of our daily life. Each day I
Speaker 1: woke up hoping the answer would be simple, and each
Speaker 1: night it grew less. So I couldn't shake the suspicion
Speaker 1: that the person I'd married, funny, sharp, stubborn, driven, was
Speaker 1: keeping something from me, or maybe that, in some small,
Speaker 1: critical way, he already knew I would find out. I
Speaker 1: sat up until nearly three that night, with my laptop
Speaker 1: propped on my knees, toggling between meaningless online shopping tabs
Speaker 1: and my inbox. Brian had gone to bed early, or
Speaker 1: at least that's what he said from the doorway, rubbing
Speaker 1: his temples. I listened to floorboards overhead, the low measured
Speaker 1: creak of him moving across our bedroom, and wondered if
Speaker 1: he'd fall asleep before I finally turned off the screen.
Speaker 1: By the time I slipped under the covers, he lay
Speaker 1: curled away, phone in his hand, just visible as a
Speaker 1: dim gray rectangle. He startled when I climbed in, snapping
Speaker 1: the phone face down on the night stand, muttering something
Speaker 1: about firm updates. I laid there, listening to his breath,
Speaker 1: heavy and more audible than usual, and counted the seconds
Speaker 1: until he rolled even further from me. That weekend, I
Speaker 1: decided I couldn't keep circling the same half questions. By
Speaker 1: mid morning, I texted Leela, trying for casual We still
Speaker 1: on for mugs and mimosas this weekend or as your
Speaker 1: social calendar fully booked. She responded instantly, absolutely need girl
Speaker 1: time Sunday morning perch cafe. If she sensed my restlessness,
Speaker 1: it didn't read in her syntax cheerful confetti like. If anything,
Speaker 1: she sounded more eager for my company than she had
Speaker 1: been the last few weeks. On Sunday. I arrived early,
Speaker 1: staked out a window table let. Sunlight hit my hands
Speaker 1: as I scrolled news absently. When Leela arrived, she was
Speaker 1: all energy, big sunglasses, denim jacket, hugging me like nothing
Speaker 1: in her world had shifted. She flopped into the chair,
Speaker 1: ordered two blood orange mimosas, and started in on a
Speaker 1: story about her apartment's haunted plumbing. I tried to match
Speaker 1: her mood to chase away my own tension with laughter.
Speaker 1: Midway through a too sweet quassa, I caught her looking
Speaker 1: past my shoulder. Distracted you good, I probed, leaning forward.
Speaker 1: She blinked, recovered instantly. Weird night honestly bar trivia at
Speaker 1: sable S except half the old crew bylaid and some
Speaker 1: guy tried to convince me I designed the tea station
Speaker 1: south of Harvard. Did Brian go? I asked. I fought
Speaker 1: to keep my tone light, like it was any old
Speaker 1: check in another round in our ongoing campaign to keep
Speaker 1: everyone in the loop. She hesitated, then shrugged. He popped
Speaker 1: by early, I guess, but he left before midnight, looked
Speaker 1: wiped like usual. You know how he is blames the job,
Speaker 1: blames the weather, still orders the most complicated whiskey cocktail
Speaker 1: on the menu. She sipped her mimosa, eyes flickering back
Speaker 1: to me. He misses you, by the way. It was
Speaker 1: a strange thing to say. I wanted to ask what
Speaker 1: she meant to press further, but instead I just nodded,
Speaker 1: smiling as if that settled the matter. On the walk
Speaker 1: back to my car, I let myself wonder what it
Speaker 1: would mean if nothing was truly wrong, if Brian's tiredness,
Speaker 1: Leela's skittishness, and the jokes left untold were all just
Speaker 1: flotsam of our overloaded lives. I paused by the curb,
Speaker 1: phone in hand, fighting the urge to scroll his recent calls. Instead,
Speaker 1: I put my energy into the small things, returning library books,
Speaker 1: planning a hypothetical weak care and hike, texting Stacy about
Speaker 1: dinner plans. By Sunday night, I almost managed to convince
Speaker 1: myself that my suspicions were only signs I needed to
Speaker 1: take better care of myself. But the world did not
Speaker 1: oblige my peace. On Tuesday, I came home early from
Speaker 1: a late team meeting, hoping to catch Brian before his
Speaker 1: last stretch of drawing edits for a Monday presentation. I
Speaker 1: unlatched the apartment door quietly on instinct, and found the
Speaker 1: rarest of sights. The living room lights still off, Brian's
Speaker 1: briefcase on the couch, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 1: The kitchen counter was scattered with mail and a half
Speaker 1: drunk glass of whiskey. I thought I heard a voice,
Speaker 1: quiet muffled, drifting down the stairs. I climbed softly, hovering
Speaker 1: on the top step, just in time to hear the
Speaker 1: click of Brian's phone disconnecting. No, she'll be home any minute,
Speaker 1: he was saying, voice tense and pitched low. YEA, I'll
Speaker 1: text you. No, it's fine just later. Okay. I stepped
Speaker 1: into the doorway and he startled, hands flying to his
Speaker 1: shirt pocket as if caught Hey. I said, my voice
Speaker 1: was more brittle than I intended. He coughed, slid the
Speaker 1: phone behind some paperwork. Didn't hear you come in? He said?
Speaker 1: He fumbled a smile, just barely. Who was that? I asked,
Speaker 1: making a show of tossing my scarf on the arm chair. ELI,
Speaker 1: he replied, too quickly. He needed to vent about work.
Speaker 1: I looked at him, and for a moment I saw
Speaker 1: the old Bryan there, eyes wide, sudden and responsive, the
Speaker 1: man who once tried to fix every tension between me
Speaker 1: and the world. But then the wall went up, A
Speaker 1: shadow flickered over his features, and his eyes darted to
Speaker 1: his desk. He kept tapping his pen. I busied myself
Speaker 1: sorting receipts from the kitchen counter, hand trembling nearly imperceptibly.
Speaker 1: The top slip caught my attention. Sable bar, two cocktails,
Speaker 1: time stamped from last Friday. The same Friday, he'd come
Speaker 1: home at midnight, claiming to be at the office with
Speaker 1: a deadline. I waited for him to notice me holding it,
Speaker 1: and when he finally glanced over, I said, did you
Speaker 1: end up grabbing a drink after work the other night?
Speaker 1: He nodded, busying himself with his collar. Yeah, just a
Speaker 1: quick one after the meeting. It was stressful week. Didn't
Speaker 1: want to drag it home with who I pressed too late.
Speaker 1: I tried to sound neutral. He shrugged, face closed. Colleagues Josh,
Speaker 1: and I think Rachel dropped by for a bit. Honestly,
Speaker 1: my head was somewhere else. I nodded, feeling both irritated
Speaker 1: and irrational for pressing. It was just a drink. Maybe
Speaker 1: just a detail I'd ballooned out of proportion. The evening
Speaker 1: ground on quietly, but I caught myself scanning him for clues.
Speaker 1: The way he kept his phone lined up with the
Speaker 1: screen facing away, how he wiped his mouth after eating,
Speaker 1: as if trying to erase every trace of dinner, The
Speaker 1: odd tension at the corners of his mouth. When I
Speaker 1: asked if he wanted to join me on the couch
Speaker 1: for a movie. I stared at the receipt, folded it smaller,
Speaker 1: tucked it deep in the bottom of my messenger bag.
Speaker 1: Guilt and defensiveness churned together. Was this collection of tiny
Speaker 1: shreds of evidence justified or had I crossed into intrusive
Speaker 1: territory my mother always swore would doom a marriage. I
Speaker 1: hid the paper like it was contraband, and hated that
Speaker 1: I had started to keep secrets too. Things took a
Speaker 1: sharper turn on Thursday morning. I was brushing my teeth
Speaker 1: listening to the burble of Bryan's shower when his phone
Speaker 1: lit up on the night stand. I tried not to watch,
Speaker 1: but a notification appeared, just a name, Leela bubbles from
Speaker 1: her signature nickname. I stared at the message preview just
Speaker 1: enough to see call if you need to bail, accompanied
Speaker 1: by a wineglass emoji. Brian stepped out as I was
Speaker 1: slipping on my watch, hair still damp. He grabbed his
Speaker 1: phone quickly, thumb hovering near the screen, then glanced at me.
Speaker 1: Everything good. His voice was pleasant, but guarded. Yeah, I said,
Speaker 1: forcing a tight lipped smile. You seeing Leelah before work? What?
Speaker 1: He blinked, No, why would you think? No, it's just
Speaker 1: about the networking thing next week. She's helping organize stuff. Sorry,
Speaker 1: didn't mean to leave you out of the loop. He
Speaker 1: was a better liar than I ever realized, at least
Speaker 1: about small things. I nearly let the excuse pass, but
Speaker 1: all day it gnawed at me Leela inviting him to
Speaker 1: call and bail. It was an inside code I wasn't
Speaker 1: given that. Afternoon, my boss dropped a last minute happy
Speaker 1: hour on our calendars. I texted Brian to see if
Speaker 1: he wanted to meet up us Old Times, his favorite
Speaker 1: brewery just a few blocks down. He replied after twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: tied up with Rachel. Sorry this time. At least he
Speaker 1: added a heart emoji at the end, though it felt perfunctory.
Speaker 1: Seven I decided not to press. The air felt thick
Speaker 1: with late spring rain, so I headed home alone, past
Speaker 1: the low hum of the city. As I rounded the
Speaker 1: corner of our building, I glimpsed familiar shapes outside sable,
Speaker 1: Leela's unmistakable shock of hair, Brian's navy jacket. Their bodies
Speaker 1: leaned close across the far window. I ducked out of view,
Speaker 1: heart hammering, half expecting to see them burst into laughter
Speaker 1: and part ways a pleasant, innocent brush off to my suspicion. Instead,
Speaker 1: Brian reached out, placed his hand gently at Leela's back
Speaker 1: as she stood to leave, their faces close in a
Speaker 1: kind of urgent private conversation. I stood frozen on the
Speaker 1: wet sidewalk. Maybe it was nothing, just a gesture of
Speaker 1: old friends. Brian had always been affectionate, unafraid to show comfort,
Speaker 1: but there was a quality to their intimacy, a subtle
Speaker 1: folding in of shoulders, a brush of her hand at
Speaker 1: his wrist that made me dizzy. I gave myself until
Speaker 1: midnight before or finally admitting I didn't have any plausible
Speaker 1: story to file it under, except the one I dreaded most.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Friday, Brian seemed energized. He made coffee
Speaker 1: without being prompted, kissed me behind the ear, and suggested
Speaker 1: we take a long drive Saturday, just the two of us,
Speaker 1: no work. My heart backflipped at the familiarity, clinging to hope.
Speaker 1: Maybe he sensed my mood, Maybe he was reaching out
Speaker 1: after weeks of distance. That afternoon, Leelah sent a group
Speaker 1: text inviting old friends to trivia night, no architects allowed.
Speaker 1: I almost laughed at the timing. I replied, I'm in,
Speaker 1: but Leela's reply came quickly, specifying rain check with you.
Speaker 1: Let's do oysters on Wednesday. She didn't mention Brian, but
Speaker 1: I realized he'd been excluded from the list, odd considering
Speaker 1: he was their ringleader for trivia for years. I stared
Speaker 1: at the screen before responding, the weight of everything unspoken
Speaker 1: gathering steam in my chest. If he's not there and
Speaker 1: I'm not there, then where is he? If Leela s
Speaker 1: with her other friends and Brian's busy, then what's left
Speaker 1: to explain these overlapping stories. Saturday's drive with Brian was
Speaker 1: bright and strangely buoyant. He played my playlist, my actual favorite,
Speaker 1: and made a few jokes about our most disastrous camping trip.
Speaker 1: I wanted desperately to believe that the sour air was passing,
Speaker 1: That maybe he had only been caught in stress, that
Speaker 1: my anxiety and Leelah's complexity merely painted shadows across something
Speaker 1: otherwise solid. But at lunch, half way through a riverside burgher,
Speaker 1: Brian's phone buzzed Leela again. He set it aside, his
Speaker 1: glance oddly. Sheepish. I arched an eyebrow. You two swapping
Speaker 1: insider trading tips. He laughed, but it came out choked
Speaker 1: and careful. She just pings me about the dumbest stuff.
Speaker 1: Its work. Mostly, she's still coming up to speed now
Speaker 1: that she's back in town. Some part of me wanted
Speaker 1: to let it go. Another part, the one that still
Speaker 1: flinched at silence, couldn't stop pulling the thread. Later that afternoon,
Speaker 1: we stopped at a bakery we both loved, one of
Speaker 1: those places that seemed a relic from when we were broke,
Speaker 1: and everything felt like a shared adventure. As we stood
Speaker 1: in line, Brian scrolled his phone, smiling quietly at something.
Speaker 1: Leaning over, I teased anything good. Nudging him lightly, he
Speaker 1: angled the screen from view, clicking the side button to
Speaker 1: black it out. God, your nosey to day, just Eli
Speaker 1: sending memes show me I need a laugh. He hesitated,
Speaker 1: then shook his head jokingly. Later batteries dying anyway. He
Speaker 1: stuffed the phone away, but his hand stayed in his
Speaker 1: pocket for the rest of the line. That night, I
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep. The memory of so many evenings spent sprawled
Speaker 1: together on the couch, safe in unguarded routines haunted me.
Speaker 1: I missed that easy silence, the shared refuge, huge of trust,
Speaker 1: even in stillness. Now, even in the same room, it
Speaker 1: felt like Brian and I were separated by a glass wall.
Speaker 1: Every detail visible, every sound muffled, gestures distorted by anxiety.
Speaker 1: On Sunday, I texted Stacy with a single question, ever,
Speaker 1: worry your just being jealous for no reason? Her reply
Speaker 1: was immediate, usually means the reason is real. Want back up?
Speaker 1: She always knew how to say just enough to urge action.
Speaker 1: I promised myself again that I'd ask Brian to dinner
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, no phones, no distractions, just to talk. But
Speaker 1: by Tuesday he booked himself for another strategy late session.
Speaker 1: My chance evaporated, so I shifted the plan scheduling a
Speaker 1: drink with Leela for the next night, pretending it was
Speaker 1: for her benefit, but prepared finally to dig. Wednesday evening,
Speaker 1: I met Leela at Asteria by South Station, all iced
Speaker 1: marble and heavy metallic chairs. She wore a slouchy blue
Speaker 1: sweater and sunglasses even indoors, a clear signal she'd rather
Speaker 1: not meet any one's eyes. Our conversation was brittle. Leela
Speaker 1: reached for anecdotes, studiously side stepped any mention of Brian's name.
Speaker 1: I nursed the first glass of white, waiting for the
Speaker 1: moment to drop. My question. Have you seen Brian much
Speaker 1: outside work lately? I asked, watching her reaction more closely
Speaker 1: than my words. She paused, ran a polished hand through
Speaker 1: her hair. I mean he pops by events sometimes networking, right,
Speaker 1: I'm basically queen of awkward intros. Why, she forced a laugh.
Speaker 1: Don't tell me you're jealous. I'm old news. The words
Speaker 1: landed awkwardly. Not jealous, I lied, just missing the social whirlwind.
Speaker 1: I guess he's usually glued to my side whenever you're
Speaker 1: in town. Her gaze slid over the room, never settling.
Speaker 1: People change jobs, get in the way. I barely see
Speaker 1: my couch these days, let alone anyone else. She picked
Speaker 1: up her glass and drank too quickly, cheeks tinged pink.
Speaker 1: Her phone buzzed, and she skittishly declined the call, flipping
Speaker 1: it face down. My appetite vanished. I felt the boundary
Speaker 1: of trust, the old easy bond withering between us. Every
Speaker 1: conversation circling around never threw the problem. On the way home,
Speaker 1: I let the train car's rhythm jostle me into a
Speaker 1: fake sense of calm. My brain ticked through excuses for
Speaker 1: every one, Brian's exhaustion, Leela's avoidance, my own compulsion to
Speaker 1: pry if nothing was wrong, Why did every answer feel
Speaker 1: like a footnote to a conversation happening between them somewhere
Speaker 1: I was not allowed to go That night, I lay awake,
Speaker 1: listening to the muted city traffic, unable to turn off
Speaker 1: the thrum of dread that had become my private background music.
Speaker 1: Thursday dawned too bright for my mood. I left for
Speaker 1: work without kissing Brian, texting Stacy on the walk, Do
Speaker 1: I press or let it go? She replied instantly. You
Speaker 1: have to ask if you want to know, or wait
Speaker 1: until the ANSWER's unavoidable work was a slog. My attention drifted,
Speaker 1: my heart permanently lodged somewhere between my stomach and throat.
Speaker 1: By noon, I checked our joint eber account again, something
Speaker 1: I knew wasn't healthy, something I rationalized as simple organization.
Speaker 1: But organization didn't make sense of three charges. At ten
Speaker 1: thirty p m. To and address two blocks from Leela's place,
Speaker 1: I dialed Eli. Hey, is Brian meeting up with you
Speaker 1: to night? I thought you had plans. He paused, Not
Speaker 1: to night, I asked. He said he was slammed through
Speaker 1: the week end. You two all right? No, not really,
Speaker 1: just busy, I said, voice flat. By evening, Brian texted,
Speaker 1: working late again. Sorry, I'll try to get home by midnight.
Speaker 1: I sat by the window, phone on the ledge, watching
Speaker 1: the lights on Commonwealth flicker on and off, of autumn
Speaker 1: finally biting through the air. I tried every trick I
Speaker 1: knew to slow my mind, cooking, reorganizing cabinets, scrolling through
Speaker 1: years of saved messages. Nothing silenced the part of me
Speaker 1: that heard the grinding of tectonic plates beneath our everyday surface.
Speaker 1: At nine, a notification buzzed A new group photo. In
Speaker 1: the hiking thread, faces grinning in the background, drinks raised.
Speaker 1: Neither Brian nor Leeler in the shot, both tagged as missing.
Speaker 1: Josh always the instigator wrote too many flakes? Tonight you
Speaker 1: two owe us double rounds next time? It meant nothing
Speaker 1: or everything. Finally, just after ten, my phone rang Brian.
Speaker 1: I answered, voice measured, I'm just heading out, he said,
Speaker 1: Sorry for the late one, It's fine, I lied, long
Speaker 1: night a pause. Yeah, Rachel's really making us work for
Speaker 1: the bid, but I think it's worth it. I thought
Speaker 1: about the last time I'd seen Rachel, A quiet, reserved
Speaker 1: woman with a habit of apologizing for her own jokes.
Speaker 1: I couldn't picture her dragging Brian to Sable for late
Speaker 1: drinks or exchanging midnight texts sprinkled with inside codes. I'm
Speaker 1: going to stay at my sister s for a few nights,
Speaker 1: I blurted, give you some room for deadlines? Is that okay?
Speaker 1: Long silence? You sure? I mean, I don't want you
Speaker 1: to feel like you have to. Just feels easier, I said,
Speaker 1: and ended the call before he could answer. That night,
Speaker 1: Stacy's couch felt better than I expected. She left a
Speaker 1: glass of wine out for me, didn't ask questions, just
Speaker 1: let me curl up in her old college hoodie until
Speaker 1: the tension eased a notch. Sometime around one a m.
Speaker 1: I whispered into the dark, What if I'm wrong? She murmured,
Speaker 1: If you're wrong, you laugh about this when you're ninety.
Speaker 1: If you're right, then you already know. In the morning,
Speaker 1: my phone was full of innocua texts, Brian sending hearts
Speaker 1: Leelah with a mean Eli, with a running joke. Everything
Speaker 1: looked normal from arm's length. It didn't feel normal. When
Speaker 1: I finally gave in and called Rachel under the thinnest pretext,
Speaker 1: hoping to clarify Brian's project. Hell, she answered bright and polite,
Speaker 1: telling me she'd actually wrapped her input weeks ago. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen Brian in a while. I'm mostly in Toronto,
Speaker 1: and the sight s behind schedule anyway, hope he's not
Speaker 1: overworking himself. I thanked her too briskly, I'm sure, and
Speaker 1: hung up. My hands were shaking, the sense of derangement
Speaker 1: that maybe I'd built this whole world of suspicion on
Speaker 1: nothing hit me again. But then I remembered every short cut,
Speaker 1: every lie about being with someone he wasn't, Every text
Speaker 1: turned away, every scent on his jacket. They suddenly fit
Speaker 1: together with a clarity that hurt to look at. Directly,
Speaker 1: I called Leela, this time without warning, her voice small
Speaker 1: and uncertain on the line. What's up. I need to
Speaker 1: ask you something directly, and I need you to tell
Speaker 1: me the truth. My voice was steadier than I felt.
Speaker 1: A pause, of course, I hesitated, then plunged ahead. Were
Speaker 1: you and Brian together last night or any other night?
Speaker 1: He claimed to be working with Rachel? A waited pause.
Speaker 1: He dropped by after a networking thing once or twice.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a big deal, she said quickly. He leaves early,
Speaker 1: we talk shop. You know how it is. But now
Speaker 1: I could hear the cracks, the practiced cadence of someone
Speaker 1: hiding a corp of guilt beneath her words, Leela, I'm
Speaker 1: not accusing you, I'm begging you. Just tell me the truth.
Speaker 1: Her breath caught, went quiet, and then in the space
Speaker 1: of that silence, I knew I could not go back
Speaker 1: to pretending. When she finally spoke, her voice trembled, Julia,
Speaker 1: I can we meet in person? Please? The fragile arrangement
Speaker 1: I had been balancing love, suspicion, denial tipped into free
Speaker 1: fall as I agreed. By evening, As I prepared to
Speaker 1: meet Leelah, braced for whatever truth could finally surface, it
Speaker 1: occurred to me how easily a life could transform sell
Speaker 1: by Cell into something unrecognizable until the final undeniable moment
Speaker 1: when trying not to know is no longer an option.
Speaker 1: Leela chose a narrow booth along the windows at Perch Cafe,
Speaker 1: dim and perfectly anonymous for the sort of conversation we
Speaker 1: both knew was coming. I arrived, dizzy with adrenaline, my
Speaker 1: coat barely buttoned, skin prickling with anticipation and dread. She
Speaker 1: sat with both hands wrapped around a chipped coffee mug,
Speaker 1: brown hair tucked behind one ear, lips paler than usual.
Speaker 1: I hesitated at the edge of the table, a jittery
Speaker 1: animal straddling fight and flight. She gestured to the seat
Speaker 1: opposite her, You look so tired, jewels. I sat down,
Speaker 1: and for a tense moment, the cafe around us seemed
Speaker 1: too loud, plates clinking, the steamer hissing, the world moving
Speaker 1: on as if nothing were catastrophically, irreversibly altered. For me
Speaker 1: in the span of a week. Leela, I said, voice
Speaker 1: already ragged, just tell me. Her eyes shone wide but unblinking.
Speaker 1: She tried to speak, swallowed, then finally said, barely above
Speaker 1: a whisper, I'm sorry. I tried to stop it. At
Speaker 1: first it didn't mean anything, but then things just happened.
Speaker 1: We should never have. She cut herself off. I wish
Speaker 1: I could take it back. I stared at her, numb
Speaker 1: even now. Part of me wanted to shout, to demand details, origins, dates, places,
Speaker 1: all the logistical answers that might stabilize my world. But
Speaker 1: her crumpled posture said enough. It wasn't just a fling
Speaker 1: or a dreadful misunderstanding rendered harmless by the light of day.
Speaker 1: Leela looked as undone as I felt. Was it just
Speaker 1: once my voice shook, refusing to stay soft, or is
Speaker 1: this it wasn't just once? She stared into her mug.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to lie. It started a few weeks
Speaker 1: after I moved back. We didn't plan it, no one did.
Speaker 1: I hated myself every time. But Julia, he he said,
Speaker 1: he was so lost, and I know that's not an excuse.
Speaker 1: It was selfish. We were selfish. For a moment, I
Speaker 1: couldn't breathe. Anger battled with humiliation, sadness, with relief that
Speaker 1: I no longer had to guess. I reached for anything
Speaker 1: that would anchor me, my hand clutching the sleeve of
Speaker 1: my sweater under the table so tightly my knuckles ached.
Speaker 1: Why you, I said, trying not to sound venomous. Her
Speaker 1: reply was wrecked and raw, the honesty landing like broken glass.
Speaker 1: He said, I understood him, that it was easy with me,
Speaker 1: old times, no pressure. He missed something from before you
Speaker 1: got together. But I think that was only half of it, Julia.
Speaker 1: I think he missed the version of himself you made
Speaker 1: him forget. She covered her mouth, tears leaking from her lashes.
Speaker 1: I was lonely too. It wasn't fair. I am so
Speaker 1: so sorry. The red in my vision faded into gray.
Speaker 1: I stared at her, wanting to hurt her, wanting her
Speaker 1: to disappear, wanting to curl myself up into the smallest
Speaker 1: possible version so this moment could pass and I could
Speaker 1: go home and pretend none of it had ever happened.
Speaker 1: How long, I asked? Three months? She whispered on and off.
Speaker 1: I told him we had to end it. I told
Speaker 1: him to be honest with you, but he kept saying
Speaker 1: he needed more time. The waitress delivered our drinks, pausing
Speaker 1: when she sensed our tautness, placing mugs down in silence.
Speaker 1: My phone sat face down on the table. I could
Speaker 1: feel its weight, its capacity to connect me instantly to Brian,
Speaker 1: to demand answers or retribution, or an apology, so empty
Speaker 1: it would only further hollow me out. Instead, I let
Speaker 1: the questions pile up inside. So now, what am I
Speaker 1: suppose to thank you for telling the truth? Leela's mouth crumpled. No,
Speaker 1: I wanted you to know before. I didn't want him
Speaker 1: to spin it. But if you never forgive me, I'll understand.
Speaker 1: I didn't answer. I just stood, steadying myself on the
Speaker 1: edge of the table. My legs felt heavy and weak.
Speaker 1: I can't do this here, not now. She nodded faintly,
Speaker 1: a silhouette shrinking behind the glass as I pushed my
Speaker 1: way out of the cafe, lungs heaving the city spinning.
Speaker 1: Everything that followed blurred. My coat caught on the door handle.
Speaker 1: I walked the frozen sidewalks for two blocks before finding
Speaker 1: enough clarity to call stacy from a deserted alley. Words
Speaker 1: tumbling out in gasps, she asked, do I need to
Speaker 1: come get you? I could only shake my head, not
Speaker 1: trusting myself to speak. I walked home, feet numb, inside
Speaker 1: a mine that felt both emptied out and on fire.
Speaker 1: Brian's car was already in its spot, the lights in
Speaker 1: our apartment throwing narrow pools out over the sidewalk. For
Speaker 1: the first time in years, I paused on our stoop,
Speaker 1: dreading the key in my own lock. I opened the
Speaker 1: door and found him sitting at the table, hands steepled
Speaker 1: back straight, as if awaiting a verdict. When our eyes met,
Speaker 1: his face crumbled. He knew. He slumped, hands going limp,
Speaker 1: and I closed the door behind me with care, heart
Speaker 1: ticking much too fast. We stood there, the charged swirl
Speaker 1: of our lives, balanced between what I knew and what
Speaker 1: I still feared to hear. He had made no run
Speaker 1: for cover, no attempt to pregame his lies. Whatever act
Speaker 1: he'd been playing was over. Brian Broke first voiced, lifeless.
Speaker 1: You talked to her. You weren't going to tell me?
Speaker 1: It wasn't a question. He shook his head. I I was,
Speaker 1: I kept thinking I would, but every time I convinced myself.
Speaker 1: He trailed off, face blotchy. I thought I could fix it,
Speaker 1: I could stop and it would go away. I felt
Speaker 1: bone tired. How could you even let it start? Was
Speaker 1: our life this really that empty for you? He pressed
Speaker 1: his palms over his eyes. It wasn't empty. I was
Speaker 1: just so tired under so much pressure at work, and
Speaker 1: then she was there and it felt easy, like none
Speaker 1: of the other stuff mattered. It was a mistake. I
Speaker 1: lost track of how much I was losing. I hate
Speaker 1: myself for it. He wiped at his face, not even
Speaker 1: pretending to hold himself together. How long, Brian My throat burned?
Speaker 1: The answer was so soft. I barely caught it. Since
Speaker 1: she moved back three months, maybe a little more, not
Speaker 1: every week, not. I kept thinking it would stop after
Speaker 1: the first time, but we just kept making excuses. I
Speaker 1: lied to you. I lied because I was afraid of
Speaker 1: losing you. I still am. I couldn't find the words
Speaker 1: to channel my rage or my disbelief. I only said,
Speaker 1: was it love? He shook his head, head quick and desperate. No,
Speaker 1: I swear we confused comfort with something else. We both
Speaker 1: knew it was wrong. I care about her, But I
Speaker 1: never wanted to leave you for her. That's messed up.
Speaker 1: I know the air between us grew raw and metallic,
Speaker 1: a wound stripped clean of all dressing. I fumbled for something,
Speaker 1: anything to claim. You told me it was work. I whispered.
Speaker 1: You looped in every one eli, your own brother, my friends,
Speaker 1: our whole life. How could you just Brian's words tumbled out.
Speaker 1: I was scared. There was always a reason to wait,
Speaker 1: deadline's stress. You seemed tired too. I thought we'd get
Speaker 1: back to normal after the project. That's all I wanted
Speaker 1: at first, to feel normal again. But you found excitement
Speaker 1: somewhere else. I snapped, tears sliding hot and silent. You
Speaker 1: imagined it was just a phase, but it wasn't, because
Speaker 1: you brought it into every part of our life. You
Speaker 1: let her live in the corners, in the things we
Speaker 1: did together, the old side jokes, the playlists. You made
Speaker 1: me doubt my own sanity for months. He started to
Speaker 1: reach for me to offer something, comfort, apology, anchorage. I
Speaker 1: moved back, hands up, no, I can't not now silence.
Speaker 1: The clock above the stove ticked out seconds. Brian stood
Speaker 1: in the kitchen where he had once made me feel
Speaker 1: safest in the world, and could now only watch as
Speaker 1: I broke. I realized, with clear, clinical certainty that no
Speaker 1: explanation would erase the months of eroding trust, the hundreds
Speaker 1: of hours spent half drowning in suspicion. His regret, sudden
Speaker 1: and total, only amplified the depth of what I'd lost.
Speaker 1: His words were thick, pleading. Now, I know you won't
Speaker 1: believe me, but nothing about this was about leaving you.
Speaker 1: I never wanted that. I've hated myself for months. If
Speaker 1: I could take it all back, I cut him off,
Speaker 1: voice shaking. You can't. You can't even choose, can you
Speaker 1: even now when it all comes out? You're paralyzed? His
Speaker 1: face crumpled. Just tell me what happens now, A strange,
Speaker 1: freezing calm crept in. I need space tonight, probably longer
Speaker 1: than tonight. You need to leave, pack a bag, go
Speaker 1: to Eli S or anywhere else. The apartment isn't yours
Speaker 1: to night. He didn't argue. His shoulders sagged. He slowly turned,
Speaker 1: walking to our bedroom, opening drawers with a delicacy that
Speaker 1: would have been funny if I hadn't felt so split.
Speaker 1: The hum of the street below the scrape of his
Speaker 1: suit case zipper, the quiet clatter of bathroom bottles tossed
Speaker 1: into a duffel. All of it felt displaced, like sounds
Speaker 1: from a play next door. He left his key on
Speaker 1: the table and let the door click shut behind him,
Speaker 1: No good byes. I sat on the edge of the
Speaker 1: bed until I couldn't take the silence. Then called Stacy.
Speaker 1: Her voice came through instantly, soft and unwavering. Come over,
Speaker 1: I'll order curry, we'll watch trashed. I pressed my forehead
Speaker 1: to my knee, choking on a sob. He's gone. She
Speaker 1: knew better than to offer comfort that asked me to
Speaker 1: move on before I was ready. You're not alone, she said,
Speaker 1: voice steady as a lifeline. I gathered up Brian's pillow,
Speaker 1: moving it to the hall. Within an hour, Stacy was
Speaker 1: at my door, a plastic bag of takeout in one hand,
Speaker 1: old sleep clothes in the other. She didn't comment on
Speaker 1: the mess, just set up camp at the kitchen table
Speaker 1: while I wandered from room to room untethered. Eli texted
Speaker 1: once a clumsy balloon of remorse. Didn't see it, Jules,
Speaker 1: wish I had anything you need. Holler later. I emailed
Speaker 1: my boss requesting a few days, I signed out of
Speaker 1: my work email for the first time in months, shutting
Speaker 1: down a dozen reminders of anniversaries, partnership events, the little
Speaker 1: digital routines Brian and I had always shared. That first night,
Speaker 1: every small habit ached, leaving Brian's mug alone on the
Speaker 1: drying rack, the visible gap in the coat hooks, the
Speaker 1: way the beds left side stayed cool and undisturbed. I
Speaker 1: turned every photo on our shelves face down. I didn't
Speaker 1: delete them, not yet. I couldn't not to night. What
Speaker 1: I could do was remove his number from my favorites.
Speaker 1: Fingers hovering for a beat too long over the conformation
Speaker 1: button on the kitchen counter, wedged between bills and half
Speaker 1: re read magazines, our wedding frame glared out in stubborn testimony.
Speaker 1: I lifted it, traced the edge with my thumb, then
Speaker 1: turned it against the wall. I wasn't ready for it
Speaker 1: to vanish, but I also couldn't let it greet me
Speaker 1: in the morning. Even Stacy knew not to fill the silence.
Speaker 1: She just sat beside me, sifting through take out, watching
Speaker 1: an old show on mute. For the first time in days,
Speaker 1: I let my body settle the world pressed in, less
Speaker 1: from grief and more from the breathless vacuum left behind
Speaker 1: by Brian's absence. When sleep finally came, it was pure exhaustion.
Speaker 1: I drifted off on the couch, held upright by the
Speaker 1: inertia of heartbreak. Morning crept in slowly. I woke before
Speaker 1: Stacy dull Ache, already curled under my sternam. The apartment
Speaker 1: was still too quiet. I moved mechanically, coffee ground, mug
Speaker 1: filled the same steps as always. My hands did what
Speaker 1: my mind couldn't. I paused in front of the counter,
Speaker 1: fixing my gaze again on the wedding frame. Turned backward.
Speaker 1: The apartment wasn't much different, but I saw every detail
Speaker 1: through a new starker light, the spaces between things that
Speaker 1: had once seemed so intimate, now filled with breathless air.
Speaker 1: I opened my phone, scrolling past old threads. My thumb
Speaker 1: lingered over our last photo together us at the Riverside bakery,
Speaker 1: laughter mid bite, his hand on my knee. I didn't
Speaker 1: delete it, not yet. Instead, I set it aside breeze,
Speaker 1: forced myself to let the silence be real. Later that afternoon,
Speaker 1: I put on an old playlist, one of his not mine,
Speaker 1: the one I used to roll my eyes at during
Speaker 1: long road trips. The lyrics seemed trite, bitterly ironic. I
Speaker 1: let it play anyway, listening for what I had missed.
Speaker 1: My inbox was filled with well wishes, concern, offers of support.
Speaker 1: ELI called leaving a message thick with apology. I didn't
Speaker 1: pick up, not yet. I told myself there was nothing
Speaker 1: else to discover, that the world had shrunk to a single,
Speaker 1: painful truth. Even that small certainty felt like something to
Speaker 1: hold on to. Twilight approached, wind skittering along the window pins.
Speaker 1: I lit a candle out of habit, watched the flame
Speaker 1: tremble in the draft. I cleaned the kitchen, wiped every surface,
Speaker 1: not because it would raise anything, but because I needed
Speaker 1: something to do. As evening deepened, Stacy packed up, quietly,
Speaker 1: wheezing my shoulder, before heading out, promising to be only
Speaker 1: a call away. I lingered a long time at the table,
Speaker 1: the only sound in the apartment the hum of the fridge.
Speaker 1: At some point I realized the inevitability of what I
Speaker 1: had to do next. I stood, steadied myself, and gathered
Speaker 1: the remains of my nerve. I rose, moving slowly through
Speaker 1: the rooms, sliding open drawers and collecting whatever Brian had
Speaker 1: left behind, a stray sock, a receipt, a battered paperback
Speaker 1: he'd meant alone to Eli. Each small item seemed to
Speaker 1: shrink in importance the longer I looked at it. I
Speaker 1: set his few belongings into a brown paper bag, rolling
Speaker 1: down the top, and left it by the door. I
Speaker 1: hesitated stepped to the side table and picked up our
Speaker 1: wedding photo. After a moment, I removed it from the frame,
Speaker 1: placed it gently in an envelope, and tucked it into
Speaker 1: the bag with his things. I opened the front door
Speaker 1: and set the bag just out side, closing it softly
Speaker 1: behind me. I drew in a shaky breath, and with
Speaker 1: deliberate finality, locked the bolt. The soft click of the
Speaker 1: lock echoed back at me, foreign and heavy. The bag
Speaker 1: with Bryan's things, pathetically light given five years together, sat
Speaker 1: on the other side, marking the threshold that until to
Speaker 1: night had simply been hours. I pressed my palms to
Speaker 1: the back of the door, grounding myself, and then pressed
Speaker 1: my forehead there, struggling to contain the pressure rising in
Speaker 1: my chest. Emptiness followed, but it wasn't clean. I moved
Speaker 1: through the rooms as if expecting the world to recalibrate.
Speaker 1: Kitchen counters stripped of shared purpose, the fridge full of
Speaker 1: groceries portioned for two, A bathroom shelf still cluttered with
Speaker 1: his hair product and travel sized bottles. My body didn't
Speaker 1: quite believe in this undoing. It went through motions, a
Speaker 1: rinse of the mugs, a flick of the blinds, folding
Speaker 1: and refolding, the throw at the foot of the bed,
Speaker 1: while my mind replayed the final conversation, each word etched
Speaker 1: bright and sharp. I couldn't shake the sense that the
Speaker 1: shock should have burned off by now, replaced by clarity. Instead,
Speaker 1: I felt only a leaden ache as I hovered between
Speaker 1: numbness and the edge of another round of tears. My
Speaker 1: phone sat silent on the kitchen table, awaiting threat of notifications.
Speaker 1: I turned it over screen, sighed down, refusing for now
Speaker 1: to see if Brian would try to call, if Eli
Speaker 1: would follow up, if Leela would gather the nerve to
Speaker 1: send one last apology. The urge to switch it off
Speaker 1: entirely wared with the need to anchor myself to something
Speaker 1: outside this apartment. Instead, I left it untouched. I went
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, hands moving automatically as I brushed my teeth,
Speaker 1: I caught my reflection, pale and puffy from crying. I
Speaker 1: ran water over my wrists and tried, for just a
Speaker 1: second to imagine what to morrow looked like. My mind rebelled,
Speaker 1: it fuzzed, doubt at the notion of work, or errands
Speaker 1: or anything beyond this airless present. As I turned away,
Speaker 1: I saw Brian's tooth brush in its cup, a small
Speaker 1: splayed blue reminder. I plucked it out, dropped it into
Speaker 1: the trash, then emptied the cup and set it in
Speaker 1: the sink, as if muscle memory alone could reset the universe.
Speaker 1: The apartment held his absence, but it also resonated with
Speaker 1: everything he'd ever touched. The playlist still running softly from
Speaker 1: the bedroom speaker, the faint trace of his coffee on
Speaker 1: the counter, the scuff marks from his shoes in the
Speaker 1: narrow entry, even the things I never liked, a chipped mug,
Speaker 1: his battered keechin took on a kind of haunting presence.
Speaker 1: I wanted to sweep them all away, but something in
Speaker 1: me resisted the finality. I wandered back into the living room,
Speaker 1: picking up the stack of unopened mail that had gathered
Speaker 1: on the credenza. I soughted bills from flyers, tossing his
Speaker 1: bank statement into the bag by the door, almost reflexively,
Speaker 1: then set them the rest aside, unable to leaf through
Speaker 1: them without risking some other piece of him, justified by routine.
Speaker 1: Nearing midnight, hunger crept in an absurd physical reminder that
Speaker 1: time had moved despite everything. I made toast, a habit
Speaker 1: from college nights spent with Leela before any of this,
Speaker 1: when we'd mapped out dream cities with Brian in her
Speaker 1: first cramped studio, Drunk and fearless, none of us prepared
Speaker 1: for the messinists that would follow. The toast tasted like cardboard.
Speaker 1: I lit a candle, letting the orange light fill a
Speaker 1: corner of the kitchen. The air smelled warm for a change,
Speaker 1: heavy with melting wax and baked bread, instead of the cold,
Speaker 1: antiseptic hush that had settled after Brian left For a
Speaker 1: few minutes. I folded into the scent, breathing slowly, heart
Speaker 1: pounding out an uneven rhythm. Sleep didn't come easily. I
Speaker 1: tried settling into our bed, but ended up back on
Speaker 1: the couch, knees hugged to my chest, rewatching an old
Speaker 1: show with the sound barely up, just enough to fill
Speaker 1: the edges of the room. Every so often I'd catch
Speaker 1: myself reaching toward the other end of the couch, as
Speaker 1: if about to ask Brian to rub my shoulder or
Speaker 1: pass the popcorn. Stupid muscle memories firing off in the
Speaker 1: absence of their target. The hours bent out of shape,
Speaker 1: mostly sleepless. At some point I watched headlights slice across
Speaker 1: our bedroom curtains and half hoped he'd return, desperate and apologetic,
Speaker 1: willing to beg for a forgiveness I knew I wasn't
Speaker 1: ready to give. I imagined what I'd say if he knocked,
Speaker 1: the script, shifting between fury and emptiness and the kind
Speaker 1: of exhausted resignation that tasted like defeat. But even as
Speaker 1: the phantasy played out, I knew the only thing I
Speaker 1: wanted right now was silence, space, the breathing room, to
Speaker 1: let the wait of the betrayal stretch out in the open,
Speaker 1: no longer shadowed by half truths and evasions. The next
Speaker 1: morning glared harsh and gray, city sounds already rolling in
Speaker 1: from the street. I brewed coffee and sipped it slowly
Speaker 1: at the small kitchen table, eyes fixed on a crack
Speaker 1: in the tile grout. Every corner of the apartment felt foreign,
Speaker 1: Not an extension of our life, but a stage set
Speaker 1: suddenly revealed as fake. I left the radio off. A
Speaker 1: text appeared from Stacy. You don't have to talk, but
Speaker 1: I'm here, I answered with a heart, unable to do more.
Speaker 1: Then came another from Eli, let me know if you
Speaker 1: want to grab lunch. I'm sorry. I let it sit
Speaker 1: unread for hours, finally replying not yet. I made the
Speaker 1: mistake of opening Instagram. The hype group had posted photos
Speaker 1: from a last minute outing Eli's new girlfriend in tow Leela,
Speaker 1: nowhere in sight, Brian's name untagged. I stared at the
Speaker 1: screen for a long minute, thumb hovering, then closed the app,
Speaker 1: feeling only more alone and oddly relieved that no curated
Speaker 1: moment could touch me here. Around noon, a knock startled
Speaker 1: me from half sleep. Peering through the peep hole, I
Speaker 1: saw a delivery envelope from Bryan's office, blueprints and a
Speaker 1: monogrammed pen he'd forgotten, already forwarded by some disinterested assistant.
Speaker 1: I tossed it, unopened onto the hallway table, barely resisting
Speaker 1: the urge to scribble his new address in jagged letters.
Speaker 1: By late afternoon, I found myself re arranging the apartment,
Speaker 1: moving the couch half an inch, swapping throw pillows, restacking
Speaker 1: books on the shelf. I scrubbed the kitchen sink, emptied
Speaker 1: the trash, carried the wedding photo frame out to the
Speaker 1: storage closet. I left the envelope with the photograph pressed
Speaker 1: deep in an old box under the stairs, refusing to
Speaker 1: decide whether it would ever come back out. The evening
Speaker 1: grew colder, rain tapping at the windows, I left the
Speaker 1: lights off as the sky darkened. Curling into the arm
Speaker 1: chair with my phone, I scrolled through photos, landing inevitably
Speaker 1: on the last picture of us together, the one at
Speaker 1: the bakery, his arms slung carelessly around me, my smile enormous,
Speaker 1: both of us looking absurdly young and unaware. My thumb
Speaker 1: hovered over the delete button. A sudden wave of nausea arose.
Speaker 1: I set the phone aside, breathing through it. I realized
Speaker 1: I was afraid to delete the photo, as if doing
Speaker 1: so would raise not just Brian, but the version of
Speaker 1: myself that had trusted so completely. But I also saw
Speaker 1: for the first time how much of that trust had
Speaker 1: survived simply because I'd willed it to, because it had
Speaker 1: felt more like home to persist even as the evidence
Speaker 1: began to conspire against me. Darkness deepened outside. I stood
Speaker 1: and walked to the window, pressing my forehead against the
Speaker 1: cool glass. Down on the street, headlights flickered, umbrellas bobbed.
Speaker 1: People moved in and out of doorways, living lives that
Speaker 1: did an orbit around a single implosion. My phone vibrated
Speaker 1: a new text from Brian, just I'm so sorry, Julia.
Speaker 1: Please let me talk to you. I locked the foe
Speaker 1: without reading further. At some point, the door buzzer rang
Speaker 1: Stacy holding groceries, her hair damp from rain, her expression
Speaker 1: tight with concern. I let her in, thankful for the
Speaker 1: quiet company. She filled the kitchen with the sound of
Speaker 1: chopping boiling water, her presence her salve against the isolation.
Speaker 1: We ate in silence, The meal, heavy but restorative, a
Speaker 1: recognition that the world would move forward, even if my
Speaker 1: sense of self lagged behind. After we'd cleared the dishes,
Speaker 1: Stacy took my hand and squeezed it gently. You did
Speaker 1: the right thing. She said, low and certain. I nodded,
Speaker 1: unable to say more. My grief was a private, shapeless thing,
Speaker 1: a slow ache nested beside the relief that the waiting
Speaker 1: and doubting had ended. I watched the candle flicker out
Speaker 1: between us as I gathered the energy for the next part,
Speaker 1: whatever that would be. As the night wound down, I
Speaker 1: walked Stacy to the door. She hugged me tight, her
Speaker 1: arm strong and steady, then slipped into the rain, leaving
Speaker 1: a silence behind that no longer felt quite so sharp.
Speaker 1: Left alone, I walked through the apartment, picking up stray cups,
Speaker 1: turning off lights, methodically reclaiming the space, one habit at
Speaker 1: a time. It was nearly midnight when I sat at
Speaker 1: the kitchen table again, phone in my hand, the last
Speaker 1: photo glowing gently on the screen. I opened the gallery thumb,
Speaker 1: hovering the nexshaled slowly, and pressed delete. The screen flashed
Speaker 1: once gone. Staring out through the kitchen window at the
Speaker 1: city lights gleaming in scattered reds and golds, I felt
Speaker 1: the first elastic thread of relief pulled gently at my chest.
Speaker 1: The silence was real, my own. I stood and wandered
Speaker 1: into the empty living room, letting the pale pools of
Speaker 1: street like catch on the bare walls, and took a
Speaker 1: deep breath. As I closed my eyes, I allowed myself
Speaker 1: for the first time to believe that whatever came next
Speaker 1: was truly terrifyingly my own to shake