Speaker 1: Wednesday nights always had a particular taste in my memory,
Speaker 1: a blend of craft beer, bar lighting that made everyone's
Speaker 1: skin look better, the scrape of wooden stools, and the
Speaker 1: low competitive hum of our trivia group stretching the facts
Speaker 1: to breaking point over plates of fries. It was ritual, predictable, rowdy,
Speaker 1: almost family, except for the perpetual undercurrent of adult complications,
Speaker 1: the small incompatibilities we'd all agreed not to poke. It
Speaker 1: was honestly one of my refugees, a simple, clever game
Speaker 1: with people I'd known for years, crowned by the sight
Speaker 1: of Mark's watchful smile as he caught my eye across
Speaker 1: the table on obscure sports questions, letting me know he
Speaker 1: still loved that I always guessed Wimbledon. We had been
Speaker 1: running late that night, held up by a last minute
Speaker 1: a count emergency. Somewhere in Milwaukee, a regional car dealership
Speaker 1: had decided they hated everything I'd pick, so I'd spent
Speaker 1: the day massaging slide decks and half apologizing to people
Speaker 1: I would never meet. Mark had picked me up in
Speaker 1: his paint hipped soubaru, arms full of camera bags, sweated
Speaker 1: at his temples we'll be late, but the good news
Speaker 1: is we won't get stuck next to Doug, he joked,
Speaker 1: poking my side. The world for those three minutes in
Speaker 1: the car was snug and uncomplicated. I'd pressed my knee
Speaker 1: against his, feeling the familiar click of wedding rings as
Speaker 1: his hand rested on my thigh. At the stoplight, his
Speaker 1: eyes in the rearview flicked to my face, soft and
Speaker 1: a little tired. By the time we finally slid into
Speaker 1: our usual spot at the Horseshoe, the bar was already
Speaker 1: two thirds full, the trivia man's voice croaking about movie soundtracks.
Speaker 1: Half the group waved Jen with her always sparkling nails,
Speaker 1: Mike in his standard Cubs hoodie, Dug pouting over a
Speaker 1: missing appetizer. Then Claire, sitting between Jen and Mike, rose
Speaker 1: a little from her seat and waved me over Aye bright.
Speaker 1: I hated to admit it, but it still felt like
Speaker 1: she was new to us, even though she'd been around
Speaker 1: for a couple of months. New, but with the baked
Speaker 1: in confidence of someone who believed they were supposed to belong.
Speaker 1: Mark greeted everyone with a flare. I envied I was
Speaker 1: always slow to unpeal from my day, but he seemed
Speaker 1: to reset to social mode as naturally as breathing. He
Speaker 1: traded a quip about my endless meetings with Mike, fielded
Speaker 1: Jen's hug, and then almost imperceptibly bumped knuckles with Clare.
Speaker 1: They laughed at something I didn't catch, watching each other's faces.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why I noticed her more than usual, the
Speaker 1: way she leaned in when Mark spoke, brushing her dark
Speaker 1: hair behind her ear with a flick that seemed practiced.
Speaker 1: Their body language was open, easy, maybe too easy. I
Speaker 1: told myself it was nothing, just the stand by wariness
Speaker 1: I got around people who looked like they might usurp
Speaker 1: my spot as Mark's best audience. The trivia kicked into
Speaker 1: its second round. Mark excused himself, waving his phone work sorry,
Speaker 1: he mouthed across the table. He often fielded last minute
Speaker 1: texts from clients, wedding planners, or occasionally his brother. I
Speaker 1: only half listened to the whispered guesses about Tom Hanks movies,
Speaker 1: letting my eyes drift. As Mark stepped outside the ring
Speaker 1: of tables, phone glowing against his cheek, I saw him smiling,
Speaker 1: not the polite yes, I'm available, smile he usually used
Speaker 1: for business, but something lighter, his whole face engaged. When
Speaker 1: he came back, Michael scooted over and Mark squeezed my
Speaker 1: shoulder as he sat, almost over compensating for the time away.
Speaker 1: Jen tried to loop him in on a debate about
Speaker 1: cult horror films, but he seemed preoccupied, glancing at his phone,
Speaker 1: then a few minutes later, excusing himself again, another call,
Speaker 1: another disappearance into the noisy dim of the bar's entrance.
Speaker 1: Watching him pace, hear only fragments, Ah, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: to morrow, probably six. I felt a small prickle, nothing more,
Speaker 1: Probably just a difficult client, or maybe a family update
Speaker 1: about his niece's graduation. There was always something. But as
Speaker 1: he returned, brushing some invisible lint from his T shirt,
Speaker 1: the last round of questions queued up. Mark slid into
Speaker 1: his spot next to Claire, their knees almost touching. Claire
Speaker 1: tossed a napkin at him, accused him of missing the
Speaker 1: world's Easiest beetles question. They fell into an easy loop
Speaker 1: of half teasing, making references about bad roof top lighting,
Speaker 1: which nobody else seemed to know. Jen looked at me,
Speaker 1: then at them a flash of something unreadable in her eyes.
Speaker 1: I chalked it up to trivia nerves, or maybe the
Speaker 1: fact that Claire, an outsider by time but not energy,
Speaker 1: pulled the table's focus almost as quickly as Mark did
Speaker 1: on his best days. By the time the check came,
Speaker 1: Mark covered my beer, Claire tossed her card into the pile,
Speaker 1: and every one rose in a fluid, haphazard clump, good byes,
Speaker 1: dissolving into small a subgroups. As we stepped into the night,
Speaker 1: Mark lingered, saying something low to Claire, who smiled, eyes down,
Speaker 1: drawing circles on the condensation of her pint glass. There
Speaker 1: was a pause, only a few seconds, where their attention shifted,
Speaker 1: tuned into each other in a way that felt private, coded.
Speaker 1: I looked away, instinctively, telling myself not to read more
Speaker 1: into it than necessary. Still, that discomfort nagged at me.
Speaker 1: On the drive home, Mark was chatty, telling me about
Speaker 1: a weird lens malfunction and making cracks about dugs over
Speaker 1: confidence in geography. There was nothing obviously amiss in what
Speaker 1: he said, but once we were alone in our apartment,
Speaker 1: our post trivia rituals felt off kilter. He was oddly
Speaker 1: intent on being helpful offering to make me camermle tea,
Speaker 1: asking if I wanted to catch up on our show.
Speaker 1: I tried to let myself fall back into that rhythm,
Speaker 1: to focus on his familiar gestures, the way he pressed
Speaker 1: a soft kiss behind my ear as I brushed my
Speaker 1: teeth and uderneath. Though, was that static of discomfort less
Speaker 1: the sharpness of jealousy, and more the weight of something
Speaker 1: I was supposed to ignore, to let dissolve with sleep work.
Speaker 1: The next morning, a slew of Monday morning advertising stand
Speaker 1: ups offered only a hangover of distraction. I found myself
Speaker 1: replaying the night in fragments, the phone calls, the intimate
Speaker 1: ease with Claire, the look they shared as we left.
Speaker 1: I reminded myself that our group had always been open,
Speaker 1: that new faces rotated in and out. That Mark was
Speaker 1: the last person any one could accuse of crossing boundaries.
Speaker 1: He didn't even recognize Our marriage, I reasoned, had always
Speaker 1: survived on the ability to trust that we weren't each
Speaker 1: other's entire world. Still, I couldn't stop rehearsing those little gaps,
Speaker 1: as though eventually I'd stumble on the way they fit together.
Speaker 1: That summer marked our sixth wedding anniversary, ten years since
Speaker 1: Mark had spilled beer down my sleeve at an art
Speaker 1: exhibit in Anderson. He'd apologized with almost theatrical embarrassment, but
Speaker 1: I didn't mind the way he'd talked about the lightning
Speaker 1: in an old Vivian mare, a photo stuck in my head.
Speaker 1: We d grown up me into the world of deadline
Speaker 1: driven campaigns, him into a patchwork life of shooting apartments,
Speaker 1: weddings events, with the occasional gallery job that reminded us
Speaker 1: of why he started in the first place. We'd carved
Speaker 1: out a space for ourselves in Wicker Park, with its
Speaker 1: droning l trains and dive bars, surrounded by people who
Speaker 1: felt like family. We couldn't afford a house on our street,
Speaker 1: but the top floor apartment was ours. Mismatched furniture and
Speaker 1: all our routines, more comforting than restrictive, had a stretching elasticity.
Speaker 1: On Sunday mornings, whoever woke up first made coffee. Then
Speaker 1: we'd amble down to stand s for doughnuts, dodging tourists
Speaker 1: with their pink boxes. If a big campaign was winding up,
Speaker 1: I might skip a walk for emails, but Mark liked
Speaker 1: to drag me out for photo strolls, cam a clattering
Speaker 1: pockets filled with lens caps, his fingers always chilly from
Speaker 1: adjusting settings. Wednesday trivia was non negotiable, even when my
Speaker 1: bosses passive, aggressive all caps emails gave me a migrain.
Speaker 1: Those nights were when our friend network overlapped, a web
Speaker 1: held together by in jokes, shared drinks, and the careful
Speaker 1: avoidance of topics like politics, office grievances, or relationship complaints.
Speaker 1: Mark was the opposite of me, less rigid, less haunted
Speaker 1: by to do lists. If I missed a punchline or
Speaker 1: turned down a spur of the moment dinner invite, he'd
Speaker 1: let it go. He knew how to support me when
Speaker 1: I got tunnel vision, leaving silly, sticky notes by my
Speaker 1: laptop or texting memes during late nights at the office.
Speaker 1: If a client's request for just one more revision drove
Speaker 1: me insane, he'd playfully threatened to email my CEO, and
Speaker 1: I'd relax enough to apologize for my mood. Of course,
Speaker 1: his flexibility sometimes fed into unpredictability. A week could begin
Speaker 1: with three bookings, an end with a random cancelation, depending
Speaker 1: on whether moods or the whims of influencers needing last
Speaker 1: minute shots. I envied his ability to bounce, but I'd
Speaker 1: grown used to the patches where he felt partially absent
Speaker 1: there but with his attention roving elsewhere, waiting for either
Speaker 1: inspiration or the check to clear. Sometimes I worried I
Speaker 1: was just the boring, overworked spouse, anchored in the day
Speaker 1: to day while Mark floated from project to project, sustaining
Speaker 1: on adrenaline and praise. He, for his part, sometimes implied
Speaker 1: that I didn't know how to power down, that my
Speaker 1: ambition came before everything, even the chance to just exist together.
Speaker 1: But when it worked, it really worked. I'd get home late,
Speaker 1: he'd warm up leftovers, and we'd eat on the living
Speaker 1: room floor, giggling at YouTube fails or dissecting some absurd
Speaker 1: ad slogan. The trivia group was the closest thing we
Speaker 1: had to joint therapy. Most of our friends came from
Speaker 1: college or old gallery nights, or long defunct bands. They'd
Speaker 1: seen us drunk, angry, broke, celebratory. Jen and Mike even
Speaker 1: crashed on our couch for a week after their apartment flooded.
Speaker 1: Our group absorbed wounds and adopted newcomers when someone needed
Speaker 1: a table to sit at, a kind of shapeless, resilient
Speaker 1: organism that provided safety even with the revolving door of jobs, relationships,
Speaker 1: and existential dread. Claire was a recent introduction through Jen,
Speaker 1: who'd met her via a coworker's wedding. She destarted showing
Speaker 1: up just before spring. Sharp, witted with big eyes and hair,
Speaker 1: always in some faintly dramatic updo, quick to laugh, able
Speaker 1: to call out our inside jokes without overstepping. She slotted
Speaker 1: herself between Jen and Mike, not because she was especially
Speaker 1: close to them, but because she had an almost logical
Speaker 1: place in the conversation. I tried not to resent her
Speaker 1: easy rapport with Mark. It made sense. A photographer by Trey,
Speaker 1: Mark had a soft spot for people drawn to art
Speaker 1: and chaos, qualities Claire had in abundance. She worked in
Speaker 1: urban planning, according to Jen, but never seemed particularly weighed
Speaker 1: down by career anxiety. Her job let her dip into
Speaker 1: different circles and bars and roof top meet ups with
Speaker 1: the flexibility of someone still mid ascension. That spring, we
Speaker 1: decided again to save for a trip France, maybe or Iceland,
Speaker 1: something suitably adventurous, but still within the reach of our
Speaker 1: slow growing joint account. We never splurged, but found small pleasures.
Speaker 1: The right red wine, a view of the skyline from
Speaker 1: our fire escape, the muted satisfaction of having made it
Speaker 1: another week. I told myself that was enough most days.
Speaker 1: Two trivia nights later, just as April began pretending to
Speaker 1: be summer, I started to notice a change, subtle at first,
Speaker 1: more suspicious in hindsight. Mark left the table more often
Speaker 1: during our sessions, phone, always buzzing, sometimes laughing to himself
Speaker 1: as he scrolled. I watched him from across the pint glasses,
Speaker 1: noting the way he'd lean over to whisper something to
Speaker 1: Claire that made her snort, her hand covering her mouth
Speaker 1: in mock horror. They volleyed jokes back and forth, sometimes
Speaker 1: referencing inside Barbes. I couldn't pin to any previous night.
Speaker 1: Remember what happened with the ladder on North DayMen, Claire teased, once,
Speaker 1: nudging Mark as he wiped foam from his lip. God,
Speaker 1: I almost broke my neck, Mark said, and they both laughed.
Speaker 1: I racked my brain. I had no recollection of any
Speaker 1: ladder incident, and I considered myself the group's keeper of
Speaker 1: embarrassing stories. It felt like their version of short hand,
Speaker 1: a private dialect that excluded the rest of us. Not
Speaker 1: avert hostility, just a touch of insulation I wasn't used
Speaker 1: to from Mark. Still, I'd learned to rationalize. People gravitate
Speaker 1: toward those who share their frustrations. Mark's freelance world was
Speaker 1: full of moments I couldn't fully understand. I'd made peace
Speaker 1: with being the suit, as Jen jokingly called me, surrounded
Speaker 1: by creatives who rotated their obsessions as quickly as they
Speaker 1: switched camera lenses. Maybe Claire had found her way into
Speaker 1: those in between hours, a confidant to Mark's professional uncertainty,
Speaker 1: someone who got client flakiness and long lonely days behind
Speaker 1: light meters and light room. The following weekend, Mark mentioned
Speaker 1: he might spend an afternoon scouting a new roof top
Speaker 1: for a potential shoot. Usually he'd pitch his plan in detail, route,
Speaker 1: mapped back up options, even a quick run down of
Speaker 1: what he hoped to capture. This time, he was vague.
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure if it's accessible. Someone at a
Speaker 1: gallery told me about it, he said, rifling through his
Speaker 1: bag for his favorite scarf. Who s someone? I asked,
Speaker 1: playful but curious. He paused, shrugged, just a friend from
Speaker 1: a thing might be a bust. Don't wait up, I'll
Speaker 1: text if I get good light. He left with a wink,
Speaker 1: closing the door behind him. I sat back on the couch,
Speaker 1: the residue of exclusion more noticeable than I expected. I
Speaker 1: told myself, not every detail required a partner's approval. Sometimes
Speaker 1: Mark's best shoots happened because he let himself wander still.
Speaker 1: It was unusual for him to gloss over the specifics.
Speaker 1: Even his failed attempts at new locations became long stories,
Speaker 1: carefully recounted over take out. I spent the afternoon sifting
Speaker 1: through decks for an upcoming campaign. The quiet uncanny in
Speaker 1: our usually lively apartment. Mark texted after sundon a grainy
Speaker 1: photo of the skyline from an angle I couldn't place.
Speaker 1: The caption was just maybe next time with you missed
Speaker 1: your lens with a red heart. It should have made
Speaker 1: me feel included. Instead, it felt like a consolation prize,
Speaker 1: something to keep me off the scent. I tried to
Speaker 1: shake it off, telling myself, not everything's a me. After all,
Speaker 1: everyone deserved a little boundary in their creative life. Maybe
Speaker 1: the grind had left me raw. The next shift came stealthily,
Speaker 1: almost laughably mundane at first, A Thursday morning hangover. That's subtle,
Speaker 1: fuzzy edged kind you don't admit to when you're thirty.
Speaker 1: Two found me standing in the kitchen, absently scrolling my
Speaker 1: emails when my phone pinged with a text from Mike. Hey, Mark,
Speaker 1: get home? O ka last night after post trivia drinks.
Speaker 1: Post trivia drinks, Mark had texted at ten fifteen p m.
Speaker 1: Heading home. Be there soon? Want anything? I d said no,
Speaker 1: assuming he was in an euber. He'd come in around
Speaker 1: ten forty, kicked off his shoes, smelled of rain and gin,
Speaker 1: and headed for the shower. There dee be nothing unusual
Speaker 1: in the routine. I thumbed a neutral reply to Mike.
Speaker 1: Yeah he made it home. Hope nobody lost it in
Speaker 1: the hurricane outside, Then paused, unsettled what drinks? Who'd gone?
Speaker 1: Should I ask Mark? Or would that sound possessive? For
Speaker 1: a second, I considered calling Jen, then thought better of it. Mark,
Speaker 1: of course downplayed it. Every One wanted one more round,
Speaker 1: but I was wiped left early. He was making coffee,
Speaker 1: tying his hair back, still damp from the shower, his
Speaker 1: eyes flicked up to meet mine, steady, unhurried, Mike seemed
Speaker 1: to think you hung out a bit longer, I said,
Speaker 1: studying his face, Guess I mixed up? Who went home?
Speaker 1: When he nodded and smiled, No, he left before I did.
Speaker 1: I think everyone was just tired. I couldn't find fault
Speaker 1: in his explanation. The words weren't wrong, but the casual
Speaker 1: nature of his answer slipped past the mark. Not a lie,
Speaker 1: just an opening for more questions. The next Wednesday, Mark
Speaker 1: claimed exhaustion. Let's skip trivia tonight. Feel like I got steamrolled.
Speaker 1: My back's a mess from the warehouse shoot, and I
Speaker 1: want to catch up on edits before I lose daylight.
Speaker 1: He sprawled on the couch, scrolling through lightroom, his phone
Speaker 1: on silent. I hesitated, tempted to insist, but decided to
Speaker 1: fly solo. The bar was just a few blocks. If
Speaker 1: nothing else, it would give me a chance to vent
Speaker 1: to Jen. The group felt off kilter without Mark, Jen
Speaker 1: was anxious, Mike distracted, Doug preoccupied with an argument about
Speaker 1: the Bill. Claire, however, was absent the first time since
Speaker 1: she joined. I spent most of the evening sipping cider,
Speaker 1: listening to Jen paddle frantically between stories, nervous laughter sliding
Speaker 1: off her tongue. Later, as I wound down, I checked Instagram,
Speaker 1: unprepared for the sting of Mark's story. A wide selfie
Speaker 1: taken at a trendy spot on Randolph. Four faces in frame, Mark, Claire,
Speaker 1: a guy named Aaron I barely knew, and a smiling
Speaker 1: woman I'd never seen. The caption spontaneous hangs this city.
Speaker 1: Three ten minutes later, Mark texted, headed home after surprise drinks,
Speaker 1: need anything. The timeline didn't make sense if he'd spent
Speaker 1: the evening on the couch. The photo had clearly been
Speaker 1: taken during sunset. My hands shook as I scrolled through
Speaker 1: Claire's account. She'd posted an artsy cocktail and a shadowy
Speaker 1: shot of a city roof top, The color balance eerily familiar.
Speaker 1: I swallowed the urge to confront him right away. Instead,
Speaker 1: I tried to draw it out later, over reheated pizza,
Speaker 1: feeling my way through, feigned nonchalance. How'd the editing go?
Speaker 1: Mark yawned, then said something about backlog, how the warehouse
Speaker 1: gig kept shifting, so he'd opted to grab food out
Speaker 1: instead and talk through timing with a client. Ended up
Speaker 1: running into Claire and Aaron went for a drink. I
Speaker 1: tried to remember if Mark had ever met up with
Speaker 1: Claire on his own before. Not really, not unless you
Speaker 1: counted group things. I wanted to ask, did you plan it?
Speaker 1: But something in his face suggested I be prying. He
Speaker 1: began referencing the warehouse shoot repeatedly, an event that never
Speaker 1: seemed to materialize, but served as a recurring excuse. Dates
Speaker 1: would change, last minute, lighting would be all wrong, clients
Speaker 1: would flake. But one Thursday night, as I stuffed his
Speaker 1: coat into the hallway closet, a slip of paper caught
Speaker 1: my eye. A receipt from Celeste, a restaurant known for
Speaker 1: its candle it booths and expertly made old fashions. The
Speaker 1: date was yesterday, one of the so called shoot nights.
Speaker 1: The total showed two entrees, two cocktails, and a dessert.
Speaker 1: When he got in, I pressed gently. Was the set
Speaker 1: up long? Sounds like a late night? Mark looked tired,
Speaker 1: dropped onto the bed, shoes still tied. Yeah, actually everything
Speaker 1: took forever. Grabbed take out with one of the clients
Speaker 1: after because we were both starving. The lie had enough
Speaker 1: ordinary detail to feel plausible, but I couldn't remember the
Speaker 1: last time Mark had described a shoot with such perfunctory care. Usually,
Speaker 1: he over shared photos, impressions of the crew, what did
Speaker 1: and didn't work, complaints about the music or the weird
Speaker 1: smell of old wood and spilled red bull. At home,
Speaker 1: Mark's presence became more variable. He kept his phone face
Speaker 1: down and appended his usual habits. He'd hold it in
Speaker 1: his lap, screen on, face shifting as texts popped up.
Speaker 1: He would laugh at something and when asked, say just
Speaker 1: stupid work drama, but never offer specifics. Once I pressed
Speaker 1: everything okay with the studio, he shrugged and said, just
Speaker 1: people being flaky. Claire posted a cityscape shot on her stories,
Speaker 1: a blurred pastel view from a roof top. I recognized
Speaker 1: Mark and I had once gone there, fought through a
Speaker 1: crowd of Instagrammers for the last spot on the ledge.
Speaker 1: She'd tagged nothing and no one, but I would have
Speaker 1: bet money. I knew whose shoes were in the bottom
Speaker 1: corner of the frame, half in shadow. I called Jen
Speaker 1: one night, under the pretense of recommending a new bar.
Speaker 1: We drifted, chatted about work office awkwardness. Then I pivoted
Speaker 1: so Claire and Mark seemed to be hanging out a
Speaker 1: lot lately. Her Jen's breath hitched. She changed topics, invited
Speaker 1: me to some gallery opening, deflected, then said quietly, try
Speaker 1: not to overthink the Mark clayre thing like she was
Speaker 1: repeating something she'd already told herself. After that call, I
Speaker 1: swore I wouldn't chase down clues, but the habit was
Speaker 1: too strong. I checked social media obsessively. Posts started to
Speaker 1: overlap Claire's latte in wicker Park. Ten minutes after Mark
Speaker 1: posted a photo of unexpected espresso break, a mural selfie
Speaker 1: I remembered posing in front of last year, only now
Speaker 1: it's Claire and Mark captioned chasing colors. Mark gradually stopped
Speaker 1: inviting me on photo walks. Once the highlight of any
Speaker 1: weekend when neither of us had worked spitfire to dodge.
Speaker 1: I just need solo, creative time, he said, dodging my
Speaker 1: gaze as he loaded up his gear bag, trying to
Speaker 1: catch up on a new idea might be nothing. When
Speaker 1: he got back, he'd be affectionate, but absent, arms around me,
Speaker 1: eyes somewhere else, absent mindedly stroking my arm while his
Speaker 1: phone vibrated in his pocket. Intimacy felt obligatory, more polite
Speaker 1: than urgent, as if he was checking off a box
Speaker 1: for normalcy. I started sleeping poorly, a gnawing, uneasy worry
Speaker 1: that had no clear shape, just a tightness in my chest.
Speaker 1: I compensated by throwing myself into launched time lands at work,
Speaker 1: but on the margins Sunday mornings, empty Tuesday nights, I
Speaker 1: found myself scrolling, comparing time stamps, reconstructing days and locations
Speaker 1: from clues that nobody else would find suspicious. One night,
Speaker 1: I said, it feels like you're a million miles away,
Speaker 1: the words tumbling out as an accusation and a plea
Speaker 1: in the same breath. Mark looked at me, expressions softening
Speaker 1: with guilt and confusion. That's not fair. You know how
Speaker 1: scattered I get when I'm working. I thought you liked
Speaker 1: having your own space. I nodded, pretending to buy it,
Speaker 1: But every new piece of circumstantial evidence crowded out my
Speaker 1: version of the story. The spiral hit a fever pitch
Speaker 1: the night I tried to cross the line between suspicion
Speaker 1: and certainty. Mark was brushing his teeth, humming Nirvana, and
Speaker 1: I hovered in the doorway with the faintest edge of apology.
Speaker 1: Tell me if I'm being weird, But is there like
Speaker 1: something going on with you and Claire? I tried for joking,
Speaker 1: almost light. He gagged on his mouth washed spat, then grinned.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the Clare conspiracy. He flicked foam from
Speaker 1: his chin, shaking his head. I'm flattered, honestly, but it's
Speaker 1: not like that. Claire wants to learn photography. She's been
Speaker 1: coming out for extra practice. I said yes, because honestly,
Speaker 1: every one else in the trivia group kind of hates her.
Speaker 1: He shrugged, searching my face. I didn't want drama, so
Speaker 1: I avoided trivia until people cooled off. Something about the
Speaker 1: length and tempo of his explanation caught me off guard.
Speaker 1: It was a story, neat and finished, and it sounded
Speaker 1: almost plausible. I tried not to grill him, just nodded
Speaker 1: and let him pull me onto the couch. He was
Speaker 1: for the next few days, tender in a way that
Speaker 1: almost reset things. Made coffee before I woke up, planned
Speaker 1: a surprise brunch at the bakery where we'd had our
Speaker 1: first real talk about the future. There was laughter, real,
Speaker 1: unforced woven into those days, echoing the early years when
Speaker 1: we'd lived off burnt toast and found money for jam
Speaker 1: bands in the park. On the next trivia night, Claire
Speaker 1: was missing and the group felt tense. Mike in particular,
Speaker 1: seemed to avoid meeting my eye during a break. He
Speaker 1: sidled up and gestured sheepishly, Hey, I think I made
Speaker 1: it weird when I texted about Mark last week. He
Speaker 1: scratched behind one ear, eyes darting. He he went straight home, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Ignore me. I was tipsy. I tried
Speaker 1: to smile, but doubt nagged at the corners. Jen avoided
Speaker 1: the claar topic entirely. I wanted to cherish the brief relief,
Speaker 1: but it only seemed to thin out, stretched, taut and
Speaker 1: ready to snap. If anything, the group's discomfort sat heavier
Speaker 1: in my chest. What were they seeing that I wasn't
Speaker 1: supposed to? What lines, if any, had already been crossed?
Speaker 1: It was a Saturday that brought things to a quieter,
Speaker 1: colder crisis. Mark was out at a supposed day long shoot,
Speaker 1: and I'd been clearing our shared office, going through boxes,
Speaker 1: sorting charges, prepping for my own zoom call. His back
Speaker 1: up camera, a battered olympus he only used for personal shots.
Speaker 1: Lay on the desk, memory card poking half way out.
Speaker 1: I idly powered it on, not thinking the first images
Speaker 1: were standard skylines, alleyways, some blurry test exposures, than a
Speaker 1: series that stopped me mid score, roof tops, sunset, Mark
Speaker 1: laughing in profyl bathed in that particular city gold, Claire
Speaker 1: beside him, her face upturned, her hand resting lightly on
Speaker 1: his knee, Another Mark with his arm extended. Claire's hair
Speaker 1: twisted around his fingers. Both faces flushed with familiarity, close
Speaker 1: enough for a casual lover's gesture, the kind that doesn't
Speaker 1: get rehearsed. I thumbed forward, heart pounding in my rib cage,
Speaker 1: A set inside a tunnel of fairy lights, chandeliered above
Speaker 1: a speakeasy I'd never visited. In each frame, Claire was
Speaker 1: front and center, her proximity to Mark, impossible to mistake
Speaker 1: for photography lessons. My husband's eyes weren't neutral. They lingered,
Speaker 1: reflected something greedy, my world tilting. I had no plan,
Speaker 1: no script. My body felt numb, my mind flitting between
Speaker 1: clarity and blankness. I texted Jen, voice trembling on the call.
Speaker 1: She answered, I didn't even need to explain. I asked
Speaker 1: for a drink, something normal, and she didn't protest. We
Speaker 1: met at a bar near her office, and after one
Speaker 1: cocktail's worth of chitchat, I blurted, I found photos of
Speaker 1: Mark and clear. It's not nothing, Jen, it's not Please
Speaker 1: just say something. Jen's composure cracked. She looked down, thumbed
Speaker 1: a spot on her glass. I told him he was
Speaker 1: crossing lines, she said quietly. I said it wasn't my place,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't cover for him. I wasn't even sure
Speaker 1: how far it went. I only know she moved to
Speaker 1: Chicago for work, and he god, he was lonely. Maybe
Speaker 1: she looked stricken. He never told me details, I swear,
Speaker 1: but I guess I was hoping it wouldn't get this far.
Speaker 1: Everything screeched to a halt inside me. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be angry at her, but mostly I felt a drift
Speaker 1: the world muffled. Why didn't you tell me, I whispered.
Speaker 1: She looked up, tears brightening her eyes. I was your
Speaker 1: friend first, but I thought maybe it was a phase
Speaker 1: or he'd tell you before was too late. I left
Speaker 1: the bar half dazed. Home was alien, now a collection
Speaker 1: of clues I'd ignored. I went back through Claire and
Speaker 1: Mark's posts for weeks, piecing together a calendar of betrayals.
Speaker 1: Each coincidence was now a pointed absence, the calls, the
Speaker 1: changed schedules, Mark's giddiness at innocent texts. At home, I
Speaker 1: was too good an actor. Mark peered at me, asking
Speaker 1: if I was okay, pressing when I snapped too quickly,
Speaker 1: blaming my mood on work deadlines. I nodded, smiled, played
Speaker 1: the compliant spouse, while panic writhed inside me. The truth
Speaker 1: was finally taking shape, waiting to finish its slow motion collapse.
Speaker 1: But I still needed him to say it out loud,
Speaker 1: to strip the lie of its last defense. And he
Speaker 1: still seemed to think, somehow that if he smiled and
Speaker 1: poured my wine, he could keep the lines blurred a
Speaker 1: little longer. The days that followed felt like walking through water,
Speaker 1: heavy limbed, every action slightly delayed by the undertow of
Speaker 1: everything I hadn't asked and everything he hadn't said. Mark,
Speaker 1: for his part, acted as though nothing had changed, If anything,
Speaker 1: he was slightly more in tune with me, fussing with breakfast,
Speaker 1: leaving out the good honey for my toast, sending texts
Speaker 1: that read thinking of you, Hope your day isn't a
Speaker 1: war zone. He seemed to sense some tension, but whatever
Speaker 1: conclusion he'd arrived at, he never voiced it beyond low
Speaker 1: grade concern. Maybe he believed my agitation was just the
Speaker 1: natural rise and fall of campaign stress. Or maybe he'd
Speaker 1: gotten so used to managing parallel realities that anything short
Speaker 1: of outright confrontation slid by unnoticed. I caught myself noticing
Speaker 1: new things. How he'd linger by the window, phone cupped
Speaker 1: in his palm, scanning messages with a tiny, contained smile,
Speaker 1: Or how he'd trail his hand down my back in
Speaker 1: the morning, eyes hazy, and then check his phone as
Speaker 1: soon as he thought I'd turned away. We de invented
Speaker 1: all these rituals over years. Who made the oat milk lattes,
Speaker 1: whose turn it was to take the trash out, which
Speaker 1: side of the bed we started from? But suddenly every
Speaker 1: touch felt slightly off, like it belonged to another version
Speaker 1: of us that had diverged long ago. One Thursday, I
Speaker 1: took a half day, I lied about a migrain so
Speaker 1: I could walk aimlessly along Milwaukee Avenue, headphones in, letting
Speaker 1: music drown out analysis, I found myself outside Gallery seven
Speaker 1: hundred thirty eight, the tiny space where we'd first met.
Speaker 1: The front windows were covered in fliers, open calls, poetry nights,
Speaker 1: a hand drawn sign about an upcoming urban photography showcase.
Speaker 1: I almost texted Mark to tell him, then stopped, my
Speaker 1: chest tightened. We hadn't gone to a gallery together in months.
Speaker 1: I ended up at Filter, our old coffee spot, and
Speaker 1: ordered a cappuccino, just to sit in the back, letting
Speaker 1: the foam settle For a few minutes. I tried to
Speaker 1: recall what loving Mark felt like before suspicion entered, before
Speaker 1: half truths and cropped photos, and the sense that every
Speaker 1: familiar gesture might be covering something else. But even those
Speaker 1: memories had been tinged. Maybe I'd always worried about being
Speaker 1: too much the grown up, and he'd always been half
Speaker 1: in love with the idea of possibility, the next project,
Speaker 1: the alluring edge of a new friendship. Maybe Claire had
Speaker 1: just arrived at the right or wrong moment. When I
Speaker 1: got home, Mark wasn't there Our apartment was quiet, light
Speaker 1: streaming in through the mismatched curtains. I avoided our office
Speaker 1: and settled on the bed, staring at the crack in
Speaker 1: the ceiling we always said we'd get around to fixing.
Speaker 1: My phone buzzed around seven, still caught up at the chute.
Speaker 1: Late dinner o K. I wrote back, all good left
Speaker 1: overs in the fridge if you want then, because it
Speaker 1: felt cowardly not to, I added hope it's a good one.
Speaker 1: Less than a minute later, three dots began to bubble,
Speaker 1: then disappear. He didn't reply further. Later that night, I
Speaker 1: went to retrieve my running shoes from the hall Mark's
Speaker 1: camera bag was propped against the door, half zipped with
Speaker 1: a stack of glossy prints peeking out. Something in me
Speaker 1: itch to look, just to see what images had been
Speaker 1: important enough to print. My fingers hovered, then retreated. I
Speaker 1: felt sick with my own curiosity, but also humiliated, knowing
Speaker 1: the line I was not yet ready to cross. Instead,
Speaker 1: I cleaned, drug out old bills and mail from under
Speaker 1: the couch, re arranged the books on our side table.
Speaker 1: Found a Hotel key card wedged behind a plant pot.
Speaker 1: I held it, turning it over the drake. Mark had
Speaker 1: shot a wedding there in February, I remembered, and I
Speaker 1: distinctly recalled him coming home with a box of tiny
Speaker 1: pastries from the caterer. I stood in the stillness, holding
Speaker 1: the card like a puzzle piece that might or might
Speaker 1: not belong. Keys rattled in the door. Mark came in,
Speaker 1: hair wind blown, shoulders hunched, Hey called, shedding his coat
Speaker 1: and setting his gear down with exaggerated care. Long day,
Speaker 1: my voice barely carried. He put on a smile, walked
Speaker 1: to where I still stood, feeling caught in the honeyed
Speaker 1: spill of hallway light. Brutal light sucked. Every one was late,
Speaker 1: totally not worth it. You want me to heat something up?
Speaker 1: He looked at me for a moment, eyes lingering on
Speaker 1: the key card in my hand. There was a single
Speaker 1: blink of calculation. Then his smile brightened. Oh, you found
Speaker 1: that I missed that gig by a hare, should have
Speaker 1: seen the skyline totally blew out my metering, been meaning
Speaker 1: to return it. I was certain, almost painfully so, that
Speaker 1: I'd asked him to return that card months ago. But
Speaker 1: I found my mouth shaping in answer. I didn't believe,
Speaker 1: guess you forgot guess, so he said easily, then came
Speaker 1: forward and tugged at the ends of my hair. You
Speaker 1: looked tired. We bickered gently over leftovers, neither of saying
Speaker 1: what needed to be said. For the hundredth time, I
Speaker 1: wondered if this was how marriage wore thin, not with
Speaker 1: one spectacular fracture, but in the slow erosion of truth,
Speaker 1: both giving just enough to pretend nothing was wrong. That night,
Speaker 1: I barely slept. Mark's breathing was even beside me, but
Speaker 1: at some point he rolled away and his phone vibrated
Speaker 1: quietly from beneath his pillow. Instead of asking in the morning,
Speaker 1: I pretended not to notice. Friday brought a fresh round
Speaker 1: of work drama. Another client, Melton, a new campaign shoot
Speaker 1: postponed for weather, and me derailed holding my lunch breaks
Speaker 1: for furtive checks of Claire's Instagram. She deposted a story
Speaker 1: just a silhouette broad shouldered with the foggy outline of
Speaker 1: the Hancock building behind it. Mark didn't appear, but he'd
Speaker 1: followed the post. Within minutes. I checked the location tag.
Speaker 1: Anonymous roof tops her humor. Apparently, what truly burned was
Speaker 1: the sense that everyone in our world on a layer
Speaker 1: of meaning I couldn't access. I bumped into Jen at
Speaker 1: the bodegger on Damon in the early evening, our baskets
Speaker 1: clashing in the narrow aisle. She looked genuinely startled to
Speaker 1: see me, then smiled too widely. Hey, stranger, groceries for
Speaker 1: date night? Not exactly marks out late again, some gig
Speaker 1: you up to anything? My attempt at casual inquiry fell flat.
Speaker 1: She chewed her lip. Oh, yeah, I'm doing a zoom
Speaker 1: with my cousin. Too lazy to go out. You too,
Speaker 1: should catch a break sometime, recharge. She said it awkwardly,
Speaker 1: like someone repeating advice from a therapist. I nodded, then asked,
Speaker 1: how's Claire. She's everywhere lately. Jen's eyes tightened around the edges.
Speaker 1: She keeps busy. You know how she is? Bounces all
Speaker 1: over She's I don't know. I think she's figuring herself out.
Speaker 1: She stacked a row of granola bars in a basket
Speaker 1: with a determined focus, eyes not meet mine. We stood
Speaker 1: there parallel, all the words that wanted to come out
Speaker 1: still suspended between us. Finally, Jen added, you coming to
Speaker 1: Trivia next week? I'll be there. I said, hardly recognizing
Speaker 1: my own voice. She smiled, shallow and sad, then booked
Speaker 1: it for the register. The moment felt unfinished, a conversation
Speaker 1: interrupted by fear, or loyalty, or both. That week end,
Speaker 1: Mark was home more than usual Saturday. We lays together
Speaker 1: until noon, watching Jeopardy reruns and eating cold cereal on
Speaker 1: the living room floor. He teased me about my endless
Speaker 1: email alerts, and I threw a pillow at him, letting
Speaker 1: myself believe for a few hours that this, this easy,
Speaker 1: undemanding intimacy, was what mattered. We took a walk around Wicker,
Speaker 1: got caught in a spring shower, ducked into a tiny
Speaker 1: record store that always smelled faintly of mildew and vinyl grease.
Speaker 1: He held my hand, squeezing three times, I love you
Speaker 1: our old code, and I squeezed back, almost unable to
Speaker 1: distinguish the comfort from the ache. At dinner, we sat
Speaker 1: across from each other, trading SIPs of his craft Sider.
Speaker 1: I watched him in the yellow light, his laughter easily
Speaker 1: filling the space, eyes crinkling with unnamed delight. Had Claire
Speaker 1: seen this? Did she know the warmth that Mark radiated
Speaker 1: when he was engaged, present, the way he smiled with
Speaker 1: his whole body. I caught myself angry at both of them,
Speaker 1: at Mark for whatever he was hiding, at her for
Speaker 1: trespassing on something she could not possibly understand. Later, as
Speaker 1: we made our way home, he stopped on the corner
Speaker 1: to frame a shot of a Neon sign reflected in
Speaker 1: a puddle. Hold this, he asked, handing me his camera
Speaker 1: bag while he crouched almost childlike, boots soaked, completely absorbed.
Speaker 1: For an instant I realized I was grieving the loss
Speaker 1: of being the only one who got to see Mark
Speaker 1: like this, wholly focused, unguarded, beautiful in his obsession. Was
Speaker 1: that all it took to feel irrelevant, placed a supporting
Speaker 1: character in someone else's story. That night, Mark reached for
Speaker 1: me in bed. He was gentle, almost tentative, kissing me
Speaker 1: with the sweet patience reserved for the beginnings of things,
Speaker 1: not the endings. I wanted to lose myself in it,
Speaker 1: to merge our bodies as a way of banishing my suspicion,
Speaker 1: or maybe forgiving him for something I couldn't yet prove.
Speaker 1: But even in the heat of it, I felt the
Speaker 1: separation some essential privacy. He no longer granted me some
Speaker 1: warmth that never quite bridged the gap. He whispered I
Speaker 1: love you, and I whispered it back, wishing I could
Speaker 1: crawl back inside my own certainty. The following Monday, back
Speaker 1: in our office, I toggled between spreadsheets and client calls,
Speaker 1: nerves jangling with every text notification. Early afternoon, Mark called
Speaker 1: from another room, Hey, have you seen my black memory
Speaker 1: card case? I startled, almost dropping my mug. No, did
Speaker 1: you check your jacket? He responded with a distracted yeah,
Speaker 1: might have left it at the studio. No, biggie. The
Speaker 1: casualness was unconvincing, but I let it go. I stayed
Speaker 1: late at work, inventing reasons to avoid home. When I arrived,
Speaker 1: Mark was at his computer editing photos, music playing low.
Speaker 1: He turned as I set down my bag. I thought
Speaker 1: you'd be back hours ago. Everything okay? His words were soft,
Speaker 1: layered with concern. Just a long day, I replied, voice tired.
Speaker 1: I lost track of time. He stood, arms held loosely
Speaker 1: at his sides, hesitating at an invisible divide. I made
Speaker 1: pasta want some? I nodded, and we moved through the
Speaker 1: choreography of dinner, him draining noodles, me pouring wine, neither
Speaker 1: of us meeting the other's gaze for too long. For
Speaker 1: a moment, I wondered if we were both waiting for
Speaker 1: the other to admit something, whether fear or pride, would
Speaker 1: break the am pass First, we ate mostly in silence.
Speaker 1: When he tried to fill the space with stories, an
Speaker 1: annoying client, a weirdly aggressive pigeon outside his favorite coffee shop.
Speaker 1: I let him talk, waiting for a slip, a clew anything. Instead,
Speaker 1: it all sounded perfectly normal, perfectly rehearsed. After dinner, I
Speaker 1: excused myself to shower under the pounding flow. I braced
Speaker 1: myself against the tile, feeling the ache of what I
Speaker 1: was doing, watching my marriage from the outside, interrogating every
Speaker 1: innocent act, waiting for proof to explain what my body
Speaker 1: already knew. Later, wrapped in Mark's threadbare T shirt, I
Speaker 1: padded to the living room. He gestured for me to
Speaker 1: join him, patting the couch, I settled beside him, feet
Speaker 1: tucked under his thigh. For a minute, we just breathed
Speaker 1: together in the half light. The only sound the clinking
Speaker 1: of his glass as he sipped his scotch. He nudged
Speaker 1: me voice light. Remember how pissed you got when I
Speaker 1: beat you in music Round and last month I cracked
Speaker 1: a smile. You cheated. Don't cheapen my hard one trivia cred.
Speaker 1: He tried a grin, but his eyes were cautious. We
Speaker 1: traded reminiscences, small safe stories. He was testing the water,
Speaker 1: I realized, reassuring himself that nostalgia could fill the cracks.
Speaker 1: It almost worked, but then his phone buzzed, and without thinking,
Speaker 1: he reached for it, angling the screen away from me.
Speaker 1: I asked, softly, was that clear? He paused for a
Speaker 1: fraction of a second, long enough to confirm everything he
Speaker 1: wouldn't say. Then, with a smoothness that would have fooled
Speaker 1: any one else, he replied, NA, that was aaron About
Speaker 1: the next shoot, right, I said, forcing my gaze away
Speaker 1: from his careful hands. The next morning, in the blur
Speaker 1: of coffee and rush, I checked Mark's jacket again, unable
Speaker 1: to help myself. The memory card case was there, black
Speaker 1: and nondescript. I weighed in my palm, then pocketed it,
Speaker 1: telling myself I would return it later that I had
Speaker 1: every right to know what it held. Work was useless.
Speaker 1: I spent the day itching for a reason to go
Speaker 1: home early. My nerves were a string vibrating inside my chest,
Speaker 1: coiled so tightly I felt lightheaded every time I tried
Speaker 1: to focus. Reaching our apartment, I waited until Mark texted,
Speaker 1: running late, grabbing dinner with Aaron, before slipping into the
Speaker 1: office case. Trembling in my sweaty hands, I clicked open
Speaker 1: the lid, slotting the card into Mark's old card reader.
Speaker 1: As the images loaded, I steeled myself. The first shots
Speaker 1: were innocuous, soft landscapes, evening city shots, trains blurred into
Speaker 1: trails of color. I almost exhaled, relief sputtering in my throat,
Speaker 1: then scattered amongst the dusk, the roof top, the city's glow.
Speaker 1: Were images that stopped me. Claire laughing with her head
Speaker 1: thrown back, hair loose, Mark's jacket draped across her shoulders.
Speaker 1: There was an obvious sequence her turning toward the camera,
Speaker 1: her hand reaching for mark S then resting on his thigh.
Speaker 1: A series of her sitting on the edge of a
Speaker 1: fire escape, Mark's reflection visible in the window behind her.
Speaker 1: There was a tenderness to the photographs. You didn't capture
Speaker 1: for a client or a friend. Learning photography. It was
Speaker 1: the kind of intimacy reserved for people who'd learned the
Speaker 1: language of each other's faces. Two frames showed their hands,
Speaker 1: fingers linked in a way that was unmistakably deliberate. I
Speaker 1: made myself flip through every file, pulse drumming in my ears.
Speaker 1: There were at least a dozen shots from locations. Mark
Speaker 1: had never mentioned, the tunnel of lights, the faded mural rooftops.
Speaker 1: I had never visited restaurants too cozy for group hangs.
Speaker 1: I closed the viewer, hands trembling. It was all there, undeniable, defenseless,
Speaker 1: and yet still not a confession. I wanted to scream
Speaker 1: at the empty room, to smash the camera, to leave anything,
Speaker 1: to escape the total suffocation of betrayal, sitting quietly on
Speaker 1: a memory card. Instead, I placed the card back in
Speaker 1: the case, reset everything as I'd found it, and packed
Speaker 1: it away. I went to the bathroom, splashed water on
Speaker 1: my face, and forced myself to breathe. It was almost
Speaker 1: dark outside. Soon Mark would come home, rehearse his lines,
Speaker 1: and everything would continue as before unless I stopped pretending.
Speaker 1: I kneaded outside air something cold and anonymous. I grabbed
Speaker 1: my jacket and texted Jen. Can we meet please? She
Speaker 1: replied instantly, and half an hour later we met on
Speaker 1: the shadowy back patio of an old Bucktown pizza joint.
Speaker 1: Jen arrived bundled in a long coat, her face barely
Speaker 1: visible under the golden patio bulbs. You sounded, she paused,
Speaker 1: scanning my face. I've never seen you like this. I
Speaker 1: didn't bother with preamble. I know something s happening with
Speaker 1: Mark and Cleare I have proof? Jen winced, then sat heavily. God,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I tried. I thought if I stayed
Speaker 1: out of it. She looked down, gathering her thoughts. I pressed,
Speaker 1: you told him it was wrong, She nodded, eyes brimming. Yes,
Speaker 1: I didn't know everything. I told him. If he didn't
Speaker 1: tell you, I would. I tried to warn him, but
Speaker 1: he said he needed time. How long my voice was
Speaker 1: barely audible. I think since at least March, maybe before
Speaker 1: she was new in town. He latched on. I guess
Speaker 1: they were together a lot, but I thought it was
Speaker 1: about photography. Then he started hiding things, making excuses. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to believe it was more. I clenched my
Speaker 1: fists on the wooden table top, still trying to form
Speaker 1: a question that would make this hurt less. Jen reached
Speaker 1: for my hand. You didn't do anything wrong, so you
Speaker 1: know they She shook her head. I don't know details,
Speaker 1: but I know he crossed lines and I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: This isn't your fault. I managed to thank you, but
Speaker 1: my mind spun, replaying every recent week, the mounting evidence,
Speaker 1: Mark's absence, the laughter, the photos. I stayed with Jen
Speaker 1: until the cold sank through my bones, then made my
Speaker 1: way home. Mark was asleep, TV flickering against the wall.
Speaker 1: The camera sat on the table, exactly where I'd left it.
Speaker 1: I stood watching him for a long time, every part
Speaker 1: of me wanting to either wake him and demand answers,
Speaker 1: or curl beside him and bury the evidence for good.
Speaker 1: He shifted in his sleep, murmured my name, as though
Speaker 1: even unconscious he could read the distance. The rest of
Speaker 1: the weak blurred calls from clients, hastily eaten lunches, texts
Speaker 1: from Jen checking in with single word questions. Safe home
Speaker 1: Mark kept up the performance, asking after my mood, telling
Speaker 1: stories about hapless intuns and unpredictable light. I listened, nodding,
Speaker 1: lining up the days, preparing myself Friday night, I found
Speaker 1: Mark on the fire escape, ere cold against his face,
Speaker 1: stubble prickling his jaw. He was on the phone voice low, YEA,
Speaker 1: I know soon, I promise. I just need to silence.
Speaker 1: As he noticed me watching, Hey, I gotta go yea
Speaker 1: sleep well, he slipped his phone into his pocket, casual
Speaker 1: as ever talking to Aaron. I asked voice level. He nodded, yea,
Speaker 1: hushing out the warehouse times. Then too breezily you o kay?
Speaker 1: I forced a smile, hating how easily he shifted into
Speaker 1: care taking mode. Long week, want to stay in to night?
Speaker 1: He nodded, relief evident, then fetched us glasses of wine.
Speaker 1: Settling beside me on the couch, I wondered what would
Speaker 1: happen if I simply held up the photos, demanded to
Speaker 1: know who he was, now, who I was in this marriage? Instead,
Speaker 1: I shared a pale version of myself, polite, present, efficient.
Speaker 1: When he fell asleep before midnight, I stared at the ceiling,
Speaker 1: wondering what kind of person I was becoming. On Saturday,
Speaker 1: while Mark was gone, ostensibly scouting light, I went through
Speaker 1: our apartment like a detective. His desk revealed nothing new,
Speaker 1: but in his bag, scribbled notes overlapped with Claire's looping
Speaker 1: handwriting rooftop at six, bring the prism lens. There was
Speaker 1: also a receipt from a bakery in Pilsen, a place
Speaker 1: neither of us had been together. I folded the note,
Speaker 1: pressed it flat, replacing it in his bag with shaking fingers.
Speaker 1: Later I called Jen again and confided the details memory, card, notes, receipts.
Speaker 1: Jen did not try to minimize. I'm so sorry. If
Speaker 1: you want to tell the group, tell them. Nobody will
Speaker 1: blame you. I think Mark spun so many plates. He
Speaker 1: doesn't know which story is his anymore. That night, Mark
Speaker 1: was more attentive, brushing my hair behind my ear as
Speaker 1: we watched bad TV. Nearly cried at the ordinariness of it.
Speaker 1: How intimacy can outlast love, how habit survives even after
Speaker 1: trust evaporates. He asked if I needed anything before bed,
Speaker 1: tucked the blanket around me. I pretended to be asleep
Speaker 1: as he scrolled through his messages, illuminating the room with
Speaker 1: a screen I wasn't meant to see. Sunday morning arrived,
Speaker 1: bright and cold, city alive with church bells and sidewalk joggers,
Speaker 1: even as our apartment felt vacuumed of possibility. I knew
Speaker 1: I would have to confront him soon, maybe even that day.
Speaker 1: I knew he would lie, probably not well. I pictured
Speaker 1: our friends, our trivia nights, the spot at the horseshoe
Speaker 1: where we always sat. I wondered why the ache in
Speaker 1: my chest felt like hope even now. Mark shuffled into
Speaker 1: the kitchen, hair must stretching you up for doughnuts. I'll
Speaker 1: get your favorite. Consider it a piece offering for my grumpiness.
Speaker 1: I nodded, voice catching, sure that be nice. He slipped
Speaker 1: his wallet in his pocket, kissed my temple, lingering for
Speaker 1: a second. A silent question pressed into my skin. I
Speaker 1: watched him leave the door, shutting soft as a secret,
Speaker 1: and I realized I was ready, finally, painfully but fully ready,
Speaker 1: for everything that would come next. I spent the morning
Speaker 1: pacing between the kitchen and the living room, the sunlight
Speaker 1: stretching pale fingers across the cluttered table where Mark had
Speaker 1: left crumbs and an empty mug. Every sound in the
Speaker 1: apartment scratched against my skin. My coffee went cold without
Speaker 1: being touched, and I sat down, stood up, sat down again,
Speaker 1: every muscle restless with the certainty that by sunset I
Speaker 1: would not be able to unknow any of this. When
Speaker 1: Mark returned with doughnuts, my favorite Crullers, and a chocolate
Speaker 1: Old Fashioned, his eyes searched mine for some sign, some
Speaker 1: measure of forgiveness or understanding, or maybe ignorance. He set
Speaker 1: the box on the counter and hesitated, keys, jangling in
Speaker 1: his fist into doug at stands. He says, we should
Speaker 1: host a trivia night here next week. What do you think?
Speaker 1: He was trying to sound breezy, normal, making a performance
Speaker 1: of small talk that might have fooled me another time.
Speaker 1: I ran a hand through my hair, forcing myself to
Speaker 1: meet his gaze. I'm not sure that's a good idea,
Speaker 1: he smiled, tentative. Yeah, everybody feels kind of tense lately.
Speaker 1: Har He started to say more, but his phone buzzed,
Speaker 1: a single pulsing noise that lit up the counter. He
Speaker 1: ignored it, but I recognized Clare's name on the lock
Speaker 1: screen before the notification winked out. A muscle moved in
Speaker 1: his jaw. People don't know how to let things drop,
Speaker 1: he muttered, voice low. I poured coffee into a travel mug,
Speaker 1: needing to move, needing the illusion of errands to buy
Speaker 1: myself time. He watched me, tracking my movement like a
Speaker 1: photographer lining up a reluctant subject. I'm going to get
Speaker 1: some air, I said. He nodded, lips pressed into a
Speaker 1: brittle smile, stepping aside so I could pass on the street.
Speaker 1: The wind bit through my sweater. Everything outside felt both
Speaker 1: foreign and familiar. The bus stop with its pealing ads,
Speaker 1: the smell of baking bread from the corner bakery, the
Speaker 1: muffled sound of traffic eight floors up. I circled the
Speaker 1: block twice before realizing I had walked straight to the horseshoe.
Speaker 1: The bar's doors still locked at this hour. The silence
Speaker 1: pressed down, reminding me that nothing about my world was
Speaker 1: fixed any more. I sat on a metal bench and
Speaker 1: watched the city go by, cradling hot coffee between my palms,
Speaker 1: not tasting it. By afternoon, I demanaged to answer all
Speaker 1: the emails in my inbox, call my sister, avoid Jen's
Speaker 1: well meaning texts, and reorganize my sock drawer twice. But
Speaker 1: the reality didn't change. There was an unspoken expiration on
Speaker 1: my silence, and Mark must have felt it too. He
Speaker 1: busied himself with laundry dishes, making unnecessary noise in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: We rarely shared the same room for more than a minute,
Speaker 1: orbiting each other warily. That evening, as I was shutting
Speaker 1: my laptop to the click of a new calendar reminder,
Speaker 1: Mark stepped into the doorway. He looked, frayed, hair wild,
Speaker 1: the stubble that meant he hadn't left the house in hours.
Speaker 1: Do you want to watch something? He asked, uncertainty, hanging
Speaker 1: in the air, movie maybe, I shook my head. Not
Speaker 1: to night. He nodded and lingered, Should I order in?
Speaker 1: I could? I held up a palm to stop him. Mark,
Speaker 1: I think we need to talk there. It was the
Speaker 1: phrase that cracked open whatever was left unspoiled between us.
Speaker 1: His posture stiffened. He looked at the floor. O K,
Speaker 1: he said, voice low. I gestured to the couch. We
Speaker 1: both sat, leaving a deliberate cushion of space between us,
Speaker 1: as though the distance itself was a negotiation. I fumbled
Speaker 1: for the first words. Before I could find them, his
Speaker 1: phone buzzed again. He ignored it, eyes fixed on me.
Speaker 1: In the hush between us, it felt as though anything
Speaker 1: I said now would be the tipping point, and there
Speaker 1: would be no going back. My hands trembled, so I
Speaker 1: clenched them in my lap. I cleared my throat, heard
Speaker 1: my own voice come out uneven. I need you to
Speaker 1: tell me the truth. He looked, startled, almost insulted about
Speaker 1: what the pressure inside me, this accumulation of weeks and months,
Speaker 1: snapped about you and Clare, the photos, the messages, the
Speaker 1: lies about where you've been, the nights you said you
Speaker 1: were working, but you were all of it. His face
Speaker 1: went blank for a heartbeat. He sat frozen, searching my
Speaker 1: expression for what I already knew, measuring how much he
Speaker 1: could still salvage. Then a subtle crack his mouth tightened,
Speaker 1: the mask slipping just an inch. Are you his voice faltered.
Speaker 1: Are you checking up on me? Now? Don't? I said, quietly,
Speaker 1: don't turn this around. I saw the photos, Mark, I
Speaker 1: know I want to hear you say it. He closed
Speaker 1: his eyes for a moment, then inhaled deeply, and for
Speaker 1: the first time since all of this began, he looked
Speaker 1: simply tired. Not clever, not evasive, not defensive, just exhausted.
Speaker 1: It wasn't supposed to be, he began, then stopped, swallowing.
Speaker 1: It was I didn't mean for anything to happen. My
Speaker 1: throat felt full of stones, but it did. He nodded,
Speaker 1: staring at some invisible point on the floor. She was new,
Speaker 1: She was kind and curious. I thought the photo walks
Speaker 1: would just help her settle in honestly, and then it
Speaker 1: started feeling easier to talk to her than to any
Speaker 1: one else. She didn't know me, she didn't expect anything.
Speaker 1: He rubbed his eyes. We never planned it, I swear
Speaker 1: one night we were out late on a roof down town.
Speaker 1: You had to work. Claire got us into this place
Speaker 1: with an old security code. We started taking pictures. Then
Speaker 1: we drank too much and I I kissed her. That
Speaker 1: was it. The line was already crossed. It snowballed after that.
Speaker 1: I looked away, pressing my knuckles into my knee. How
Speaker 1: many times my voice was barely audible? He flinched more
Speaker 1: than once. Is that what you need to hear? I
Speaker 1: said nothing, letting the confession unspool. It wasn't just the
Speaker 1: physical infidelity. It was how fully he'd woven me out
Speaker 1: of the truth. He tried to meet my gaze. I
Speaker 1: never stopped caring about you. I just you, just what
Speaker 1: my voice was brittle, stretched to breaking. He hesitated. I
Speaker 1: felt like I started to disappear in our life. I
Speaker 1: know how that sounds, but with Claire it felt like
Speaker 1: waking up again. I don't know. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: justify it, I laughed, hollow. Is she your girlfriend now
Speaker 1: or just your excuse? He shook his head, jaw clenching.
Speaker 1: I don't know what she is. I don't She doesn't
Speaker 1: want this drama. I didn't want any of this. I
Speaker 1: just kept thinking I could figure it out without destroying
Speaker 1: everything you already did. He squeezed his eyes shut, pinching
Speaker 1: the bridge of his nose. I get that, I do.
Speaker 1: I'm so so sorry. Em Everything in me wanted to shout,
Speaker 1: to break, something, to demand a different reality. Instead, I nodded,
Speaker 1: slow and deliberate. Do you want to stay married, I asked,
Speaker 1: He shuddered, if you'll have me. I want to fix this.
Speaker 1: I want to figure it out, but I honestly don't
Speaker 1: know if it's possible. I sat back, absorbing the blunt
Speaker 1: finality of what lay between us, a collection of choices,
Speaker 1: half truths, and betrayals that had no fix, no matter
Speaker 1: how much either of us wanted to backtrack. The rest
Speaker 1: of the night lived in a fragile, surgically dissected. We
Speaker 1: moved through the apartment as though made of glass, mark
Speaker 1: apologizing in gestures, putting away dishes, noiselessly folding laundry with
Speaker 1: robotic focus, placing the doughnuts back in their box. I
Speaker 1: wanted to call Jen, but the urge passed. There was
Speaker 1: nothing left to ask, nothing to decode. He slept on
Speaker 1: the couch, sprawling there with a blanket that barely covered
Speaker 1: his legs. I watched him from the hallway for a
Speaker 1: long time, looking so much younger and more lost than
Speaker 1: I'd ever seen him. I wondered if he was already
Speaker 1: elsewhere in his mind, lining up new truths to tell himself.
Speaker 1: When dawn slipped between the blinds, I dressed quietly and
Speaker 1: texted my sister. Call when you're up, She replied, almost instantly,
Speaker 1: Her empathy are life, len. I heard myself tell her
Speaker 1: enough of the story to make it real, sobbing once
Speaker 1: loud and ugly, before dropping my voice to a whisper.
Speaker 1: By noon, I'd canceled all my plans. No errands, no
Speaker 1: trivia night, no friend meetups. My phone vibrated with messages,
Speaker 1: Gen checking in, Mike asking about next week's trivia, Dug
Speaker 1: fording a photo of the group from last summer. I
Speaker 1: ignored them all. Mark packed a bag in silence, folding
Speaker 1: shirts and jeans with unnecessary neatness, tucking his camera his
Speaker 1: running shoes. He paused at the threshold, face crumpled. Do
Speaker 1: you want me to go? He asked, the gentlest possible
Speaker 1: version of surrender. I nodded, Yeah, it's what I need.
Speaker 1: He lingered, lips parting, then closed the door behind him
Speaker 1: with a click. The air in the room felt bruised.
Speaker 1: The world contracted to the walls of our apartment. For
Speaker 1: the rest of that day, I moved through the rooms,
Speaker 1: locating the physical traces of him, his half empty cologne
Speaker 1: on the dresser, a sock under the couch, a cracked
Speaker 1: mug on the kitchen window sill. I couldn't bring myself
Speaker 1: to throw anything away. I just sat on the edge
Speaker 1: of our bed and let the silence settle, I answered Jen,
Speaker 1: finally telling her as simply as I could. He left.
Speaker 1: She texted back, I'm here if you need me, no judgment.
Speaker 1: I scrolled numb through our old trivia group chat, reading
Speaker 1: jokes and snippets about movie rounds, spelling, beef failures, clare
Speaker 1: gently mocking dugs, lack of pop culture knowledge. The phone
Speaker 1: trembled in my hand, and I deleted the thread in
Speaker 1: a single, irreversible motion, Watching it vanish from the screen,
Speaker 1: The apartment seemed hollow, now, an exhibit of our life
Speaker 1: frozen before. The secrets curdled, every shadow too deep, every
Speaker 1: shaft of light meaning something it never meant before. My
Speaker 1: hands ached from clenching and unclenching. Yet the sharp edge
Speaker 1: of anger never quite dulled my grief. Later, I wandered
Speaker 1: out onto the balcony, watching the city pivot toward evening.
Speaker 1: I pressed my palms against the cold railing, breathing in
Speaker 1: the exhaust and damp stone below. Neighbors called to their dogs,
Speaker 1: car horns barked in the distance. The world persisted in
Speaker 1: its ordinariness, indifferent to my loss. It was only then
Speaker 1: that I realized I hadn't actually cried since Mark left.
Speaker 1: I sat on the metal chair Mark once used for
Speaker 1: late night photo edits and let tears streak my cheeks.
Speaker 1: Silent and hot, the city, blank and enormous, absorbed every
Speaker 1: sound I made that night. Laying flat on my back
Speaker 1: in bed, I watched the light stutter against the ceiling
Speaker 1: until my eyelids gave out. I dreamed in fragments, roof tops, shadows,
Speaker 1: Clayer's laugh, Mark's face shifting out of focus. When I
Speaker 1: woke in the bluish dawn, the empty space beside me
Speaker 1: was wide enough to swallow my fear, my memory, and
Speaker 1: for a moment, even my need for answers. On Monday,
Speaker 1: I called in sick to work, leaving a clipped voice
Speaker 1: mail for my team need to take a personal day
Speaker 1: back soon. Nobody pressed for details. Mark didn't text or call.
Speaker 1: I didn't reach out. Whatever remained between us was divided
Speaker 1: by the kind of silence that makes both apology and
Speaker 1: blame irrelevant. By mid afternoon, Jen called her words tumbled fast,
Speaker 1: torn between comfort and confession. I told Mike. She said,
Speaker 1: he's surprised, Doug's gone quiet. Nobody blames you, m Everybody's
Speaker 1: just stunned. I let her voice pore over me without reply.
Speaker 1: In the days that followed, practicalities forced their way in.
Speaker 1: I made arrangements to pay half the rent, moved Mark's
Speaker 1: shoes to the hall closet, answered one awkward call from
Speaker 1: Mark's mother. He's staying with friends. It's not my place
Speaker 1: to say more. Their trivia group gen told me paused indefinitely.
Speaker 1: Nobody wanted to pick sides. Nobody wanted to see Claire,
Speaker 1: not for now. I left our apartment less and less,
Speaker 1: unable to meet friends for brunch or answer the dozens
Speaker 1: of texts from well meaning acquaintances. I scrolled past notification
Speaker 1: after notification, willing myself invisible. The city's rhythm continued, ignorant
Speaker 1: of the fissure that ran through everything I knew. I
Speaker 1: went through the motions, made coffee, folded sheets, opened windows wide,
Speaker 1: as though I could exorcise the echo of Mark's presence.
Speaker 1: He left most of his toiletries and a worn denim jacket,
Speaker 1: but took his cameras and only his favorite books. I
Speaker 1: noticed their absence more than anything else, a gap on
Speaker 1: the shelves, an emptiness by the shoe rack. I did
Speaker 1: not contact Clare. I blocked her account, knowing that any
Speaker 1: answer she might offer would not soften the truth or
Speaker 1: return what was lost. On Wednesday, the day we would
Speaker 1: have gone to trivia, I walked past the horseshoe after dark.
Speaker 1: Laughter drifted through the frosted windows. I hesitated outside, watching
Speaker 1: as someone's scribbled answers on a frayed napkin. Shoulders hunched
Speaker 1: in mock secrecy, I pressed my palm to the glass,
Speaker 1: cold and unyielding, and let the memory of our group
Speaker 1: ripple around me, vivid but just out of reach. I
Speaker 1: turned away before any one inside could catch my reflection.
Speaker 1: The city was loud, and the street was bright with
Speaker 1: neon and taxis and shifting shadows. My lungs filled with
Speaker 1: air so sharp it almost hurt. I kept walking, past
Speaker 1: the bakery, past the coffee shop, past the mural mark
Speaker 1: had once made me pose against. My steps seemed both
Speaker 1: waited and free, the world impossibly wide without him beside me.
Speaker 1: I rounded the corner and didn't look back. Standing under
Speaker 1: the glow of a street lamp, I watched as the
Speaker 1: traffic swept by, and for a moment the ache relaxed
Speaker 1: its grip. I drew in a long, steady breath and
Speaker 1: let go of the air, one measured exhale at a time.
Speaker 1: I walked forward into the night, the city rolling out ahead,
Speaker 1: emptied and alive, my life suddenly startlingly my own. I
Speaker 1: let the night wrap around me the city's thrums, settling
Speaker 1: somewhere deep in my blood, and walked without a plan,
Speaker 1: left right, each turn chosen almost at random. Every familiar
Speaker 1: landmark looked slightly different in this new context. I caught
Speaker 1: sight of my reflection in a bakery window, hair wind swept, face, pale,
Speaker 1: eyes heavy, and barely recognized the woman's staring back. I
Speaker 1: stopped in front of a darkened gallery space and peered
Speaker 1: inside the faint shapes of another art opening, laughter pressing
Speaker 1: up against the glass from some other life. I kept moving,
Speaker 1: hands tucked into my coat, finding comfort in the anonymity
Speaker 1: of the crowd. When the cold finally penetrated through the adrenaline,
Speaker 1: I circled back toward home. I climbed the stairs past neighbors,
Speaker 1: muffled conversations, the scent of someone's burnt toast sneaking under
Speaker 1: their door. Unlocking the apartment felt different. The air was
Speaker 1: too still, and even the kitchen clock sounded accusatory, knocking
Speaker 1: off the seconds of my absence. I turned on every lamp,
Speaker 1: kneading the apartment, warm and bright, as if light alone
Speaker 1: could fight the bleakness bleeding through my thoughts. I stood
Speaker 1: listening to my phone vibrate in the next room. Notifications.
Speaker 1: I ignored messages from friends I wasn't ready to see.
Speaker 1: I braced both hands on the kitchen counter, head bowed
Speaker 1: until my breath slowed. The hours crawled, I found myself
Speaker 1: watching old videos on my phone. One's Mark had shot
Speaker 1: me eating gelato in Bronzeville, him narrating in a bad
Speaker 1: British accent. I caught his laugh in the background, bright
Speaker 1: and unguarded, and snapped the phone shut. The sound suddenly intolerable.
Speaker 1: By midnight, sleep was beyond me. I drifted from room
Speaker 1: to room, touching the back of the couch where he
Speaker 1: used to drape his jacket, the indentation in his pillow
Speaker 1: that hadn't sprung back yet, the tiny chip in a
Speaker 1: mug lip from the time he knocked it into the
Speaker 1: sink with an elbow. I wanted to hate these details,
Speaker 1: but mostly I ached for how much much loving someone
Speaker 1: made the ordinary seem irreplaceable. The week lurched by in
Speaker 1: fits and starts. The story of what happened between Mark
Speaker 1: and Clare bled outward, gentexted every morning, her check ins
Speaker 1: alternating between practical, let me know if you need to
Speaker 1: crash at mine, and gently demanding, don't freeze out every
Speaker 1: one who loves you em not because of them. The
Speaker 1: trivia group, stripped of its gravity center, struggled to reorient itself.
Speaker 1: Doug emailed a spreadsheet for back up locations that nobody replied. To. Mike,
Speaker 1: the group's perennial peacekeeper, called once, his voice careful. I
Speaker 1: don't know what to say. I just wish things were different.
Speaker 1: You want me to distract you with bad podcast recommendations.
Speaker 1: I clicked open his message and typed maybe later, but
Speaker 1: deleted it before sending What comfort was there really? One
Speaker 1: night I found myself staring at phone photos Claire had
Speaker 1: posted months earlier, shots of street murals, rain slicked subway steps,
Speaker 1: a train of cocktails I recognized from that one bar
Speaker 1: in Pilsen. I found Mark in a reflection, his hand
Speaker 1: holding the camera, face visible only in the distortion of
Speaker 1: a window. I zoomed in, pixelating the evidence until it
Speaker 1: became abstract. Mark's things left shadow evidence everywhere. His spare
Speaker 1: lens cap on my bedside table, his name on the
Speaker 1: edges of our lease, A signed print I got on
Speaker 1: him for his thirtieth birthday, still hanging above the desk.
Speaker 1: I took them down in slow, small increments, first the
Speaker 1: most obvious, later the ones that strung less. Every decision
Speaker 1: felt both necessary and petty, as if banishing his objects
Speaker 1: could hurry the collapse of memory to something more manageable.
Speaker 1: Conversations with friends crystallized the stakes. I took a call
Speaker 1: from my sister, awkwardly propped on the fire escape, with
Speaker 1: my knees to my chest, the air cold and sharp.
Speaker 1: She said, you need to decide if you want to
Speaker 1: keep anything from this m that's the only thing that
Speaker 1: matters now. I didn't answer, because I didn't know was
Speaker 1: there anything worth salvaging. Was forgiveness even possible. I thought
Speaker 1: of Mark packing his bag with careful hands, his face
Speaker 1: when he asked if I wanted him to go. There
Speaker 1: had been regret there, but also resignation, a kind of
Speaker 1: frightened hope that some one somewhere might tell him he
Speaker 1: hadn't ruined everything yet. I wished I could be that person,
Speaker 1: but I knew I was. The apartment grew stranger with
Speaker 1: each day I left longer gaps between answering messages, canceling lunches,
Speaker 1: and ignoring e mails. On Thursday, I was startled by
Speaker 1: the silence, no Mark cursing at a stuck zipper, no
Speaker 1: weight of another person moving through the same space. For
Speaker 1: a while, I listened to music as loud as I
Speaker 1: could stand, letting the sound drive out the emptiness. Then
Speaker 1: I turned it off and listened to the space left behind.
Speaker 1: Friday's mail brought a practical problem. A bill in Mark's name,
Speaker 1: a note from our landlord about an upcoming inspection. I texted,
Speaker 1: need to confirm you'll be listed as off the lease
Speaker 1: or The reply came an hour later. I'll come by
Speaker 1: this weekend to get my things. Can you leave the
Speaker 1: key with Jen? Polite clipped as if we'd never shared
Speaker 1: a life larger than logistics. Jen offered to be here,
Speaker 1: but I declined. Unwilling to stage manage a hand off
Speaker 1: of this magnitude. I spent that Saturday out, drifting through
Speaker 1: the city's spring sprawl, flea markets, record stores, the park
Speaker 1: where we'd once planned a picnic, and gotten rained out.
Speaker 1: When I came back, his things were gone. The key
Speaker 1: glinted on the door mat, the last line in a
Speaker 1: script neither of us wanted to write. The trivia group fractured.
Speaker 1: Mike reached out less. Doug vanished from the thread genderferred,
Speaker 1: though she still checked in on me by text. Claire's
Speaker 1: post slowed, mostly tagged at new locations, always alone. I
Speaker 1: wondered if she felt victorious, or if the cost was
Speaker 1: higher than she'd imagined. But then I caught myself. I
Speaker 1: waste more anger. My life had narrowed to essential getting
Speaker 1: out of bed, drinking coffee, walking the city, breathing through loss.
Speaker 1: But it was Sunday night that forced everything finally, irreversibly
Speaker 1: to a head. I was making tea the apartment unusually
Speaker 1: still when I heard a knock, not loud, cautious, as
Speaker 1: though hoping to be ignored. I opened the door to Mark,
Speaker 1: looking smaller than I remembered him, a duffel at his feet,
Speaker 1: eyes haunted and red rimmed. Hey, he said, his voice unraveling,
Speaker 1: Why are you here? My tone was gentler than I
Speaker 1: meant it to be. Rage had sunk, replaced by resignation
Speaker 1: and exhaustion. He shifted the bag, avoiding my eyes. I
Speaker 1: needed to return a few things. I forgot old tax papers,
Speaker 1: some prints. I shouldn't have come without warning. Sorry, Jen said,
Speaker 1: you might be out. I stared, waiting for him to
Speaker 1: say more. In the waited silence that followed, he looked
Speaker 1: up finally, words tipping out in a rush. M. I'm
Speaker 1: not not looking for a second chance, I swear to God.
Speaker 1: I just I keep going back over it, all of it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to make it right. And I
Speaker 1: want you to hate me. I want you to throw
Speaker 1: something or scream, not just fade me out, because I
Speaker 1: promise I never wanted to hurt you, not like this.
Speaker 1: His voice broke, and I felt a distant ache, compassion
Speaker 1: that was more muscle memory than real connection. I don't
Speaker 1: have it in me to scream at you any more,
Speaker 1: I said quietly. You're gone. That's the truth. He nodded,
Speaker 1: gripping the door frame, his body drawn tight. Is there
Speaker 1: anything I can do for you, even if it's just
Speaker 1: to disappear? If he'd asked that question a week ago,
Speaker 1: even the night he left, I would have had a
Speaker 1: list confessions, explanations, and apology that matched the scale of
Speaker 1: the loss. But now staring at him, shoulders hunched, hands fidgeting,
Speaker 1: what I wanted most was for him to take his
Speaker 1: absence with him, to leave me space to rebuild. I
Speaker 1: think we're finished, I said, there's nothing left to fix here.
Speaker 1: He hesitated one last longing look, then set the bag
Speaker 1: of prints inside the door and retreated down the hall,
Speaker 1: shoes echoing softly until he turned the corner and vanished.
Speaker 1: When the door clicked shut. I stood in the foyer,
Speaker 1: breathing through the thump of my own heart. There was
Speaker 1: a finality to the gesture. The last of his things
Speaker 1: returned our story, closing not on a shout or a
Speaker 1: slammed door, but on the quiet of acceptance. I carried
Speaker 1: his bag to the hall closet and shut the door,
Speaker 1: Exhaling long and deep. I poured the now cold tea
Speaker 1: down the sink, wiped the counter, and turned off every
Speaker 1: lamp but one. The light painted soft outlines on the wall,
Speaker 1: just enough to keep the dark at bay. I changed
Speaker 1: into pajamas, brushed my teeth, then paused at the bookshelf,
Speaker 1: running fingers along the spines until I found the last book.
Speaker 1: Mark had lent me a copy of Didion's The Year
Speaker 1: of Magical Thinking. I set it on the entryway table,
Speaker 1: a parting gift to my own grief, and stood in
Speaker 1: the center of the apartment, shivering from the inside out stillness.
Speaker 1: No mark no trivia group, no circling through questions and
Speaker 1: partial answers, just me, the sound of the city humming
Speaker 1: its endless, indifferent refrain through the window. I padded to
Speaker 1: the balcony, pulling a sweater tight around my shoulders, and
Speaker 1: leaned against the railing. The city was glittering, vast cars
Speaker 1: sluicing down dark streets, people laughing on unseen stoops, a
Speaker 1: thousand lives spinning outward from the edge of my grief.
Speaker 1: In that quiet, with the wind ruffling my hair, I
Speaker 1: let the ape crest and subside. I watched a bus
Speaker 1: hiss past, glowing and full of strangers, and for a
Speaker 1: moment the sense of possibility, the same pulse that once
Speaker 1: drew Mark and me together, quivered faintly at the base
Speaker 1: of my spine. I turned, stepped inside, and closed the
Speaker 1: balcony door behind me. The apartment, for all its emptiness,
Speaker 1: was mine again, and I knew, standing in the hush
Speaker 1: that followed, that this chapter was over, absolute and unambiguous,
Speaker 1: as the dawn that would soon break over Chicago. A
Speaker 1: beginning written in the space left by leaving