Speaker 1: There are moments I can pinpriint as neatly as he
Speaker 1: might stab a thumb, tuck into a map that was
Speaker 1: supposed to feel ordinary, and instead left something trembling under
Speaker 1: my ribs, things that, for the life of me, I
Speaker 1: couldn't name at the time. If I close my eyes now,
Speaker 1: I can still taste the sweet, metallic edge of the
Speaker 1: one I sipped the Wilder Gallery. How the stem felt slick,
Speaker 1: not quite secure between my fingers. That Friday's opening should
Speaker 1: have been celebratory, local artists, new faces, music so eradicate
Speaker 1: stuttered the nerves behind my knees. But I was there
Speaker 1: only because Derreckt cajoled me into calming, using the enduring
Speaker 1: persistence he usually deployed when we were trying to pick
Speaker 1: a restaurant, not when he was exploring something that until
Speaker 1: a few months ago would have bought him senseless. I
Speaker 1: caught him at the far end of the gallery, by
Speaker 1: the soft oak a light, laughing in a way that
Speaker 1: pinched his eyes into half moons. His hand rests just
Speaker 1: so on a woman's elbow, delicate, a gesture that would
Speaker 1: look casual from far away. But I know the way
Speaker 1: his fingers move when he's trying to say you're safe
Speaker 1: here with me. I watched him from the edge of
Speaker 1: a tangled crowd, told myself I was being silly, provincial,
Speaker 1: definitely clinging, after all, hadn't I wanted this for him
Speaker 1: to find something outside his brewery, to have his own
Speaker 1: late nights instead of waiting up as I tinkered with
Speaker 1: taginess for my finicky freelance clients. You'd think after six
Speaker 1: years of marriage, he could flick anoins off your shoulder
Speaker 1: like Lynd, that confidence would be muscle memory by now.
Speaker 1: But as I studied the pair, Deryck's voice carried for
Speaker 1: just a moment, he dipped his head and murmured, hey, starshen.
Speaker 1: It took me a second to process it. I felt
Speaker 1: a brief childlike embarrassment, certain i'd misheard. Starshine was our word.
Speaker 1: It's private, a nickname born in the thick of our
Speaker 1: first summer. One scorching night, our backs pressed to the grass,
Speaker 1: staring at a motel sign that flickered exactly like a
Speaker 1: comet every forty seconds. I had whispered, catch it on
Speaker 1: your tongue, Starshine, and he laughed, said that's your new name, then, Miami,
Speaker 1: my starshine the memory snapped so abruptly round my heart
Speaker 1: that for a second the room seems sleeker, colder. There
Speaker 1: are millions of words you can use for some one,
Speaker 1: a simple string of syllables, and yet no one ever
Speaker 1: called me di But Deryck. He was using it here,
Speaker 1: easy as you please, with a woman who did not
Speaker 1: look at all like someone ike's, but to capture his attention.
Speaker 1: She was a bit older than me, maybe, with a
Speaker 1: sweep of wild blue black hair and blunt, straight cut bangs.
Speaker 1: She wore a bold shape as chumpsy, decorated with hand
Speaker 1: painted stars, and she had the infuriating confidence of people
Speaker 1: who never worry about what others notice. As he spoke,
Speaker 1: she grinned and leaned into him, and the way she
Speaker 1: tossed her head effer was familiar, felt less like flirtation
Speaker 1: and more like home. I took a shaky sip of wine,
Speaker 1: reminded myself I was being dramatic. Artists have pet names
Speaker 1: for everybody, don't they, And Derrick was like that with
Speaker 1: everyone ever since. That first brewery in grape Plank gave
Speaker 1: him the run of a tap room, and he charmed
Speaker 1: their entire regular crowd in a month, maybe This was
Speaker 1: how he wanted to be seen, open and stuck, bigger
Speaker 1: than our routines. Maybe nothing had changed except what I
Speaker 1: was looking for still might its pressed height. Maybe I
Speaker 1: was jealous in the worst way, not of Leelah, whoever
Speaker 1: she was, but of Derec's freedom inside this new world,
Speaker 1: a room which everyone else accept for me seem to fit.
Speaker 1: I willed myself not to watch them. Instead, I circled
Speaker 1: the room, looked at rough sketches pint to butcher paper,
Speaker 1: tried to ask a few polike qush about paint his
Speaker 1: intent without clearly signaling my ignorance. Every so often ascanned
Speaker 1: for Derreck's tall this frame, and each time he was laughing,
Speaker 1: flanked by people leel and evermore than a glance away.
Speaker 1: I played our scenes in reverse. How long had it
Speaker 1: been since he'd spoken to me like that? Or brushed
Speaker 1: his hand along my waist while talking to some one else,
Speaker 1: as if unconsciously reminding every one she's mind the questionitch
Speaker 1: rootless somewhere in my chest. He found me an hour later,
Speaker 1: carrying a plate of olives and two plastic glasses of
Speaker 1: red wine. Hey emmy, sorry, he said, bright and breathless.
Speaker 1: He talked to anyone good. I told Judie's widows are fun.
Speaker 1: His eyes flashed eager as he ran down the list
Speaker 1: of people I should meet. His pulse so intense, it's
Speaker 1: at me on edge, though he seemed perfectly happy. I
Speaker 1: watched him trying to find fall, but mostly caught my
Speaker 1: own reflection, smiling pleasant, allowing his will to pour past
Speaker 1: me like music from another room. The woman he'd been
Speaker 1: talking to drifted back to their group, pausing only long
Speaker 1: enough to meet my eyes with polite, pointed curiosity. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're having fun, I said to subdue to let
Speaker 1: the words lanne wrong. God. Yeah, I wish she came
Speaker 1: out to more of the easy Keller collaboration. M Hu, brain's
Speaker 1: wired the right way. You just need to take yourself
Speaker 1: less seriously, he winked, squeezing my hand, and I let
Speaker 1: my fingers curl into his palm, as if that alone
Speaker 1: would tell me this is still safe, this is still home.
Speaker 1: I drank my wine, mouth tasting sour. We left the
Speaker 1: gallery before midnight. Derec was electric, buzzing about a group
Speaker 1: project and making plans to help Han and new mural
Speaker 1: in the Bishopart's Corridor in the yuber he played with
Speaker 1: my fingers, huminituneously and affection that felt, if anything, too careful,
Speaker 1: like her rite. He didn't use my nickname that night,
Speaker 1: not to me. I lay awake later, unable to sleep.
Speaker 1: A reasonable adult would let it go. I thought, just jealousy,
Speaker 1: just nerves, But they are named worry I carried wouldn't dissolve.
Speaker 1: I tried to tuck it somewhere small, out of sight,
Speaker 1: But when I reached for Derek in the dark, his
Speaker 1: arm flung over his head. He did not move toward me.
Speaker 1: Sleep snared him quickly, deeply, as if he'd already spend
Speaker 1: every answ of energy in a life that didn't need mine.
Speaker 1: Sleep was late to come to me, and I drifted
Speaker 1: in an mind flitting from the name starshen to the
Speaker 1: realization we hadn't even finished half of our Friday bottle
Speaker 1: before he insisted we leave. As his breath became even,
Speaker 1: I remembered the last time I had seen him this
Speaker 1: fired of was the summer we first bought the house.
Speaker 1: That's where our story always felt strongest in routines too
Speaker 1: easy to romanticize until you noticed their thinning out. We
Speaker 1: lived in a battud stubbornly charming duplex on Henderson Avenue,
Speaker 1: the kind of place he could call vitagey for feeling
Speaker 1: forgiving or old a shit after fighting with the kitchen
Speaker 1: sink for the fourth time in a month. Deryck's brewery
Speaker 1: is less than a mile away squat where brick, pride
Speaker 1: and joy with chot would menuse and mismatched wooden stewels.
Speaker 1: He built half those tables himself, drove nails too long
Speaker 1: into gleaming pine when he was barely twenty seven, and
Speaker 1: everything felt possible when we moved in. It was Derec
Speaker 1: who found the neighbors. The barbecue crier of chilly sundays
Speaker 1: on armor, shape and porch. My world was pocket sized,
Speaker 1: my work as well over brands low, ghost swaps on
Speaker 1: late night panic over proposals, men that could keep myself
Speaker 1: withsy So neither of us ever felt alone. But he
Speaker 1: made the place of community. We grew together in strange cemetery.
Speaker 1: My family is from the edge of Lafayette, schey and stubborn,
Speaker 1: gifted with heavy silences you had to earn. Derrek's khan
Speaker 1: is Texas and Kantrarity opinionated a patchwork of uncles and
Speaker 1: cousins who argue with affection and show up without warning.
Speaker 1: Our wedding was at a dive bar and deep bellum
Speaker 1: with pictures of China and the perlist. Derek insisted on
Speaker 1: making himself. If we ever get bored, I joked once,
Speaker 1: just pick up a weird hobby behind my back. Sow
Speaker 1: I can dig up the dirt in yellowy. He'd grin
Speaker 1: all teeth. You'll be the first to know em. The
Speaker 1: whole first year we did everything together, bad moves and
Speaker 1: puzzled knights and renting a kayak inexplicably for a holiday.
Speaker 1: Neither of us understood. He liked people. I found that
Speaker 1: of Wilming, but I liked him more for it. He
Speaker 1: made me braver. Thursdays we went to trivia, a tiny
Speaker 1: ritual no matter the weather, even when we're accept his
Speaker 1: energy and he'd rather do anything else. He never missed
Speaker 1: a knight, not once. Sometimes a crusted on my dead lines.
Speaker 1: He brought my laptop to the bar, set up my charger,
Speaker 1: order of my drink without asking. These things became a
Speaker 1: second language. It always felt if not perfect, then private,
Speaker 1: something just ours too tightend it for real danger to
Speaker 1: slip in six years can go by in an instant,
Speaker 1: or they can lengthen every time you tried to move forward.
Speaker 1: Whisplit chorwes and financial anxieties. Hosted block parties with our acasus,
Speaker 1: the whole neighbor, juniper and wathered work drum and a
Speaker 1: tangle of limbs on our faded blue couch. Talk of
Speaker 1: kids came up every so often late night, usually after
Speaker 1: a second bottle. One of us would declare maybe one day,
Speaker 1: just not yet, and the subject would vanish till the
Speaker 1: next friend had a baby, and we debated car seats
Speaker 1: and anus corners of the house. Honesty it was the currency,
Speaker 1: I convinced myself. We never laughed. Yes, Derek could be impulsive,
Speaker 1: sometimes buying we'd gave for a hobby he dropped a
Speaker 1: month later at sometimes volunteering to run three simultaneous promotions
Speaker 1: at the brewery and needing me to save him at
Speaker 1: the eleventh hour. My habit of intense pointed emotions spooked
Speaker 1: to him if I turned it on too hard. I
Speaker 1: could see him even now, bracing when something got too
Speaker 1: heavy for too long. But we were in our own
Speaker 1: colonzy way, a good fitted sky wide energy in my
Speaker 1: tendency to double check, to hold on tight. It was
Speaker 1: because of all that, the history in the rhythm, and
Speaker 1: the thousand private jokes I could recite in my sleep
Speaker 1: that I brushed aside the lingering prickle from the gallery.
Speaker 1: Surely it was nothing. Surely it had to be nothing.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a wife. You saw a
Speaker 1: threat in every hug or jerk who picked at random awkwardness,
Speaker 1: as if it were some proof of rot beneath the paint.
Speaker 1: It felt easier, at least at first, to be annoyed
Speaker 1: at myself for even wondering. But in the unraveling you
Speaker 1: always find the stitch. The following Thursday was the first
Speaker 1: and six years that Derek didn't lock eyes with me
Speaker 1: over our usual bar table A mouth someome stupid pun
Speaker 1: as a trivia host read out a question he texted
Speaker 1: at five, Hey babe, go a skip to night art
Speaker 1: thin group meeting. They looped me in kind of last minute.
Speaker 1: You'll kill it, Sola, right, I'll owe you takut. I
Speaker 1: will read the message mouth twistin. Maybe I was being unfair,
Speaker 1: but I felt instantly untether it was trivia or trivia.
Speaker 1: At first, I half expected him to show up late,
Speaker 1: slouching as the free answer over round started, armed within
Speaker 1: a loaver apology. Instead, I went alone, ordered our usual drinks,
Speaker 1: and texted him a photo of my losing score. He
Speaker 1: called at nine back run noise faint, his tone high
Speaker 1: and distracted. Sorry, and I'll make it up to you
Speaker 1: this weekend, promised, you need me to bring anything home,
Speaker 1: It's fine, I said, trying to sound light. Next week
Speaker 1: you're coming, he insisted, I'll trade your stories. These people
Speaker 1: are out there. Miss you tonight, Starshane, He hum, up,
Speaker 1: I've rubbed my phone in my palm. Some urge to
Speaker 1: call him back, rising then fading. I tried to focus
Speaker 1: on the trivic clues, but found myself free reading his
Speaker 1: last two texts, searching for evidence of normalcy. Derrek got
Speaker 1: home just past eleven. His breath was peppermint, but underneath
Speaker 1: that the tang of oil paint and something for all
Speaker 1: not his nod oers. In the Hayese lit kitchen, he
Speaker 1: set his keys down, shrugged off his backpack, and gave
Speaker 1: me the bashful, hopeful look that usually meant had caught
Speaker 1: him eating my left of re pie long night, I asked.
Speaker 1: He grinned lost in a weed spape. I think I
Speaker 1: promised to help someone was set up on Saturday. Do
Speaker 1: we have plans? I said, we didn't notice in the
Speaker 1: paint smudge on the cuff of his jean's navy blue
Speaker 1: like the color of the gallery woman's jumpsuit had been.
Speaker 1: After he showered, he slid into bed, called against my shoulder.
Speaker 1: I ticked off all the reasons I should just go
Speaker 1: to sleep. Don't make a mountain out of weirdness. He's loud,
Speaker 1: new friends, don't be the cliche AND's cure wife, don't,
Speaker 1: don't don't. He fell asleep with barely a whird. The
Speaker 1: next Thursday came and Derec announced again, too bright, almost
Speaker 1: like a practice script that he has of the art thing. Babe, Sorry,
Speaker 1: the Double booked me to help prep a mural design
Speaker 1: for the Bishop Wall. I know, I know, I said
Speaker 1: next week, I owe you Double. Can you make trivia
Speaker 1: just for the last round, I asked, voice already sliding
Speaker 1: toward apologetic. He scuffed his shoes, searching for his bag.
Speaker 1: Then poll was half way at the door. Can't sorry,
Speaker 1: they need me for set up. I'll send you an
Speaker 1: embarrassing pick later so you don't forget my face. He
Speaker 1: gave me a half hug, distracted, and left his phone
Speaker 1: charging next to the toaster, not his way, not over
Speaker 1: For a ridiculous moment, I wondered if he'd done it
Speaker 1: on purpose, as a show of trust. Almost adare. I
Speaker 1: nearly left it, but then Epping startled me. The notification
Speaker 1: bounder flash leo art. Hope he'll do that sketch to night.
Speaker 1: The emoji felt wrong, intimate, not vulgar, not floating exactly,
Speaker 1: but co conspiratorial, a little winkie used when you're sure
Speaker 1: he's sure secret. I almost convinced myself to look away.
Speaker 1: I put my thumb on the home button, then snatched
Speaker 1: my hand back. We trusted each other, didn't we. Maybe
Speaker 1: he just left it because he was frazzled running late
Speaker 1: carrying paints and brushes. Maybe if I looked, I'd only
Speaker 1: find evidence of my own insecurity. But I didn't let
Speaker 1: myself read further. I turned the phone screen down out
Speaker 1: of reach. If he was so excited about this group,
Speaker 1: why not just tell me more? Why couch everything as
Speaker 1: a joke or rush? I plait it? I wasn't invited
Speaker 1: to if it was truly nothing, ill workshop and a
Speaker 1: chaotic crowd. Why did it sting when I saw him
Speaker 1: light up around her? I spent the night restlessly working,
Speaker 1: deleting and writing a single line for a pet stall's
Speaker 1: re branding pitch. The couch shached, The room felt twice
Speaker 1: as big with just me and the buzz of the
Speaker 1: neighbor's TV through the wall. By the next morning, I
Speaker 1: told myself I'd put it out of mind. Derec made
Speaker 1: breakfast as if it were any other day's, scrambled eggs,
Speaker 1: his signature SELSA at the kitchen, radio low. He kissed
Speaker 1: the top of my head, his beard scratchy, careful not
Speaker 1: to let his coffee drip onto my laptop. Notes you'd
Speaker 1: never know anything was different if you weren't looking for it.
Speaker 1: Day swelled into weeks, the changes stacking up like receipts
Speaker 1: in the junk draw. You put it and you'll organize.
Speaker 1: Derek's outings became more frequent, more urgent. He started coming
Speaker 1: home late on weeknights, sometimes after midnight, dropping his bag
Speaker 1: and heading straight for the shower. Hummings ons I didn't recognize,
Speaker 1: always with a trace of something that didn't belong perfume
Speaker 1: that wasn't mine, torpentine a faint metallic sweetness. His story's
Speaker 1: got thinner, the details jagged. We're planning this mural, big thing.
Speaker 1: Everyone's got this action. He should totally check it out
Speaker 1: when it's done. What's a mural about? I asked one Tuesday,
Speaker 1: curiosity forcing my voice too high. You never said what
Speaker 1: you're painting, he shrugged. Though you know, lots of abstract stuff,
Speaker 1: Collo's mood. He looked down, distracted by a persistent hangnail
Speaker 1: Lele is running point, so it'll probably end up weird
Speaker 1: as out. You'd love it. He didn't ask me to
Speaker 1: come see it. I googled Dallis Art Collective of the afternoon,
Speaker 1: combing through pages of group bios and blurry photos, but
Speaker 1: found nothing star shaped or murle related. Only lots of
Speaker 1: boastful vent posts, silent owl on the details that Derek
Speaker 1: kept dodging. He started buying art supplies, sketch pads, sets
Speaker 1: of pencils, extremely specific colored pens that showed up in
Speaker 1: our Vemmo history, and unshared critic card. He never told
Speaker 1: me you like sketching, I said, trying to keep it light.
Speaker 1: His eyes went wide. For a moment. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just for sketches, like collaborative stuff. He note, group projects.
Speaker 1: Everyone chips in. He laughed too loud, then turned the
Speaker 1: conversation to something else entirely. I think it was a
Speaker 1: faulty fridge on my sister's recent break up, or anything
Speaker 1: not related to his activities after sundown, the timelines didn't
Speaker 1: add up. A seventy dollars received for a restaurant I'd
Speaker 1: never heard of, dated last Friday, appeared in our card statement.
Speaker 1: I stared at it, frowning. He said he was swamped
Speaker 1: at work, ordering takeout and eating at the brewery with
Speaker 1: the late shift crew. Why not say he'd just gone
Speaker 1: out for lunch. When I mentioned the charge, he waved
Speaker 1: it away. Our group did a lunch and learned thing
Speaker 1: really boring. You're not missing much, he said, looking away
Speaker 1: too fast. Some nights he came home practically vibrating with energy, giddy,
Speaker 1: almost loose limb, like he was holding a glorious inside
Speaker 1: joke just for himself. These moods never lasted. Other times
Speaker 1: he was oddly quiet, lips copied beween, a smile and
Speaker 1: a confession not letting me in conversations was abruptly. Where
Speaker 1: he'd once shared every small brewery, misshapp or neighborly drama,
Speaker 1: he now offered only a thought, not much. When I pressed,
Speaker 1: I'd catch myself asking again, how is your knight? And
Speaker 1: his answers became a revolving door of generic phrases. We
Speaker 1: still made our chilly on Sundays, but he'd stir it
Speaker 1: off into the kitchen window as I duced onions, barely
Speaker 1: moving unless prompted inside jokes, our oldest currency fell flat,
Speaker 1: or he missed them altogether. At first, I thought I
Speaker 1: was just overly sensitive. Maybe freelance dress was making me needy,
Speaker 1: raw irritable. I tried to initiate intimacy, soft touches at
Speaker 1: the dinner table, leaning into him during a show we
Speaker 1: both loved, but I could feel the hesitation in his ribs.
Speaker 1: The half paused before he responded the silent question in
Speaker 1: each return embrace, what are we holding on to outside
Speaker 1: the house? Things grew slightly more surreal. Our mutual friend
Speaker 1: jacka reliably sardonic, mediculously observant Webb developer with an endlessupply
Speaker 1: of beauty cought sources, mentioned during a Saturday, drop in, Hey,
Speaker 1: we'd seeing Derek out in Bishopart's Thursday. Figured you both
Speaker 1: were on some kind of wild date night. I froze
Speaker 1: Thursday a repeated heartbeat, skittering. Jack nodded. Pierre saw him
Speaker 1: in front of Biernavido with some folks. Didn't want to
Speaker 1: book him. Thought y'all would have mentioned Derek, I recalled,
Speaker 1: had said he was working late at the brewery. Beer
Speaker 1: transfer delay annoying but an avoidable. There was no mention
Speaker 1: of Bishopots, of any outing of a wandering post work crowd.
Speaker 1: I offered Jack an awkward laugh, probably one of his
Speaker 1: art people, and changed the subject. The muscles in my
Speaker 1: jauth roomed all evening. The online world wasn't much better.
Speaker 1: On Sunday night, Methamidley's goold Instagram. While Derek was in
Speaker 1: the shower, a friend of a friend Tagtash Dallas Art
Speaker 1: collected a group photo in a bar. Everyone mid laugh.
Speaker 1: There was Derek anchor in the middle. Arm looped not
Speaker 1: just companionably but purposefully behind Leela's back. She was beaming
Speaker 1: glass wreys de heads almost touching. The photos caption dynamic
Speaker 1: duoada again a blur of other faces non familiar. I
Speaker 1: stared much longer than was reasonable. I hunted for contexts,
Speaker 1: check the comments, flipped through the tag profiles. Leela's feed
Speaker 1: was a rite of paints, battered canvases, and cryptic song lyrics.
Speaker 1: Nothing remotely scandalous. But one comment from Derek, best partner
Speaker 1: in crimed let up on a post about not coming
Speaker 1: a private series the way people banded in the replies
Speaker 1: inside jerks winking e Morgis left me feeling like the
Speaker 1: pitiful kid outside a lock club. Pass odd that a
Speaker 1: group is public facing, as his supposed new friends didn't
Speaker 1: have more open events, more posts. But maybe I was
Speaker 1: just a bitter left out. Even our shared finances crew
Speaker 1: faintly suspicious. A Vemo payment Derek Toalelah two weeks ago
Speaker 1: labeled simply for creativity to saclaring at me on our
Speaker 1: bank app. He'd never paid a group member for anything before.
Speaker 1: I tried to imagine what a normal explanation would be,
Speaker 1: if only I could figure out where the boundary between
Speaker 1: hobby and hiding truly started. At work, my focus slipped.
Speaker 1: I delivered a branding deck to a client with two
Speaker 1: typos in the headline. Unforgivable for me. Deadlines began to
Speaker 1: swim by blurring at the edges. Mia, my oldest friend
Speaker 1: and the closest thing I have to a truth compass,
Speaker 1: noticed immediately, you've got one one foot on another planet,
Speaker 1: she said, in the middle of his zoom happy hour,
Speaker 1: raising an eyebrow over her wine. I didn't explain, though
Speaker 1: the colonel of reality was burrowing deeper. Just busy, I lied,
Speaker 1: then pivoted to her new CrossFit routine, which made her
Speaker 1: groan and let me off the hook. I tried to
Speaker 1: collect myself to become scientific. I checked the calendar entries.
Speaker 1: Derek had made the most vague, only the words a
Speaker 1: collective or meet up or once help held in a
Speaker 1: box on Saturday night. He rarely specified were or when,
Speaker 1: just that he'd be home late, not to wade up.
Speaker 1: I stopped texting to ask. His replies always the same,
Speaker 1: probably late, don't hold dinner for a stretch. I half
Speaker 1: convinced myself this was just a slightly obsessive new phase,
Speaker 1: a mid career deader. Derek needed to throw himself into something.
Speaker 1: After some brewery stress, I was being punitive, squinting for flaws.
Speaker 1: These new friendships were in a threat only inconveniently tanned.
Speaker 1: I nearly believed it each time I made myself name
Speaker 1: these explanations out loud. One ordinary Tuesday, Derek brought home
Speaker 1: a painting, an abstract swell of electric yellow and bruce plum,
Speaker 1: all motion and color, nothing that resembled the city, or
Speaker 1: our house, or even anything I could anchor to. He
Speaker 1: dropped it on the entry table, grinning, collective. Did this
Speaker 1: for the charity auction I told you about. Lee was
Speaker 1: the real genius. Her signature's there, but the whole groups
Speaker 1: on it somewhere cool right, askandit uncertain how to react.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of energy. Who's buying it? Somebody will?
Speaker 1: We got to raise at least too grand for the shelter.
Speaker 1: He looked so proud it almost forgot myself. Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: come next time, I said, voice climbing. He hesitated, small
Speaker 1: but clear, then smiling. Definitely he'd get along. I told
Speaker 1: them your scary good ideas, want me to put you
Speaker 1: on the event list. Relief washed over me, thin but real.
Speaker 1: For a few precious days, things inched back toward normal.
Speaker 1: Derek stayed in more cook to elaborate meals, helped me
Speaker 1: plun a weekend away in Austin. We went to bed
Speaker 1: at the same time. Lynce tangled and walk up beside
Speaker 1: each other. He scheduled a date night at an old
Speaker 1: patio bar, making a show of toasting to us always
Speaker 1: for five days. I was almost ashamed of doubted. Maybe
Speaker 1: he just needed the gap, something to call his own.
Speaker 1: I let my body relax. I started sleeping again, almost soundly.
Speaker 1: He even made playful suggestive jokes as I came out
Speaker 1: of the shower. I answered back, feeling goofy and young again.
Speaker 1: When he went out Friday for another relate session, he said,
Speaker 1: I barely blinked. He texted an hour later, love yeve emmy,
Speaker 1: don't wave up. The Saturday morning, I woke up to
Speaker 1: the low hum of his laughter in the living room.
Speaker 1: When I patted in, rubbing sleep from my eyes, I
Speaker 1: saw him shoulders hunched, phone in a glow under his chin,
Speaker 1: grinning in a way that made my pulselor. I glimpsed
Speaker 1: the messages he put it down, Lela's name at the
Speaker 1: top a privy bubble. Can't stop thinking about that night, Missy.
Speaker 1: Derek's laugh subsided fast when he saw me. He hid
Speaker 1: the phone too quick for casual. I tried to sound breezy.
Speaker 1: Who's up so early? He blinked, forcing himself to look unconcerned.
Speaker 1: Just Lila being worried. She's cracking up over something from
Speaker 1: the neural. She's a night owl or whatever, birds only
Speaker 1: awake at seven a m. It's old jokes, Am. His
Speaker 1: voice was too practiced. I couldn't quite summon a confrontational edge,
Speaker 1: not yet, but my heart pattered in my throat, wild
Speaker 1: and certain, the relief I'd soaked in a previous week
Speaker 1: evaporating fast esteem in our brokenvent after him. The strange thing,
Speaker 1: the part no one warns you about, is how you
Speaker 1: don't leap to the worst conclusion right away. You linger
Speaker 1: in the in between's, clawing for explanations that could let
Speaker 1: you off the hook. Maybe it's an inside joke. Maybe
Speaker 1: he's keeping secrets because he wants to protect me from
Speaker 1: feeling left at maybe my most desperate hope. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was all innocent, just enthusiasm spun out of control, nothing
Speaker 1: to find but awkward amateur one. But new evidence found me,
Speaker 1: whether I looked for it or not. That afternoon I
Speaker 1: decided not to wait for him to share. When he
Speaker 1: left to run errands es sirs his laptop, feeling the
Speaker 1: prickle of self loathing, but helpless to resist. You can't
Speaker 1: call it snooping if you're looking for your own peace
Speaker 1: of mind, I told myself. But the shame was raught anyway.
Speaker 1: His browser history was thin, a handful of searches for
Speaker 1: ural references, a couple of new stories about gallery shows
Speaker 1: Instagram though reveal more, a strain of d ms to Leelah,
Speaker 1: not graphic, but thick with familiar language half phrases. We'd
Speaker 1: use references to TV shows. He'd always mocked his boring
Speaker 1: Let's get lost in the blue hour again, he'd written.
Speaker 1: She'd replied with three spark emoji and a winking face.
Speaker 1: One message, sent in the middle of a Tuesday, miss
Speaker 1: Our Payne, Night's room feels empty without your voice. I
Speaker 1: closed the lid. My breathing was tiny and fast, as
Speaker 1: if every window had snapped open. In January, I stopped sleeping.
Speaker 1: Checking up on him became a kind of ritual. I
Speaker 1: envied my past self, the version who didn't check his calendar,
Speaker 1: who didn't screen every new charge on the joint card
Speaker 1: for coded meaning. I'd even found myself scrolling through his
Speaker 1: social media follows in the dark, tracing every new name,
Speaker 1: every artist. Leela was everywhere tagged message, leaving critic responses
Speaker 1: under beer post about creative Fuel. It wasn't just professional,
Speaker 1: it was insula almost performative, a little mutual admiration society.
Speaker 1: For days. I debated message in Leela, directly bluffing casual
Speaker 1: questions about the project, asking if Derec was really as
Speaker 1: talented as she claimed. But I didn't have the courage.
Speaker 1: I imagine the fallout, the embarrassment, the humiliation if it
Speaker 1: turned out to be nothing but innocent camaraderie. I confided
Speaker 1: just a portion to mea who listened, patient and exasperated.
Speaker 1: You know the signs, am, She said, don't gaslight yourself
Speaker 1: just because you wanted to go away. You deserve to
Speaker 1: know what reel. But even with her come certainty in
Speaker 1: my ear, I second guessed every step. What did I want?
Speaker 1: Proof or denial? Was I amraveling a real thing or
Speaker 1: just a symptom of a marriage not built for change?
Speaker 1: Derek grew more unpredictable. Some nights, he returned with his
Speaker 1: signature invictious smile, hugged me too tightly, spun a story
Speaker 1: about the funniest dottist you'll ever meet. But the nut
Speaker 1: of grumbled almost instantly when I asked for details. He
Speaker 1: had to be there. Am it all happened so fast?
Speaker 1: Other times he was sullen, withdrawn, irritable. When a press
Speaker 1: one Saturday, as he left for another pop up session,
Speaker 1: I called after him, anything you want me to bring
Speaker 1: when I drop by, I could meet your friends. He flinched,
Speaker 1: keys tight in his fist. Actually, probably don't to day.
Speaker 1: The place is kind of a mastumeny supplies. We are behind,
Speaker 1: but I'll introduce you soon. That night I checked his
Speaker 1: calendar against his claimed whereabouts. There were two entries work late,
Speaker 1: an event called El Slash El Private. I stared at
Speaker 1: the heart emoji beside it. I couldn't bring myself to ask.
Speaker 1: The next week brought fresh inconsistency. Our mutual friend will
Speaker 1: never one for gossip, texted me late in the evening
Speaker 1: after catching Deryck at a bar near Lower Greenville. Hay
Speaker 1: ran into Derek and some art girl from his group.
Speaker 1: You too good? His concern was brief but pronounced. He'd
Speaker 1: never texted out of the blue before, not about Dirck.
Speaker 1: I call for somewhere between gratitude and panic, and played
Speaker 1: it off. He's really into this art thing. Ha, we'll
Speaker 1: post seems intense. I don't know, maybe just write it out.
Speaker 1: Everywhere I looked, the universe seemed to shout something's not fitting.
Speaker 1: By then, the insight of my chest fell skinness. I
Speaker 1: realized our routines had not only fraid, they've been quiet.
Speaker 1: He replaced. There was no more trivia, only his apologies
Speaker 1: and my solitary score cards. Sunday Chillie now tasted like
Speaker 1: over good tension and the flavor of questions not asked.
Speaker 1: Evenings fell quiet, save for the soft tap of his
Speaker 1: phone under bed sheets, of the hush of his steps
Speaker 1: heading for another shower. I didn't confront him. I gathered
Speaker 1: as stewed. I turned evidence over in my head, certain
Speaker 1: that one more slip would finally let me to his
Speaker 1: face ask quite exactly he'd let into our house. But
Speaker 1: part of me wanted him to come clean first, as
Speaker 1: if that would grant some final proof. I hadn't imagined
Speaker 1: every sign, every wound, but that hope I could tell
Speaker 1: was dying. What was left was the search for the
Speaker 1: right moment, a place where even I could not pretend
Speaker 1: to misunderstand the shape of his betrayal. The shift between
Speaker 1: what is forgivable and what takes like a bruise is
Speaker 1: almost invisible until you cross it. I found myself swinging
Speaker 1: between wanting desperately to catch Derek in el Lae just
Speaker 1: so I could stop feeling foolish, and wishing for every
Speaker 1: last thing to be as innocent as his smile when
Speaker 1: he brought me coffee in the mornings. There were days
Speaker 1: I could convince myself, this is nothing you're over reacting.
Speaker 1: See he filled your gas tank, he bought your favorite cereal,
Speaker 1: he made that playlist for your drive to the client
Speaker 1: side implaner. And then, just as quickly, the smallest gesture
Speaker 1: I miscall he didn't mention, a faintly defensive laugh, was
Speaker 1: send me skittering back to doubt. One sticky Tuesday, rain
Speaker 1: trickling down the window panes and small streaks. I got
Speaker 1: home early from our meeting that had been canceled last minute.
Speaker 1: Derek's truck was in the drivewy yard for three thirty
Speaker 1: when his brewerishif huld run until at least five. I
Speaker 1: entered as quietly as I could, listening for the muffled
Speaker 1: voice of a phone call, half pre purring my hay,
Speaker 1: surprised it's mere voice. There was no sound at first,
Speaker 1: except the radio, low said, to a station that played
Speaker 1: nothing but indie pop and moody piano. The living room
Speaker 1: was empty, bright with that clean, false afternoon light you
Speaker 1: get before the thunder really cracks. Derek's back, a cleaned
Speaker 1: against the sofa, A streak of blue paint dried on
Speaker 1: the zipper. Two mugs on the coffee table, one definitely
Speaker 1: not his, or lids to print on the rim, A
Speaker 1: faint red distain, certainly not mine. More than anything, I
Speaker 1: wanted to walk back out, make a noise to tip
Speaker 1: him off that I was home, so he or whoever
Speaker 1: might be there would have enough warning to arrange themselves
Speaker 1: into a normal, presentable shape. For curiosity, no, let's call
Speaker 1: it what it was, dry dawn could me in place?
Speaker 1: I hovered in the hall in near my office, holding
Speaker 1: my breath. I heard lol after his, and then a woman's.
Speaker 1: It was her, Leelah, her voice warm and rolling, too
Speaker 1: comfortable for a guest. I pushed my office door open
Speaker 1: quietly and lingered, barely, daring to peek around the corner.
Speaker 1: Derek and Leo sat at the edge of the sofa,
Speaker 1: a huge sketchbub between them. She was showing him something
Speaker 1: on her phone, and they were both laughing as to
Speaker 1: coddo familiar back and forth, like the way old friends
Speaker 1: to ease, touching hands over the paper. Not lovers, I thought,
Speaker 1: I prayed, but certainly not strangers, not only collaborators. He
Speaker 1: spotted me in the reflection of the glass. M hey,
Speaker 1: your home. I was just out. We needed a second
Speaker 1: space for arm brainstorming my work officer's chaos to day.
Speaker 1: There was a note of apology in his grain. Too
Speaker 1: eager to reassure, Lelah turned offering me a relax, confident smile.
Speaker 1: You must be emily sorry to crush your space. Derek's
Speaker 1: talked about your branding work, said you helped design the
Speaker 1: brewery's logo frairiy sharp stuff. I didn't know what to say.
Speaker 1: I made myself return the smile, polite, not too brutle.
Speaker 1: Nice to meet e, Leelah. I hope our messes in
Speaker 1: interfering with your process. Derek glanced at Leelah, almost as
Speaker 1: if checking for her permission to answer me. She was
Speaker 1: just helping me hash out this mural thing for board walk.
Speaker 1: Didn't expect you for hours, babe, thought you At a
Speaker 1: three thirty, it was canceled. I perched on the arm chair,
Speaker 1: willing myself to abnormal professional the way you do incline
Speaker 1: her watching, Lilis sat the mug down. I noticed she
Speaker 1: left a pale smudge of make up on the rim,
Speaker 1: and some internal tally in my mind made a note
Speaker 1: of the color. How's it coming, I asked, trying to
Speaker 1: keep the bitterness from my tone. Deilah held at the
Speaker 1: sketch bed. It was a swirl of bold lines, nothing discernible,
Speaker 1: but with his signature in the corner. Your husband's a
Speaker 1: quick study. He's got a much better feel for design
Speaker 1: than he lets on. I try to laugh. He's always
Speaker 1: dampling himself. Brewer by day, seecre Picasso by night. Huh
Speaker 1: darek let the joke roll over him, Relief passing as
Speaker 1: he started stacking out the colored pencils. We're gonna clear
Speaker 1: out soon, and you need the place, not for another hour.
Speaker 1: My face was hot, but I wasn't sure if I
Speaker 1: was angry or just embarrassed by my own awkwardness. Lelah
Speaker 1: stood gathering her bag. Seriously, thanks for letting us take
Speaker 1: over next round. Coffee's on me. You'll welcome to join.
Speaker 1: We're painting a lobby wall at the co op DN Town.
Speaker 1: If you want to see the circus up close, maybe,
Speaker 1: I said. She gave a little wave and headed out.
Speaker 1: Dare trailing her to the door. They chatted in low
Speaker 1: voices by his truck. Two minutes maybe more. I watched
Speaker 1: from behind the blinds like a villain. He returned, dropping
Speaker 1: on to the sofa beside me, kneading a kink in
Speaker 1: his shoulder with one hand. Sorry about the surprise art show.
Speaker 1: She just needed somewhere quiet. Doesn't she have her own studio,
Speaker 1: I asked, before I could stop myself. He shot me
Speaker 1: a sheepish look. It's yer, but she says. The ViBe's depressing.
Speaker 1: I offered, it was no baby, We just needed the table.
Speaker 1: Something about the way he said, we not the group,
Speaker 1: not the team, just him in her. I tried to
Speaker 1: hold on til more generous interpretation, but it kept slipping.
Speaker 1: That night, after he fell asleep, I carefully checked our
Speaker 1: guest MUCKs holding leaders up in the kitchen light reddish
Speaker 1: lipstick not a call ay by by accident, I deleted
Speaker 1: the photo. I took immediately. I was ashamed, but I
Speaker 1: had to convince myself that I'd seen proof that this
Speaker 1: wasn't some fever dream. The next morning, Deryck was back
Speaker 1: to his bright Saturday self, organizing his brewing notes, setting
Speaker 1: up supplies by the back door. There was a loose
Speaker 1: energy to him, some mix of anxiety and excitement, the
Speaker 1: way he'd get before a pilot batch or a crowded
Speaker 1: tateeingroom night. He glanced at me as I loaded the dishwasher. Hey,
Speaker 1: you sure you don't want to check out the mural.
Speaker 1: The crew's going to be there too late. I get
Speaker 1: that it's not your scene, but it might be fun.
Speaker 1: I shrugged, hoping he couldn't tell. I was weighing every word.
Speaker 1: Maybe later I have to finish up a campaign physiques.
Speaker 1: I watched for disappointment or relief, but he gave nothing away.
Speaker 1: Just nodded, then grabbed his jacket. At noon, Mea messaged me,
Speaker 1: ameme with an owl in a beret when your creative
Speaker 1: genius is overlooked at work. I almost laughed, then sent
Speaker 1: her rush un done of what I'd walked in on
Speaker 1: the day before. Every detail except the mug on the lipstick,
Speaker 1: She replied instantly. That's weird. Am not criminal, but weird?
Speaker 1: Are you going to bring it up? Not yet, I wrote,
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure what to accuse him of. Accused,
Speaker 1: no ask, Maybe just don't let him write the scene
Speaker 1: for you. O K. She added, And if he dodges,
Speaker 1: that's its own answer. That afternoon, still stewing, I decided
Speaker 1: to actually go see the mural. Not to spy, I
Speaker 1: told myself, but to what reassure myself the po of
Speaker 1: his new world. I put on my friendliest dress, force
Speaker 1: of brightness into my face, and took the train to
Speaker 1: the co Op downtown. I found the group by a
Speaker 1: war washed in primate canvasses and folding tables everywhere, music
Speaker 1: blasting from one two tiny bluetooth speaker. Derek was there,
Speaker 1: balancing on a ladder, paint spattered and grinning wide as
Speaker 1: he blended two broad strokes together. Leelah and two others
Speaker 1: hovered nearby, heatedly debating blue versus Green. But the group
Speaker 1: energy was by every outward sign, wholesome, collective and open.
Speaker 1: When Derek saw me, his face lit up. Yem you came, guys,
Speaker 1: this is Emily. She's way more talented in me. Don't
Speaker 1: let her tell you she's not. People introduced themselves, a
Speaker 1: blur of names and big gestures. No one batted an
Speaker 1: I At my arrival, Leelah gave me a welcoming nod,
Speaker 1: like I had passed a test just by showing up
Speaker 1: at all. For half an hour, I watched, interjecting suggestions.
Speaker 1: When Derek O'leelah asked, maybe I thought this was all
Speaker 1: in my head to shirt enthusiasm, ID assumed was more intimate,
Speaker 1: simply because I've felt left out. I snapped a photo
Speaker 1: of Derreck working the color on his fingers, echoing old
Speaker 1: smudges from late brewery nights when he'd revamped the labels
Speaker 1: on you bottles. It felt almost familiar, and for a
Speaker 1: split second I caught leel grinning up at Derek. Not hungry,
Speaker 1: not possessive, just glowing with him, the kind of radiant
Speaker 1: attention that used to be mine. When we took a break,
Speaker 1: Derek wrapped an arm lightier round my shoulder, Glad you came.
Speaker 1: It's not as weird as he thought. Right. Leelah's brilliant,
Speaker 1: but she sucks at order. In lunch, Lea snorted, sipping
Speaker 1: neon Orange Phanta. He's full of shit. He's the one
Speaker 1: who bought the devil Big sand which last week. Everyone laughed.
Speaker 1: I managed to join in After an hour, I excused myself,
Speaker 1: sighting deadlines. Derek is my cheek, a soft searching gesture.
Speaker 1: Home for dinner, he asked, yeah, I replied, walking back
Speaker 1: toward the station, I felt lighter than I had in weeks,
Speaker 1: But as soon as I got home, the feeling thinned out.
Speaker 1: There had still been that mug, the lipstick, the heart
Speaker 1: emoji on the calendar. Event. I told myself, if something
Speaker 1: is really happening, it coun't always hide in broad daylight.
Speaker 1: But then I remembered how long did I believe in
Speaker 1: the gallery that we were untouchable, that coded language and
Speaker 1: nickname and belong to us alone. A's passed, small tensions,
Speaker 1: like pressure building under a calm surface. On Thursday, Derek
Speaker 1: started to head out for another prep night, but lingered
Speaker 1: by the door. You can come along if you want,
Speaker 1: or could really use some emmy advice. Tempted, I demurred,
Speaker 1: you probably don't need me analyzing Paint's watches all night.
Speaker 1: I'll catch up next time. He looked relieved, then mastered
Speaker 1: it with a quick smile. Suit yourself, don't wait up.
Speaker 1: He was hum After midnight showed immediately left damp clothes
Speaker 1: in the tub. That same faint and familiar perfume lingered
Speaker 1: in the air. Maybe I was only noticing it because
Speaker 1: I was paying attention. Maybe I was inventing reasons to worry.
Speaker 1: That weekend, another receipt turned up, this time for a
Speaker 1: lunch place in the Nashal Sculpture's Center rupeouting, Derek said.
Speaker 1: When asked offned he picked at his food. Then, before
Speaker 1: I could press turn the conversation to my work, flooding
Speaker 1: me with questions about a client I'd spend months complaining about.
Speaker 1: It Almost worked. I spent a good twenty minutes ranting,
Speaker 1: letting his gentle laugh to disarm me, briefly warming again
Speaker 1: to the idea that all this was just a phase.
Speaker 1: On Saturday, a package arrived address to Deryck from an
Speaker 1: online art supply store i'd never heard of. Inside high
Speaker 1: end marker's two sketch books, a tiny folded note for
Speaker 1: your next masterpiece, l I tucked the note back before
Speaker 1: Derec could find me with it. When he did open
Speaker 1: the package, I hovered around, waiting for a sign. He smiled,
Speaker 1: holding up the markers. Leelah swears by these, says there
Speaker 1: magic seems personal, I offered. He shrugged. Our group does
Speaker 1: secrets enterily were too disorganized for December, just a fun thing.
Speaker 1: But I noticed him slip the note into his wallet,
Speaker 1: not the trash. On Sunday, he asked, you want to
Speaker 1: come to the charity auction. There will be food, local'll
Speaker 1: be a good people. I agreed, needing to see for myself.
Speaker 1: Maybe with enough openness, doubt could be washed away. At
Speaker 1: the auction, Deryck was in his element, working the rooms, musing, grinning,
Speaker 1: hugging people collecting handshacks. He brought me a drink, pointed
Speaker 1: across the floor to Leelah, who was in deep conversation
Speaker 1: with a couple. I didn't know to tell her you
Speaker 1: love her dress should give you a fifty cent to
Speaker 1: for last three heart breaks. She's like always righting herself
Speaker 1: into new chapters beneath bright, benevolent lights. I tried to
Speaker 1: believe this was all about board. I mingled a networked
Speaker 1: I let Deryck's will temporarily become my own, But the
Speaker 1: doubt came back sharper now, too many little exclusions, too
Speaker 1: much energy. Pointed just a breath away from me, I
Speaker 1: caught Derek watching Leela as she spoke to an older
Speaker 1: man at the bar, his attention lingering. She looked over
Speaker 1: and winked, conspiratorial me. Ye, standing there with my drink,
Speaker 1: unsure if I was a spectator or just someone who'd
Speaker 1: missed the main act. When I excused myself for the restroom,
Speaker 1: I duck pasted a line of people gossping about the artists.
Speaker 1: I overheard le say, giggling, No one paints like you do, Dee.
Speaker 1: I want you to show them your secret technique. Promise
Speaker 1: it was performance for effect, I told myself, But somewhere
Speaker 1: inside I knew this was intimacy spun out against the world.
Speaker 1: On the walk home, I tangled my fingers with Derek's,
Speaker 1: trying to summon closeness. He squeezed back, humming under his breath,
Speaker 1: but his eyes were far away, glancing at lights, not
Speaker 1: at me, back at Ardiplex. I told myself, one more week,
Speaker 1: one more gesture of faith. If I'm wrong, then I'll
Speaker 1: take the embarrassment over, driving a wedge between us for
Speaker 1: no reason. If I'm not wrong. If this is what
Speaker 1: betrayal looks like just before the mast drops, then at
Speaker 1: least I'll have proof I actually tried. The next few days,
Speaker 1: I found myself rehearsing conversations in my head. How would
Speaker 1: I even begin? Are you cheating on me? Felt brutal
Speaker 1: and sophisticated, destined for denial. But I couldn't keep treading
Speaker 1: water and a sea of guesses and self doubt. One afternoon,
Speaker 1: while Deryck was in the shower, I heard his phone
Speaker 1: bus with a face time call. The notification bent a flash.
Speaker 1: Leelah ought in coming video out of reflex, I picked
Speaker 1: up the phone and set it on the counter, backing
Speaker 1: away as if it had stung me. I didn't answer.
Speaker 1: When Derec emerged, twel slum over his hips, water beating
Speaker 1: on his skin. He picked up the phone and poised.
Speaker 1: When he saw the recent call. Everything okay, I tried, voice,
Speaker 1: intentionally bland. He looked up too quickly. Oh yeah, Leelah's
Speaker 1: just checking on a supply list for the mural. I
Speaker 1: told her i'd call back later. He thumbed the phone
Speaker 1: dark and moved past me to the bedroom. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was nothing, maybe everything. By then, was nothing accept the
Speaker 1: absence of trust. That night, I messaged a member from
Speaker 1: the art collect of whose name I had picked up
Speaker 1: during the co op event, a guy named Javier who'd
Speaker 1: seen Open and Friendly his Instagram folk candid o poscess
Speaker 1: fit is. The message was clumsy, Hey, Emily here, Derek's
Speaker 1: wife just wanted to congratulate everyone on the mural of
Speaker 1: the energy was amazing. Had the rest of the night
Speaker 1: go after I left? He replied, fast Friendly, you missed
Speaker 1: the real party. Derek and Leela practically lived their last
Speaker 1: week prepping for this side club. You should come next time,
Speaker 1: their nets working late all the time. I tried to
Speaker 1: keep my voice even in texts. Neutral didn't realize they
Speaker 1: had their own series. He hasn't mentioned it. Javier's I'm
Speaker 1: back yeah, kind of last minute, super small group. Only
Speaker 1: them for that one, I think. But Derek's sole and
Speaker 1: Leela's muse haw. It's cold though, working with your partner
Speaker 1: in crime, right, absolutely, I typed, fingers cold, thanks for
Speaker 1: letting me know. I laid the phone on the couch,
Speaker 1: hand shaking partner in crime mease. I loaned for hours,
Speaker 1: painting and sketching through the night. Whole blocks of time.
Speaker 1: He never mentioned nothing I could say to turn those
Speaker 1: words into something harmless. That night, I confronted Derec softly,
Speaker 1: as if not naming it might make it go away.
Speaker 1: How Vier says, you and Leela are working on a
Speaker 1: private series. Why didn't you tell me? He leveled a
Speaker 1: long look at me. Jill working, it's just sad stuff.
Speaker 1: Didn't want to bore you. You've got your own projects.
Speaker 1: I figured, you know, we each need our space sometimes,
Speaker 1: and you being gone half a night coming home smelling
Speaker 1: like perfume, that's just space. I tried not to let
Speaker 1: my hand shake, voice barely above a whisper. He shifted back,
Speaker 1: face suddenly old, it's group staff. EM. Things linger in
Speaker 1: the air, stop making it weird. I wanted so badly
Speaker 1: to believe that, But I didn't say anything more, and
Speaker 1: neither did he me called that night, he sounded hollow.
Speaker 1: You can't keep pretending this is nothing, Em. You already know.
Speaker 1: I almost said it, almost, But denial is strong and
Speaker 1: shame stronger. I cut the call shore, saying I was
Speaker 1: just tired and lay on our bed is staring at
Speaker 1: the patch of midnight above our window, wondering when things
Speaker 1: had soured her reversibly. The next day, Derec was late
Speaker 1: again again. I sat up, unable to sleep, scrolling through
Speaker 1: emails for distraction. A notification popped up from our bank
Speaker 1: of Vemmo Derek Dalila, this time for larger sum, labeled
Speaker 1: simply last night. My chest cunched. The morning after, while
Speaker 1: Derek sipted coffee at our tiny breakfast table, a hotel
Speaker 1: reservation confirmation popped up on his iPad. He'd forgotten to
Speaker 1: look out of our shared profile. The king to downtown
Speaker 1: Friday night, A single ar's feepee, the excuse he'd given
Speaker 1: for being late, brewery inventory I felt. He rushed to
Speaker 1: my face, the deric, did you book a hotel for something?
Speaker 1: I saw the confirmation. He blinked. The pause was almost unperceptible,
Speaker 1: but spoke volumes. Yea has for art stuff. We're painting
Speaker 1: a big canvas and the studio is being sprayed. You
Speaker 1: can't breathe in their croup booked rooms so we can
Speaker 1: work all night avoid the fumes. He did not meet
Speaker 1: my eyes. I stared at my coffee, the bitter taste
Speaker 1: echoing in my mouth. That night, as he left, I
Speaker 1: watched from the window he didn't look back. I followed
Speaker 1: his phone location, something I'd never done before, something that
Speaker 1: made me hate myself. In the moment the blue dot
Speaker 1: drifted to the hotel address. It sayed there till four
Speaker 1: in the morning, I lay awake, knowing, finally knowing enough,
Speaker 1: still wanting somehow to be wrong. By the time he
Speaker 1: crawled into bed, I pretended to be asleep. His hand
Speaker 1: brushed my shoulder and lingered, uncertain, as if he wanted
Speaker 1: to say something but decided against it. He smelled faintly
Speaker 1: of paint and unmistakably another person's perfume. I held myself
Speaker 1: still a stone, sleep never coming. That morning, my decision
Speaker 1: was clear. I couldn't keep circling. It was time to
Speaker 1: face him, to force the truth, even if the shape
Speaker 1: of that truth would level everything we'd build. But I
Speaker 1: waited just one more day, hoping for a sign that
Speaker 1: he'd offer what I couldn't name. He didn't, and so
Speaker 1: it would have to be me who shattered a hold
Speaker 1: of silence. The morning after Derec came home from the hotel,
Speaker 1: the house was quieter than seem possible. My body vibrated
Speaker 1: with fatigue after another night without sleep, muscles tork with
Speaker 1: the pretense that I'd been asleep when he slipped into
Speaker 1: bed at nearly five. He showered, lingered too long in
Speaker 1: the steam, and when he emerged, wrapt in his rid
Speaker 1: vertex tacktowel, his eyes looked hollowed out, his face oddly young, endfee.
Speaker 1: We went through the motions, coffee, brewing mugs clinking, the
Speaker 1: sound of Derec's them tapping out an anxious rhythm on
Speaker 1: the counter. I pushed out a round a pan fort show,
Speaker 1: then dumped them in the sink. Appet I got it.
Speaker 1: He worked for emails on his phone too quickly, not
Speaker 1: really reading, waiting for me to break the silence or
Speaker 1: for some outside force to intervene. My chest was all noise,
Speaker 1: stat screaming questions I couldn't bear to voice in daylight.
Speaker 1: Every time he moved within arm's reach, I expected him
Speaker 1: to confess, or explain, or even touched me, try to
Speaker 1: summon the safety that used to exist between us. But
Speaker 1: he only hovered, careful with his words and even more
Speaker 1: careful with the distance he kept. The performer who could
Speaker 1: dazzle any one in a crow looked like some one
Speaker 1: running lines only for himself. Now his gaze drifting above
Speaker 1: my head when I tried to catch it. I took
Speaker 1: two calls that morning, one from a client, which I fumbled,
Speaker 1: and one from Ere, which I let go to voicemail.
Speaker 1: She sent attacks minutes later. Do you want company? Just
Speaker 1: say the word? I typed and deleted a dozen responses,
Speaker 1: never hitting send. Even when sport was offered, everything inside
Speaker 1: me resisted the idea of pulling someone else into this collapse,
Speaker 1: of turning private shame into public spectacle. I busied myself
Speaker 1: with trivial chow's laundry at bills, reorganizing the pantry until
Speaker 1: the suit cans lined up by alphabetcheech to ask a
Speaker 1: barrier against looking directly at what I knew. Derek moved
Speaker 1: around me like we were on a tight rope, both
Speaker 1: determined not to be the first to break. At one
Speaker 1: point I watched him pause in the hallway, hand pressed
Speaker 1: to the closed guest room door, drawing a slow breath
Speaker 1: before lighting it out. The spaces in our house swallowed us,
Speaker 1: turned familiar and Mark's hostile. The chili pot that still
Speaker 1: smelled faintly of last Sunday's false peace, the painting by
Speaker 1: the entryway, it swirl of yellow, now almost aggressive in
Speaker 1: its energy. The tiny howe full reminder notes we'd once
Speaker 1: written each other faded on the fridge. Later that afternoon,
Speaker 1: as the storm a side scotch, the windows were texan ferousity.
Speaker 1: I heard Derek speaking softly into his phone on the porch.
Speaker 1: The tone bordered on apologies and promises, the words themselves indistinct,
Speaker 1: but the rhythm painfully familiar from arguments we once had
Speaker 1: in those first bumpy years. Force calm, practiced, reassurance, urgent,
Speaker 1: new colliding with dread. When I caught his eye through
Speaker 1: the glass, he froze, then stiffened, tucking the fan away
Speaker 1: like a secret he'd already lost control of. I didn't
Speaker 1: confront him, not yet. The silence was a living thing
Speaker 1: that hovered between us, thicker, now more insistent. At dinner time,
Speaker 1: we ate in separate rooms. I found myself sitting on
Speaker 1: the edge of our bed, feet dangling, willing the date,
Speaker 1: and just so I could perform the charade of sleep again.
Speaker 1: Night fell heavy. I lay rigid on my side, pretending
Speaker 1: not to hear when Derek's voice rumbled through the walls,
Speaker 1: muffled and tight during another hushed call, Somewhere between the
Speaker 1: sounds of his words and the brutal hush that followed,
Speaker 1: I understood whatever remained between us was unraveling at speed,
Speaker 1: and all I could do was endure the slow motion
Speaker 1: rech By the next morning, the drovers, as thick as humidity,
Speaker 1: glewed to maskin no matter how many showers it took.
Speaker 1: Derec made up mel and left it on the table untouched.
Speaker 1: His every action was now an overture for forgiveness he
Speaker 1: hadn't earned. He reached for my hand for the first
Speaker 1: time in days. I led him, not out of softest
Speaker 1: spit out of shock the gesture and familiar mechanical. I
Speaker 1: should have spoken, then forced the issue, but my voice
Speaker 1: failed me. He watched me with a pleading half smile,
Speaker 1: trying to look at some trace of the woman he'd known,
Speaker 1: the one who made everything easier to survive. Instead, I
Speaker 1: spent the afternoon searching for anything that could anchor me.
Speaker 1: I called Juniper, our neighbor, and asked if she'd heard
Speaker 1: about the mule auction. Sure, she said, casually, Lelah picked
Speaker 1: up your guy for the early shift Friday. Those two man,
Speaker 1: hope you aren't losing him to the art world for good.
Speaker 1: I thanked her for nothing, hung up, and let the
Speaker 1: phone fall from my hands. It was with mechanical precision
Speaker 1: that I paged through our shared calendar's receipts, every scrap
Speaker 1: of digital recidue, then my Instagram, the iPad's arterful suggestions.
Speaker 1: Evidence piled up with the kind of inevitability that should
Speaker 1: have brought relief, but only deepened the sense of insult.
Speaker 1: How easy it had been for him to let something
Speaker 1: precious become common, How simple the domestic stage was to breach.
Speaker 1: By the time the sunscrape blow behind the neighbor's oak,
Speaker 1: I couldn't pretend any more. It was time I turned
Speaker 1: out to write the scene neither of us wanted. The
Speaker 1: confrontation was a tidal shift, inevitable, but with a violence
Speaker 1: I never invited. Derek arrived home at dusk, a plastic
Speaker 1: bag of takeout in hand, as if froof could plaster
Speaker 1: over the toarn wallpaper of our piece, Susha Knight. He called,
Speaker 1: voice falsely bright. I met him in the hallway, hands
Speaker 1: at my sides, like shaking, almost imperceptibly. I didn't bother
Speaker 1: with a preamble. We need to talk, I said, letting
Speaker 1: the tremor in my voice act as my warning for
Speaker 1: a moment. He set the boat down, looked out, pyes
Speaker 1: flicking from my face to the painting behind me. He
Speaker 1: saw something was retrievably off. Yes, he answered, we should.
Speaker 1: I laid it out with as much composure as I
Speaker 1: could muster the text from Leela above that night, the
Speaker 1: Vemo transfer's labeled with cryptic, little cold words, the group
Speaker 1: photo with his arm around her waist, the lipstick on
Speaker 1: the mug, the hotel reservation. I told him what will
Speaker 1: Anavia had said, the timeline that couldn't be bent far
Speaker 1: enough to look innocent. My voice steadied with every item.
Speaker 1: When silence threatened to swallow us both, I press on.
Speaker 1: I want you to tell me the truth, Derrick, the
Speaker 1: real truth. No more ar group stories, no more half
Speaker 1: explained late nights that deserved to know exactly what I'm
Speaker 1: living with. He stared at me, and muscles moving along
Speaker 1: his jaw as he bit back words, his hands coming
Speaker 1: together then apart. At first, he laughed dryly, A refix, brittle.
Speaker 1: It's not what you think, she lelah, she's it was
Speaker 1: just she gets me. Then we talk about ideas. That's
Speaker 1: all we got close. You were busy, always working, and I, god,
Speaker 1: it was stupid, but I needed something that was just
Speaker 1: for me. The words came out raw, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: settling for his deflection. You used our name, our jokes,
Speaker 1: the language that was supposed to be ours. You spent
Speaker 1: nights in hotels, he sent her money. You lied every
Speaker 1: time you crossed that line, and came home to me
Speaker 1: and pretended nothing was wrong. So tell me again, what
Speaker 1: was it just ideas? He looked away. No, it wasn't
Speaker 1: just ideas. I'm sorry. He ran his hand over his face,
Speaker 1: rubbing eyes that looked near breaking. It started with late
Speaker 1: nights and art, insuring music. I swear, she kept saying
Speaker 1: I should go bigger. One night at the Mule Studio
Speaker 1: we got drinks. How it got physical, and once, maybe twice,
Speaker 1: they swear to god, I didn't want this to turn
Speaker 1: into something else. I didn't want to lose you. The
Speaker 1: words hit with the dull force of an already open wound.
Speaker 1: I wanted to hit something, to scream, to name every
Speaker 1: moment he made me doubt my own grip on reality.
Speaker 1: But all that came out was low, shaking breath. But
Speaker 1: you did he chose it again and again. Every time
Speaker 1: you lied. I rich for you. I tried. He pushed
Speaker 1: me out and let her walk him at my name
Speaker 1: on her tom He WinCE a tiny, helpless shudder. He
Speaker 1: were so far away lately. I felt invisible here that
Speaker 1: the brewery and just a beer guy with you. The
Speaker 1: only conversations we had were about bills or your deadlines,
Speaker 1: leel Or. She just made me feel seen. She wanted
Speaker 1: parts of me. I thought I'd lost parts of you
Speaker 1: I loved. I spat until you gave them away so easily.
Speaker 1: He started to cry, small angry tears, as if furious
Speaker 1: that vulnerability still belonged to him. I know I fucked up.
Speaker 1: I know it's unforgivable, but it wasn't always. I still
Speaker 1: love you, em I always have. I was just selfish weak.
Speaker 1: The adrenaline had left me drained an ankle deep in devastation.
Speaker 1: I shook my head. He used everything we built to
Speaker 1: build something new with her. You broke this, you brook me.
Speaker 1: I don't know what i'nt he accept a home you
Speaker 1: expect to stay standing. Even as she talked the rooms
Speaker 1: behind closed doors, he moved as if to reach from me.
Speaker 1: Then thought better of it. Don't leave, Please them, give
Speaker 1: me a chance to earn this back. I stared at
Speaker 1: the man in front of me, the disaster behind us
Speaker 1: still echoing. I can't, I said, not now, maybe not ever.
Speaker 1: There was no fight left, not even enough left for anger,
Speaker 1: only the hollow finality of some one past the outer
Speaker 1: edge of forgiveness. He nodded, shoulders caving in. I'll go,
Speaker 1: he whispered. He disappeared quietly. I heard him in the bedroom,
Speaker 1: bag slipping, sh scraping the floor, a scattered handful of
Speaker 1: apologies drifting down the hallway with him, words barely loud
Speaker 1: enough to be called for a wells. I didn't answer.
Speaker 1: The sound of the door shutting behind him was neither
Speaker 1: sudden nor s low, only inevitable. I didn't move for
Speaker 1: a long time. The air blue coll from the vent,
Speaker 1: braising goose froms on my skin, my feet numb on
Speaker 1: the hardwood. There was no drama now, only the ordinary
Speaker 1: brutal business of endings. Dereck texted when he reached was place.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I'll leave you the keys to morrow.
Speaker 1: If you want me to disappear, I will. There was
Speaker 1: a second message, and send for half an hour that
Speaker 1: finally arrived. He deserved better. Please believe that this was
Speaker 1: never about you not being enough. I read it once
Speaker 1: and left it un answered, mere cold, this time, not
Speaker 1: waiting for permission, her voice sharp and certain. What do
Speaker 1: you need? She asked, No prudence, no place, latitudes, just quite.
Speaker 1: I managed, and she understood no more words. By midnight,
Speaker 1: the house was mine and mine alone. In the short
Speaker 1: hours that followed, news traveled quickly through the small circle
Speaker 1: of friends. Jack Saena cautious, Hey, anything I can do.
Speaker 1: I waved him off with the half hearted thanks. Just
Speaker 1: knee time, Juniper, not with a casserole, the sword of
Speaker 1: gesture that signals disaster better than any siren. I smiled
Speaker 1: as best I could, and let her hug me briefly
Speaker 1: in the doorway, the feeling oddly distant. I changed the
Speaker 1: locks the next morning without ceremony, just called the hardware store,
Speaker 1: pay cash, and watched as the handoman worked with loud,
Speaker 1: cheerful efficiency, unaware of the reason. While Dirck had promised
Speaker 1: to pick up the last of his things soon, I
Speaker 1: gathered up traces of him. Shoes, the spare electric razor,
Speaker 1: the hoodie that still smelled of his cologne. I placed
Speaker 1: them in a box beside the door. I counseled our
Speaker 1: trip to Austin, sent our joint financial planner an email
Speaker 1: with a subject line change in circumstance, and gave myself
Speaker 1: permission not to answer any one else's questions, neither the
Speaker 1: ones asked nor the ones merely looking in sympathetic glances.
Speaker 1: The house contracted without Derrick in it. The bed felt
Speaker 1: like new construction, alien and dsted. The refrigerator was enterre,
Speaker 1: the porch kuior, the sense of routine mat by every
Speaker 1: left of a ritual now too quieterbear. I removed the
Speaker 1: photos of us from the fridge, set aside the postcard
Speaker 1: he'd once sent as a joke from fort Worth, missing
Speaker 1: you already, Starshine, and pressed them flat between two cupbooks
Speaker 1: I would not be opening for a long time. Somewhere
Speaker 1: beyond the panic and humiliation, and newcom came and settle.
Speaker 1: Not relief exactly, but the numpiece you find when there
Speaker 1: is simply nothing left to defend. A week later, the
Speaker 1: morning some found me standing in the living room, the
Speaker 1: lights building over the group painting that had lived above
Speaker 1: our entry table since the first art auction. I stared
Speaker 1: at it, searching for a way to make sense of
Speaker 1: the chaos. It was all angles and harsh lines, wild
Speaker 1: collar without shape. Leela's signature sat bold in the lower
Speaker 1: left corner, as if laying plain to space I had
Speaker 1: never noticed had even been available. I studied the brush
Speaker 1: trucks that Derek had pointed out so proudly weeks before,
Speaker 1: all motion and hope that now looked thus like energy
Speaker 1: and more like erasure in this silence of that morning,
Speaker 1: with the hull has finally still, I reached up and
Speaker 1: traced the cool glass of the frame, feeling nothing but
Speaker 1: the clarity of loss. I walked to the front door,
Speaker 1: opened it, and stepped outside, letting myself feel the air
Speaker 1: on my face, willing my lins to keep moving. The
Speaker 1: sun was rising over Dallas, gold and ordinary anew. The
Speaker 1: rush of cool morning air, cutting clean through the thick
Speaker 1: and moving sadness that had coated the house, brought nothing
Speaker 1: like clarity, only a physical cold, something you could notice
Speaker 1: without replaying the past. I shivered on the porch, arms
Speaker 1: wrapped tight around myself, listening to the city move and wake.
Speaker 1: Car's idle birds started and chirped. A delivery truckissed two
Speaker 1: houses down, ordinary Dallas, all business as usual. While inside
Speaker 1: I counted everything that wasn't there. I leaned against the
Speaker 1: rail toes culling against rough, and finished with what direc
Speaker 1: had always meant to sand down. I wondered if the
Speaker 1: splinters beneath my feet were punishment or proof. The time
Speaker 1: kept movie, even when he felt carved hollow. I pressed
Speaker 1: my phone into my palm, the making with the force
Speaker 1: of it. No calls from him, not since last night.
Speaker 1: He'd kept his word, at least physically, following my silent
Speaker 1: request for distance. But the absence was a different kind
Speaker 1: of presents, new routines forced on you by trail. Nothing
Speaker 1: in the house felt truly mine, not yet. I drifted
Speaker 1: back inside, hesitating at the threshold flake the light might
Speaker 1: set off alarms. Every room seemed louder in its silence.
Speaker 1: The echo in the whole way magnified even the faintest movement.
Speaker 1: I busied myself with the necessary brakes to run to
Speaker 1: the corner store for bread and milk. A polite check
Speaker 1: in with our neighbor Jini for her voice now gentle, careful,
Speaker 1: as if she thought I might chatter, if she spoke
Speaker 1: too quickly. I stayed only as long as Cosey demanded
Speaker 1: dodge in the invitation to linger and made excuses about
Speaker 1: unfinished work back home. A fores life into the house
Speaker 1: once moll task at a time, tidying the living room,
Speaker 1: stacking and touched mail, moving Derrek's boxes closer to the
Speaker 1: front door. The painting over the entry table watched me
Speaker 1: everywhere I went, bright even in the weak daylight. The
Speaker 1: swall of collars that once looked and fighting now seemed
Speaker 1: to crowd out every other art fact of our life together,
Speaker 1: a constant, impossible to misreminder that what I had thought
Speaker 1: was ours had always been open to intrusion. The notifications
Speaker 1: did not stop. Our friend group was an uproar, but
Speaker 1: quietly in the awkward sidelong way, people reserved ferdole failures.
Speaker 1: Mia texted to see if I needed anything from the
Speaker 1: central market. Jack's offered to help move. Literally anything hovered unaccepted,
Speaker 1: even my sister, who rarely took sides send a clip
Speaker 1: to belove you, not his fault, not yours, call me
Speaker 1: when you want. I didn't answer any one straight away,
Speaker 1: as a silence could act as a buffer, protecting me
Speaker 1: from well meaning words that were guaranteed to make everything
Speaker 1: feel exposed and cheap. On the second morning, after Derrick
Speaker 1: left and knock startled me from a haze of busy work.
Speaker 1: I half expected it to be him, already rehearsing my
Speaker 1: refusal to let him back in. But it was Will.
Speaker 1: Wearing old jeans, hands jammed into jacket pockets. He shuffled
Speaker 1: awkwardly in the driveway as if he were a teenager again,
Speaker 1: unsure of the rules. I won't say, he said, but
Speaker 1: Dirck asked me to get the rest of his stuff.
Speaker 1: He's at my place, trying to keep out of you away.
Speaker 1: He wants you to know he's sorry, but he knows
Speaker 1: it's not enough. I let weill in, watching as he
Speaker 1: moved methodically through the bedroom, gathering up shirts, a favorite
Speaker 1: pair of boots, the battered lucky cap he wore to
Speaker 1: every beer launch. He avoided my eyes, and I was
Speaker 1: grateful for it. Less chance of anyone mistakingness for a
Speaker 1: rescue on his way out or pause, the box balanced
Speaker 1: in his arms. He still, he still talks about you,
Speaker 1: like you might wake up and let him fix it.
Speaker 1: What do I say to that? I took a breath
Speaker 1: slow and measured nothing. There isn't anything to be said.
Speaker 1: Just take care of him, I guess, and of yourself.
Speaker 1: There was no answer to that. Will walked away, shoe
Speaker 1: scuffing the tile, and let the door close behind him
Speaker 1: as softly as anyone could. I spent the rest of
Speaker 1: the day caught between restlessness and inertia. I cleaned out
Speaker 1: to fer to toss the sauces he kept for elaborate tacos,
Speaker 1: wiped down every shelf, as if the right amount of
Speaker 1: labor could erase the taste of absence. I lowered on
Speaker 1: to email, eyes blurring over the words. I answered quick,
Speaker 1: perfunctory questions, How are things ready for your deadline? To
Speaker 1: with lies as efficient as any I grown used to
Speaker 1: hearing A round dusk, the doorbell rang. A courier stood
Speaker 1: with a flat package. The group painting from Derreck's collective
Speaker 1: now officially mind, a result of a silent, unspoken split
Speaker 1: of possessions. He said, it belongs here was all the
Speaker 1: delivery's slip said. I carried it to the living room,
Speaker 1: hand shaking, lest that I thought they might everywhere I turned,
Speaker 1: evidence of the split asserted itself. A half cleared bureau
Speaker 1: outline of Derek's absence in coat hooks and emptied at nights.
Speaker 1: Then draw exposing dust and an old lego brick. I
Speaker 1: move methodically gathering his remaining oddments into bags, labels, notes,
Speaker 1: a mug with a chip in the rim, sketch Padlilla
Speaker 1: had once left behind. They went to the closet where
Speaker 1: I could forget them. Awhile I washed the bedding, replaced
Speaker 1: the pillow, opened every window in the house until April.
Speaker 1: I lifted and stripped away the remains of his cologne.
Speaker 1: My phone buzzed at midnight, another decks from Derreck, this
Speaker 1: one more tentative, as if he believed the less erect
Speaker 1: apology might be granted more leniency. I get it. If
Speaker 1: you hate me, I wish I could fix what I broke.
Speaker 1: Let me know when you want me to hol away
Speaker 1: the grill. I tapped a reply, erased it. My only
Speaker 1: real response was to turn the phone face down and
Speaker 1: leave it that way. The glowing screen and accusation I
Speaker 1: would not answer. Days bled into one another, the first
Speaker 1: invitations pitying but well meant, from mutual friends to trivia
Speaker 1: to Sunday cheery. At a different house, came and went unacknowledged.
Speaker 1: I couldn't stomach the idea of showing up a lone
Speaker 1: half of a duo every one had assumed would always
Speaker 1: be loud imperfect. But together me insisted on a check
Speaker 1: and run, making me walk a wide circle of the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: listening more than talking. It helped, but only slightly. A
Speaker 1: salve over rofless that would have to heal on its
Speaker 1: own timetable. Once glancing at the painting, its glare bully
Speaker 1: bright in the miday sun, I considered throwing it out
Speaker 1: or painting over it entirely, but I didn't. It was
Speaker 1: proof of something that had existed, and I knew even
Speaker 1: rage was a wave holding. On late one evening, nearly
Speaker 1: a week after everything broke, I picked up Derrek's last
Speaker 1: forgotten hoodie from the hook by the door. Underneath I
Speaker 1: found a folded sheet of pepper I recognized immediately, full
Speaker 1: of Derrek's hurry block letters, a list of things he
Speaker 1: wanted to try before he turned forty, learned to draw
Speaker 1: something half way decent? Was there? So was take em
Speaker 1: on a proper vaccasion. We don't plan to death. The
Speaker 1: ik was immediate, but the escalation kept rippling out. Jack
Speaker 1: texted to say he'd seen Leela and Derek Backett to
Speaker 1: show in the Bishopat's district. I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: doing em he looks off. It's done, but I didn't
Speaker 1: ask for more. Each revelation after the break had less power,
Speaker 1: not because it hurt less, but because the sharpness wore
Speaker 1: out beneath layers of exhaustion and acceptance. I didn't want
Speaker 1: that d and a more or explanations only space. That Saturday,
Speaker 1: I got an email from the Dallas Art Collective mailing
Speaker 1: list and impersonal mass blast about the coming events. Apparently
Speaker 1: all the mural participants and donors were invited to a
Speaker 1: closing reception. I hovered over the RSVP till for a
Speaker 1: full minute the temptation reel crashed the party. Speak my
Speaker 1: piece dared them to see me as anything but a
Speaker 1: bystander to my own erasure. Instead, I let the invite expire.
Speaker 1: But words still found me in other ways. A neighbor
Speaker 1: mentioned seeing Derek's truck part late at night behind a
Speaker 1: collector's new studio. He was, in her words, always alone,
Speaker 1: looking tired. But then sometimes Leela was there tow her
Speaker 1: laughter easily heard down the block. These stray, gratrude as
Speaker 1: facts became the soundtrack to those first aftermath days, an
Speaker 1: unwonted refrain that reminded me the well moved forward, with
Speaker 1: or without my blessing. Eventually, I updated the gallery app
Speaker 1: to remove Derek's logan from our shared digital photo frames.
Speaker 1: I deleted him from recurring calendar invites, removed his save
Speaker 1: grocery list, took him off the list at our trivia
Speaker 1: night bar. Every adjustment, every erasure, was an escalation to
Speaker 1: come confrontation with the reality that what we built was
Speaker 1: not so much destroyed as revealed fragile all along. I
Speaker 1: wondered too, about what Leo told herself at night, whether
Speaker 1: she cast herself as the muse, the interloper, the savior
Speaker 1: was simply another casualty of a good story told to you. Well,
Speaker 1: I doubted I'd ever find out. What concerned me now
Speaker 1: was marking the boundary between what I let in and
Speaker 1: what I kept out, what I could survive, knowing what
Speaker 1: I didn't need. That's how the days settled. The initial
Speaker 1: fury passed, the bracing empty hours lasted longer. Well texted
Speaker 1: only once more, asking if I needed a hand clearing
Speaker 1: out the garage. Derec once called his many brewery lab.
Speaker 1: I said no, but I meant thanks for not pushing.
Speaker 1: There was still the joint bank account to close. The
Speaker 1: brewery keys left in a dish by the front door.
Speaker 1: The little details of unraveling marriage that nobody warns you about,
Speaker 1: like realizing your phone still auter fills dere excel when
Speaker 1: you typed ee into a new text. A practical business
Speaker 1: was endless, but the hardest part was that none of
Speaker 1: its force. Closure. Only living through the shadowed days delivered
Speaker 1: that somewhere in the law between mid morning work sprints
Speaker 1: in silent evening aimlessness. A letter arrived in the mailbooks,
Speaker 1: no return address. I recognized Derek's operate earnest handwriting. Inside,
Speaker 1: folded over itself three times, was a note, I wish
Speaker 1: I'd chosen us, and sorry for letting you down, Sorry
Speaker 1: for letting myself disappear from what mattered most. You were
Speaker 1: never the problem. Please remember that if nothing else makes sense, Dee.
Speaker 1: There was nothing to do with it but put it
Speaker 1: in the drawer with every other relic. Proof that history
Speaker 1: can fake permanence just as well as hope. In the end,
Speaker 1: every room quieted. The echo of Derek's presence, his boots
Speaker 1: by the door, his laugh warming up dinner. His music
Speaker 1: became distant, fading into the background hum of the city
Speaker 1: preparing for summer. The chilly Sunday stopped. I couldn't yet
Speaker 1: bear the thought of inviting people in under the same roof.
Speaker 1: I slipped the painting back into its box, not ready
Speaker 1: to face the whole story it told. On the final
Speaker 1: Sunday morning, I ever had to think of Derek as
Speaker 1: a possibility rather than a memory. I lingered in bed,
Speaker 1: staring at the ceiling. Sun Light picked out the ruffages
Speaker 1: of the paint, the place Derek once promised to fix.
Speaker 1: As soon as things slowed down, I let the soft
Speaker 1: insist in Dallas. Heak raise a sweat on my skin,
Speaker 1: the pulse of something old and any moving through the walls.
Speaker 1: I got up, made coffee, and carried my mug to
Speaker 1: the front room. The mural painting caught the light in
Speaker 1: a way that sought oled me. Colors bleeding into each other,
Speaker 1: shades of blue carving shortcusts through the yellow, every hopeful
Speaker 1: swell more ambiguous than I had ever wanted to admit.
Speaker 1: Leeli's signature was still impossible to ignore, A thick and
Speaker 1: showy I almost called me to invite her over, to
Speaker 1: talk about anything but this, to show her that I
Speaker 1: was still capable of opening the door to someone who
Speaker 1: hadn't left. Instead, I looked at the painting one last time,
Speaker 1: squared my shoulders, and walked to the kitchen. I poured
Speaker 1: my coffee down the drain, turned the mug over in
Speaker 1: the sink, and let the silence roll in behind me.
Speaker 1: Standing there, surrounded by half pat boxes and the debris
Speaker 1: of endings, I realized I could let the final act
Speaker 1: be simple. I pulled the painting from the wall, carried
Speaker 1: through the house, and placed it in the farthest closet,
Speaker 1: behind the vacuum and the bucket of dried paint. The
Speaker 1: space on the wall above the entry was suddenly bare
Speaker 1: and empty, rectangle framed by san I thought, this is
Speaker 1: the mark of what's lost in what gets to grow again.
Speaker 1: I stewed with my back to the empty spot, breathing
Speaker 1: in the light. In that moment, the house belonged just
Speaker 1: to me, not to memories, not to routines, dutifully preserved
Speaker 1: that of refex not to the hope that he might
Speaker 1: one day come back different. I whispered to no one
Speaker 1: and every one. I never realized how lonely we'd both become,
Speaker 1: and stepped out onto the porch, letting the dell As
Speaker 1: sunrise break clean over my shoulders. And that is the end.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, and I will see you in
Speaker 1: the next one.