Speaker 1: It's not like Lucas to forget anything that matters, not anniversaries,
Speaker 1: not birth days, not even the little rituals we created
Speaker 1: just for the two of us. That's why, as I
Speaker 1: stood outside the red brick restaurant, fringed by climbing wisteria,
Speaker 1: clutching my phone, I felt almost insulated from the sharp
Speaker 1: bite of march air. I kept thinking there had to
Speaker 1: be some miscommunication, a traffic jam, a last minute phone call.
Speaker 1: He was probably parking, apologizing to the hostess, glancing at
Speaker 1: his watch with that apologetic boyishness he always put on
Speaker 1: when he felt rushed. I turned, as I always did,
Speaker 1: to check the glass door for his tall figure, messy
Speaker 1: dark hair, olive jacket, the easy swagger he seemed to
Speaker 1: carry everywhere except home. The door opened, but it was
Speaker 1: just a couple squeezed into one another's orbit, laughing too loudly,
Speaker 1: oblivious to weather, to waiting. At seven twelve, my phone chimed,
Speaker 1: not a call, but a text, A lazy running late
Speaker 1: stuck at bayside parking is hell love you? He should
Speaker 1: have been here at seven Baysides, across town, not even
Speaker 1: near his office. I typed, Should I order or wait?
Speaker 1: Sent no typing bubbles. I slipped my phone into my bag,
Speaker 1: walked inside by the window, my usual table. We always
Speaker 1: ask for it. Booth view of fairy lights. Host already
Speaker 1: nodding recognition. Welcome back, missus halpan, she said as she
Speaker 1: led me over. I nodded, cheeks warm, I sat. I waited.
Speaker 1: Each year, we took turns planning our seasonal anniversary, our
Speaker 1: own made up tradition for the day in early spring
Speaker 1: when we first kissed such a Lucas touch, grab an
Speaker 1: ordinary moment, drape it in ceremony. I remembered his surprise
Speaker 1: that first year, Lilies propped in a milk bottle, a
Speaker 1: card written on graft paper torn from his work note book. Now,
Speaker 1: as I sat, the restaurant hummed around me, silverware clinked.
Speaker 1: The couple in the booth across from mine giggled over
Speaker 1: a bottle of pino. My mind replayed last year's dinner,
Speaker 1: Lucas covering my hand with his own, across the linen,
Speaker 1: making some silly speech, his face lit with pride and
Speaker 1: mischief and something else, something that let me believe we
Speaker 1: were still choosing each other always seven twenty. The server
Speaker 1: a petite brunette ponental curling at her neck, appeared beaming. Oh,
Speaker 1: I remember you too, The anniversary couple table by the window. Right.
Speaker 1: She peered over my shoulder. Will your husband be joining soon?
Speaker 1: A little too brightly, I replied, he's just running late
Speaker 1: work stuff, you know. She nodded, no rush. Would you
Speaker 1: like a drink while you wait? Your usual prosecco? I
Speaker 1: managed a smile, yes, why not? She vanished. The glass arrived,
Speaker 1: sweating lightly beside eyed the menu. If I'd let myself indulge,
Speaker 1: it would have been easy to sour. That was the
Speaker 1: thing about small rituals, how easily they could curdle. I
Speaker 1: scrolled through old texts from Lucas last year. Time are
Speaker 1: set for seven. I'll bring the embarrassing flowers again, love you,
Speaker 1: sleepyhead the year before, wearing lucky socks just for you,
Speaker 1: even the silly gifts of hearts and kittens, each pinged
Speaker 1: in anticipation. I tried to conjure his voice, the affection
Speaker 1: in it, but to Night's message landed with none of that,
Speaker 1: just logistical, just short. Running late, I thumbed through our
Speaker 1: photo album, Lucas grinning beside me in this very booth,
Speaker 1: one arm around my shoulders, the other hoisting a ridiculous dessert.
Speaker 1: There was something in his face, unself conscious ease, a
Speaker 1: mischievousness that I couldn't summon lately, in our kitchen, in
Speaker 1: our bed, in those moments between distraction and fatigue. The
Speaker 1: prosecco burned going down, and for a second I thought,
Speaker 1: just order, you're making this a self fulfilling prophecy. He's
Speaker 1: always late. It's charming, usually for a beat. I imagine
Speaker 1: the night salvaged Luca's barreling in apology, already hovering on
Speaker 1: his lips a goofy remark. The tension muffled and replaced
Speaker 1: by warmth. My phone rang, buzzing, Lucas's name pulsing on
Speaker 1: the cracked screen. I picked up quickly, voice steady, Hey,
Speaker 1: he sounded, breathless. Errins, shit, I am so sorry. I've
Speaker 1: got I totally lost track. I'm half way across town.
Speaker 1: Client thing went late and now I'm stuck. Can we
Speaker 1: rain check? I paused, trying to keep annoyance out of
Speaker 1: my voice. It's o K. Really, I'm god, I owe you.
Speaker 1: We'll do it right. Give me a sect to finish here.
Speaker 1: I'll call when I'm headed home. O, K sure there
Speaker 1: was a silence. You're not too mad, I laughed too loudly. No,
Speaker 1: of course not rain check right, rain check? Love you
Speaker 1: love you too. He hung up. I set the phone down,
Speaker 1: heart thudding, and led out a slow breath. I finished
Speaker 1: the prosecco, ordered an appetizer I barely touched, and after
Speaker 1: another fifteen minutes, got the check. Walking to my car,
Speaker 1: street lights making the sidewalk shimmer, I tried to tell
Speaker 1: myself it's a busy season for him. He didn't mean it,
Speaker 1: no big deal. But disappointment curled up in my ribs,
Speaker 1: and I could already feel the memory of this sitting alone,
Speaker 1: the server's hopeful glance clinging unwonted. At home, I kicked
Speaker 1: off my shoes in the hallway, abandoned my purse on
Speaker 1: the credenza, and wandered the quiet house. It was odd
Speaker 1: how the silence made everything else louder. The faint drip
Speaker 1: in the sink, the refrigerator humming, the settling creak of
Speaker 1: old timber in our bedroom. I stripped to an old
Speaker 1: T shirt, crawling into sheets that still smelled like lucas usually.
Speaker 1: He texted throughout the night, when he worked late to night.
Speaker 1: Nothing after the call, I lay staring at the ceiling,
Speaker 1: the shadow of our ceiling fan, tracing lazy arcs. You'd
Speaker 1: think after seven years, I'd outgrow the first night of
Speaker 1: waiting kind of ache. But I replayed his voice the
Speaker 1: way he'd sounded, hurried, apologetic, but different than usual, distracted,
Speaker 1: maybe even rehearsed. But I kept it to myself, and
Speaker 1: I think about us, me and Lucas. The first memory
Speaker 1: is never the wedding or the first real trip, or
Speaker 1: the years we've pieced together in this house with the
Speaker 1: blue door and wild garden. It's the New Year's party,
Speaker 1: seven years ago, when Sophie dragged me, promising must see
Speaker 1: people watching and spectacular bad wine. Lucas was there, holding
Speaker 1: court in the kitchen, not even trying. I remember his laugh,
Speaker 1: warm and unguarded, the kind that made everyone lean toward him.
Speaker 1: Without realizing I'd come dressed too formally, anxious to impress
Speaker 1: Sophie's grad school friends. Lucas came over and asked what
Speaker 1: I designed into my outfit, half joking, half flirting, and
Speaker 1: I told him about sourcing the necklace from an antique
Speaker 1: shop twisting it between my fingers out of habit. I
Speaker 1: like how you see things, he said, And when he
Speaker 1: explained his work not just architect but guy trying to
Speaker 1: sneak good design into ugly strip mouths, it felt like
Speaker 1: meeting a proper mirror, someone whose brain was always sketching,
Speaker 1: re arranging, aware of the unseen lines beneath things. We
Speaker 1: spent all of midnight leaning against the kitchen counter, talking
Speaker 1: fonts and cities and what made both of us anxious
Speaker 1: about grown up jobs. I remember he spilled cranberry juice
Speaker 1: down his shirt, laughing at his own clumsiness, entirely unself conscious.
Speaker 1: He kissed me when the crowd was half distracted by fireworks,
Speaker 1: the first sweet, daring move. After that, I thought I'd
Speaker 1: ruined him for myself by wanting him too much. But
Speaker 1: two days later the text arrived. Still thinking about how
Speaker 1: you solved that wine stain crisis dinner this fried My answer,
Speaker 1: only if you're supplying better wine. People say couples fall
Speaker 1: into routines, but with Lucas, the routines grew wild, like
Speaker 1: our overstuffed garden Saturday mornings, picking out pastries and arguing
Speaker 1: about which ones were the most structurally sound debates about movies,
Speaker 1: his last minute get up, it's beautiful out let's drive
Speaker 1: to the coast, shouts echoing through the doorway. Our energies
Speaker 1: always seemed to splice together, his restless, easy bravado, circling
Speaker 1: my careful, quiet need for plans and symmetry. We bought
Speaker 1: this house together, the blued or his deliberate flourish. The
Speaker 1: study crammed with both our books, mostly designed, some fiction,
Speaker 1: his odd collection of architectural oddities cut from magazines. Most
Speaker 1: of our friends said we were the platonic opposites attract
Speaker 1: couple him spontaneous, magnetic, me organized, precise, loyal, in need
Speaker 1: of reliable ground beneath my feet. He loved crowds and
Speaker 1: the surprise of strangers. I preferred dinner parties, the kind
Speaker 1: you curated and lit with candles. Work stressed both of us,
Speaker 1: but in different ways. Lucas wanted to impress awards, praise
Speaker 1: the approval of colleagues who seemed both infuriating and adoring.
Speaker 1: I designed digital campaigns. He built spaces, though sometimes he
Speaker 1: came home asking does it even matter if the tiles
Speaker 1: line up? If everyone just fills their place with Ikea
Speaker 1: and leaves. Our plans were to mix our skills. Some
Speaker 1: Day he'd design a boutique, I'd run the brand. We'd
Speaker 1: make names for ourselves as the help and duo, not
Speaker 1: just a couple, a company. Lucas could be maddening, always
Speaker 1: later than promised, always hungry for the next distraction, sometimes
Speaker 1: terribly careless with the details. But he offered a kind
Speaker 1: of faith, a warmth I'd never quite known before. He
Speaker 1: was tender, especially at night, and even when we fought,
Speaker 1: it was with the assumption that we'd end up curled
Speaker 1: together under the covers, half way to a joke before sunrise.
Speaker 1: The sore spots were predictable. My need for reassurance only
Speaker 1: increased by my father's years of absence, his affairs, the
Speaker 1: family secrets that still made holidays awkward. Lucas hated letting
Speaker 1: people down, especially me, and sometimes it gave him an
Speaker 1: unwonted edge performance anxiety when work got bad, a defensive
Speaker 1: snap when I pulled away for fear of being left
Speaker 1: the past year. Lucas's excitement at work always bordered on
Speaker 1: brittle bid deadlines, new clients, endless networking, coffee with people
Speaker 1: who seemed to offer more career anxiety than help. He
Speaker 1: started traveling more increasingly, just one night in Sacramento, quick
Speaker 1: overnight to the city. I told myself this was normal,
Speaker 1: the price of ambition, the slow toll of pandemic boredom
Speaker 1: resolving into striving again. He'd always told me we're a team.
Speaker 1: If it ever gets to be too much, we'll adjust,
Speaker 1: and I believed him. But over the last few months,
Speaker 1: the space between us stretched wider. He was out of
Speaker 1: the house more coming home, distracted, sometimes quick to pick
Speaker 1: pointless arguments, usually dissolved in a single, sheepish hug. I'd
Speaker 1: catch him arms around me at midnight, whispering I'm sorry
Speaker 1: I was short. I just want to get us to
Speaker 1: the next level. Still, even the apologies started to sound
Speaker 1: like borrowed lines from motivational podcasts. The mist anniversary dinner
Speaker 1: gnawed at me. Not for its own sake. One lost
Speaker 1: dinner is nothing, but it was the abruptness, the unfamiliar,
Speaker 1: emptiness's absence, left in ritual, as if our partnership had
Speaker 1: become a calendar item he could delete. I reminded myself,
Speaker 1: He's always been distracted in spring, always buried under deadlines,
Speaker 1: But now It was a distraction, coupled with temper, with
Speaker 1: an absented presence I couldn't quite name. I stood in
Speaker 1: our kitchen one Saturday afternoon, grinding coffee beans, tracing circles
Speaker 1: across the pale marble. Lucas was at the stove, clattering pans,
Speaker 1: humming some unrecognizable tune. I'm out early tomorrow, he announced,
Speaker 1: voice dampened by the sizzle of eggs. Gunna volunteer at
Speaker 1: the new animal rescue down by Harbor. I almost dropped
Speaker 1: the glass. I was drying the animal rescue. I tried
Speaker 1: for nonchalance. That's new. He didn't meet my eyes. Scraping
Speaker 1: eggs onto a plate. Josh signed me up, said they
Speaker 1: needed an extra pair of hands. I dunno. I figured
Speaker 1: it could be good, a break from all the stress,
Speaker 1: do something that actually matters, you know, I studdied him.
Speaker 1: Lucas never disliked animals, but he didn't seek them out.
Speaker 1: I tried to get him to foster a dog last year.
Speaker 1: He'd groaned at the idea of pet hair in his car. Still,
Speaker 1: it wasn't impossible. Lucas was the sort who could talk
Speaker 1: himself into anything if the idea was shiny and new
Speaker 1: volunteering amazing, I said, quietly, do you need anything? Gloves, boot,
Speaker 1: good karma? He flashed a grin too quick, turning away. No,
Speaker 1: s all set. They have everything, just once a week,
Speaker 1: No biggie. Later that afternoon, as he wrestled his keys
Speaker 1: into a jacket, I lingered by the door, text me
Speaker 1: when you're done, sure, don't wait up if I'm late.
Speaker 1: They sometimes stay after for team pizza. That first Saturday,
Speaker 1: he was gone from morning until nearly six. He arrived home,
Speaker 1: hair must the faint citrus tang of some hand sanitizer
Speaker 1: or something in the air. He dropped his bag on
Speaker 1: the table, pecked my cheek, and described a story about
Speaker 1: a runaway beagle and the messiest stack of forms you
Speaker 1: could imagine. I laughed in the right places, though my
Speaker 1: mind ran over the details. He didn't offer who else
Speaker 1: was there? What exactly did he do all day? It
Speaker 1: felt like too much effort for the easy good deed
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. In the evenings, Lucas started taking more
Speaker 1: calls on the back patio, pacing, murmuring into his phone
Speaker 1: work emergency. He'd mouth at me through the glass, eyes apologetic.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'd hear a woman's laughter through the crack in
Speaker 1: the sliding door, but only fleetingly. One night, as we
Speaker 1: finished up leftovers, Lucas's phone buzzed, screen lighting up with
Speaker 1: a message from MT. I saw it accidentally as he
Speaker 1: reached for the salt. The message preview read running late too,
Speaker 1: call when you can. He grabbed the phone before the
Speaker 1: next ring, thumbed the screen, and excused himself, heading out
Speaker 1: to the porch. When he returned, he slipped the phone
Speaker 1: into his pocket, smile stiff as cardboard. I told myself
Speaker 1: I was being ridiculous. His friends had nicknames, co workers,
Speaker 1: contacts always in initials. There were innocent explanations always. I
Speaker 1: even wrote that in my journal that night, cursing myself
Speaker 1: for the kind of suspicion I hated watching in others. Still,
Speaker 1: the next Saturday, Lucas left arl He wore old sneakers,
Speaker 1: new jeans, carried an unfamiliar reusable tote, a forest green
Speaker 1: canvas bag stamped with a logo I didn't recognize. When
Speaker 1: he left, he barely looked at me. Back for dinner,
Speaker 1: Love you, he shouted, door slammed, car engine faded. I
Speaker 1: spent the morning cleaning rearranging books, scrolling social media with
Speaker 1: half an eye on the clock. At noon, I decided
Speaker 1: to surprise him, large iced coffee in hand, I drove
Speaker 1: the fifteen minutes to the animal rescue. The parking lot
Speaker 1: was mostly empty. The building, bright beige and blocky, gaped
Speaker 1: open on one side as kennels yawned in the sun.
Speaker 1: I walked up to the front desk, the hum of
Speaker 1: cleaning machines filtering in from the back. A young woman
Speaker 1: with blunt cut hair glanced up, brow furrowed, distracted. Can
Speaker 1: I help you? She didn't recognize me. I'm looking for
Speaker 1: Lucas Halpen. He supposed to be volunteering to day. She
Speaker 1: scanned a clip board, shook her head. U h w,
Speaker 1: E don't have a Lucas on the roster to day,
Speaker 1: just mornings or I shrugged, trying for casual. He said
Speaker 1: he'd be here most of the afternoon. Nope, don't think so.
Speaker 1: Do you want to leave a note or something? I
Speaker 1: stared at the rows of names. No Lucas, no Halpin.
Speaker 1: No that's fine, thanks. I turned, coffee growing heavy in
Speaker 1: my hand as I slipped back into the sunlight. I
Speaker 1: sat in the car ten minutes ticking by, trying to
Speaker 1: shape possibilities. He'd switched shifts at the last minute. Maybe
Speaker 1: he used a different name, maybe it was another location.
Speaker 1: I almost texted him, are you sure you're at Harbor?
Speaker 1: But the accusation, implicit and sharp, withered on the screen.
Speaker 1: At dinner that night, I decided to ask lightly, how
Speaker 1: was the rescue? Lucas jaw tense, stared at his plate
Speaker 1: A second too long. Honestly, not for me. Too chaotic.
Speaker 1: I'm probably not going back. Something in me wanted to press,
Speaker 1: but his tone was already defensive. If you hated it,
Speaker 1: that's fine, I said, my own voice, keening higher to
Speaker 1: avoid the flat ache underneath. You're allowed to try things
Speaker 1: and bail, he exhaled, softer. I just want to do
Speaker 1: something right Erin feels like I'm under a microscope lately.
Speaker 1: I thought about the notch in his brow, the way
Speaker 1: his eyes strayed from mine. No one's watching you, I said,
Speaker 1: but it felt like a lie, the walls between us invisible.
Speaker 1: All spring now finalized. A week later, at Jess and
Speaker 1: Tom's dinner party, I lingered in the dining room, waiting
Speaker 1: for water from across the open doorway. I overheard Josh,
Speaker 1: one of Lucas's old college pals, drawling at the bar
Speaker 1: to another friend. Can't believe Lucas made it out to
Speaker 1: the lake this week end after pulling those all nighters legendary.
Speaker 1: My mind stuttered the lake. Lucas told me he had
Speaker 1: spent Saturday catching up on projects, sketches, mostly at his office.
Speaker 1: That night, I casually brought it up in bed, What
Speaker 1: did you end up doing Saturday night? I didn't get
Speaker 1: your usual pick up something for dinner? Text? He rolled
Speaker 1: toward me, eyelids heavy, just work, lost track. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: was so checked out, I said nothing. Later, as Lucas showered,
Speaker 1: I opened my laptop perused our credit card app. I
Speaker 1: recognized the usual gas groceries, a takeout meal, but one
Speaker 1: charge stuck out a lakeside cafe twenty minutes from our house.
Speaker 1: Time stamped two fifty three p m. Last Saturday. I
Speaker 1: closed the app pulse, skittering. I should have asked, should
Speaker 1: have snooped, but I didn't want to catch him in
Speaker 1: a lie. I wanted him to still be telling the truth.
Speaker 1: The knot in my stomach was tight now. I spent
Speaker 1: hours replaying the gentle Shifts in his habits, the vagueness
Speaker 1: about volunteering, the unexplos absences, the way he seemed distracted
Speaker 1: even when pressing into me at night, the new pendulum
Speaker 1: swing between affection and coldness, like he was auditioning for intimacy,
Speaker 1: not simply living it. Sometimes I'd catch him glancing at
Speaker 1: his phone mid conversation, smile flickering nervously. I told myself stories,
Speaker 1: Maybe this was what burnout looked like. Maybe he just
Speaker 1: needed space. Maybe I was sinking into the kind of
Speaker 1: paranoia my mother wallowed in for years, tracking bank statements,
Speaker 1: demanding time stamps. God, I hated that memory more than
Speaker 1: I could say. Then Sophia stopped by. Sophia, my best friend,
Speaker 1: the one who'd introduced us, Always loyal but too diplomatic
Speaker 1: for her own good. She arrived with pastries and a
Speaker 1: quick hug, and while we chatted about work, I asked,
Speaker 1: off handedly, have you seen Lucas around much? You used
Speaker 1: to see him when you did yoga at the Harbor Market, right,
Speaker 1: Sophia smiled hesitant, Ah, Yeah, I read into him at
Speaker 1: the brewery with someone from the office. I think they
Speaker 1: seemed in a hurry. I tried not to overreact, focusing
Speaker 1: on her face. Who was he with? She bit her lip.
Speaker 1: I think her name was Hannah, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Her knew from the animal place. Maybe they left together,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. I thought you knew. I smiled,
Speaker 1: filled her coffee, Probably just grabbing a drink after the
Speaker 1: rescue stuff, I said, pretending my insides weren't shredding. Lucas
Speaker 1: grew more affectionate on some nights, holding me tight, kissing
Speaker 1: my forehead, murmuring you know I love you, as if
Speaker 1: daring me to question. Other times he was abrupt, standoffish,
Speaker 1: making excuses to stay late at the office, talking about
Speaker 1: competition and deals, his phone always flat in his palm.
Speaker 1: He'd bring me flowers one night, ignore my calls the
Speaker 1: next one. Evening, Lucas left his phone on the coffee
Speaker 1: table while unloading groceries. The screen flickered to life, displaying
Speaker 1: a preview photo just a glance, a dog staring up
Speaker 1: head cradled by a woman's hand. I recognized neither the
Speaker 1: dog nor the hand, Pale, slender fingers, silver ring glinting.
Speaker 1: I tapped the screen just instinct I hadn't thought, and
Speaker 1: the image enlarged. The background. Wasn't any rescue I'd visited.
Speaker 1: It looked like an apartment, rough wood flows, unfamiliar sofa.
Speaker 1: Lucas returned, scooping up the phone before I could speak, saying,
Speaker 1: you know they send us adoption photos. People like the updates.
Speaker 1: He squeezed my shoulder. Look at that face. He pressed
Speaker 1: the screen to my eyes. Casual, too casual. The woman's
Speaker 1: hand lingered in the frame. Was it just the ring,
Speaker 1: a trick of lighting, or was it something more? I
Speaker 1: couldn't decide. I began writing things down. Maybe it was childish,
Speaker 1: but it helped. In a battered note book tucked into
Speaker 1: my closet, I scribbled the oddities, volunteering, then suddenly not volunteering.
Speaker 1: Charge at lakeside cafe, unexplained absence, unknown woman, Hannah Brewery's
Speaker 1: supply runs, texts, calls at night, m T and some
Speaker 1: one else. Photo dog, woman's hand, silver ring. I drew
Speaker 1: arrows that didn't always connect, but the pattern grew unmistakable.
Speaker 1: Was I looking for signs where there were none? Or
Speaker 1: was there a crack in our foundation widening just beyond
Speaker 1: the reach of my denial? Lucas doubled down on transparency
Speaker 1: around this time. Perhaps sensing my withdrawal, he brought home
Speaker 1: take out cooked pasta, made breakfast in bed. One Saturday,
Speaker 1: he arrived with sunflowers, which I hate, exclaiming I know
Speaker 1: you love these. I smiled, thinking how odd it was
Speaker 1: to be gifted the wrong thing by someone who, for
Speaker 1: years never made that kind of error. One Thursday, as
Speaker 1: I left for the studio, Lucas called after me. I
Speaker 1: booked dinner for a Saturday at that new Mexican place,
Speaker 1: you kept mentioning. His eyes lingered on me a second
Speaker 1: too long, as if daring me to say no. I agreed. Saturday,
Speaker 1: I watched as Lucas dressed too nicely for a casual meal,
Speaker 1: cologne barely masking ascent. I couldn't place sharp, floury, unfamiliar.
Speaker 1: I pretended not to notice, made conversation, drank too much.
Speaker 1: At dinner. His phone vibrated twice beneath the table. He
Speaker 1: silenced it with practiced ease, smiling too widely. Over dessert,
Speaker 1: he talked about his next big project, gesturing grandly, but
Speaker 1: his gaze never quite landed. Afterward, I found a receipt
Speaker 1: in the car, two lattes and a quassa time stamped
Speaker 1: three hours before our dinner from a beistro. I'd never
Speaker 1: once heard him mention. When I asked if he'd gone
Speaker 1: out that afternoon, Lucas grinned a little forced, just stopped
Speaker 1: by to grab you a treat, but they didn't have
Speaker 1: that Danish. You like, that's okay, right? He pressed his
Speaker 1: hand to my knee. I nodded, let it go. Days
Speaker 1: churned past, I tangled through the motions, checking e mails,
Speaker 1: coming home late, rehearsing conversations in my mind. Should I
Speaker 1: demand explanations or was I already lost? Clinging to the
Speaker 1: sinking hull of a partnership that had drifted. On a
Speaker 1: particularly sleepless night, I googled coping with partner's distance, rolling
Speaker 1: my eyes at the trite advice. One evening, I considered
Speaker 1: properly snooping, pass cooed, crack social media, scan the works.
Speaker 1: But something in me recoiled. If I crossed that line,
Speaker 1: if I truly saw evidence, could I stand up to
Speaker 1: it or would I fold? Blaming myself for unraveling us.
Speaker 1: I settled for the note book, for passive cataloging, for
Speaker 1: waiting to see if dread alone substantiated my fear he
Speaker 1: grew more artful with explanations. Sorry, had to swing by
Speaker 1: for a supply run, He'd say, keys jangling, or Josh
Speaker 1: needed a ride home. Car trouble again. Sometimes for a
Speaker 1: few hours, the warmth returned, the old Lucas, who tackle
Speaker 1: me playfully the living room, or invent a new inside
Speaker 1: joke about the neighbor's weirdly groomed hedges. The whiplash made
Speaker 1: me dizzy. One sunny afternoon, six weeks after our mist anniversary,
Speaker 1: Lucas brought in the mail. He stacked bills and fliers,
Speaker 1: pausing on an envelope scrawled with looping handwriting. AH, wrong address,
Speaker 1: he said, tossing it aside. The sender was H. Cramer,
Speaker 1: same initial as the woman Sophia mentioned. I filed it away,
Speaker 1: more evidence for myself. A Friday night, at the dinner table,
Speaker 1: something finally snapped. Lucas spoke about work, his nerves about
Speaker 1: an upcoming pitch, his irritation with a client who couldn't
Speaker 1: visualize anything except their own anxiety. I tuned in and out,
Speaker 1: wondering if I should just ask instead. I kept swallowing
Speaker 1: my words until they grew bitter in my mouth. At
Speaker 1: another friend's birthday. Our seating shifted, Lucas stuck beside Josh,
Speaker 1: me beside a mutual acquaintance, Mark, So Lucas still doing
Speaker 1: the rescue thing, Mark asked, between bites of cake. I
Speaker 1: shook my head. Now he dropped it too busy. Apparently
Speaker 1: Mark blinked. Really, Josh said they did a brewery run
Speaker 1: after the shift, just last weekend. My fork hovered above frosting, unmoving.
Speaker 1: We haven't talked about it lately, I said, trying not
Speaker 1: to betray anything. Home that night, Lucas was unusually tender,
Speaker 1: clinging to me, asking if we could just pretend the
Speaker 1: rest of the world doesn't exist for a night. I surrendered,
Speaker 1: desperate for the illusion of closeness, even as my mind
Speaker 1: drifted elsewhere. Sometimes I'd review my note book, crossing out
Speaker 1: old explanations, penciling in new theories. Maybe it was some
Speaker 1: one at work. Maybe it was burnout, his sense of failure,
Speaker 1: a crisis I didn't get to see. But the explanations
Speaker 1: so neat on paper, frayed whenever I pressed at them.
Speaker 1: The real pivot came not from discovery, but from exhaustion.
Speaker 1: One night, Lucas came home late, almost midnight, reeking of
Speaker 1: pond water and smoke, as if he'd fallen into the
Speaker 1: lake and dried himself off by a camp fire long
Speaker 1: night team drinks. He yawned, shedding his jacket on the
Speaker 1: kitchen chair. His phone, as always, stayed glued to his person.
Speaker 1: He plugged it in on his side of the bedroom,
Speaker 1: face down. But later, as I hung his coat in
Speaker 1: the closet, my fingers landed on something stiff in the
Speaker 1: inner pocket. I tugged out a folded page, trembling eyes,
Speaker 1: darting toward the bedroom where Lucas showered, printed directions smudged
Speaker 1: with ink, Hannah's lake cabin directions for Saturday p m. Lucas,
Speaker 1: park at Turner and call before you arrive. H I
Speaker 1: stared at the date last weekend and felt something collapse
Speaker 1: quietly in my chest. Relief, shame, confirmation, all braided together.
Speaker 1: I tucked the page back exactly where I'd found it.
Speaker 1: Questions scalding and primordial. If it was innocent, why hide it?
Speaker 1: Why Hannah? Why the lake? Why lie about every little thing?
Speaker 1: Did he not trust me? Or did we both know
Speaker 1: what this kind of secrecy meant? He emerged from the
Speaker 1: shower hair, damp, body humming with the warmth of water
Speaker 1: and whatever secret life he carried. He slipped into bed
Speaker 1: beside me, pressed his cheek to my shoulder, whispered, you're
Speaker 1: too quiet to night. Everything okay. I nodded, words caught
Speaker 1: behind my teeth. He fell asleep, quickly, hand over my stomach,
Speaker 1: anchoring me. I stared at the ceiling until dawn, catalog inclues,
Speaker 1: composing questions I might never ask. The days sharpened after that,
Speaker 1: each ordinary event slicing with unfamiliar edges. I stopped making
Speaker 1: small talk over breakfast. Instead, I watched Lucas as though
Speaker 1: he were a stranger about to confess. His explanations, once easy,
Speaker 1: now seemed forced. He would leave for work, turning at
Speaker 1: unpredictable hours, the smell of cologne and something unfamiliar lingering.
Speaker 1: I started searching in earnest, not through his phone, not yet,
Speaker 1: but through the debris of daily life, forgotten receipts, the
Speaker 1: notes jotted on post its, the discarded fliers in his
Speaker 1: car's back seat. When I had a moment alone, I
Speaker 1: googled Hannah Animal Rescue, piecing together names and faces, scrolling
Speaker 1: through profals with shaking hands, I found a staff page,
Speaker 1: Hannah Cramer, bright smile, standing beside the same nervous looking
Speaker 1: pit bull from Lucas's photo album. I found a phone
Speaker 1: number on the rescue's website, made a note of the
Speaker 1: area code. I couldn't bring myself to call. A week later,
Speaker 1: Lucas seemed suddenly buoyed, declaring and pulling back on all
Speaker 1: the volunteer stuff too overwhelming. He booked us a last
Speaker 1: minute ere b n B, a cabin in the woods
Speaker 1: with spotty cell service and a claw foot tub. We
Speaker 1: need a reset, right, he grinned, eyes, crinkling just us.
Speaker 1: I tried to relax. I did. In the soft lamplight.
Speaker 1: We drank wine, talked about traveling to Portugal some day,
Speaker 1: made love in a bed much cozier than our own.
Speaker 1: Lucas laughed more easily, asked about my work, reached for
Speaker 1: my hand, and I could almost believe nothing lurked behind
Speaker 1: the cracks. As we unpacked at home, I found myself hopeful,
Speaker 1: even grateful. Maybe it had all been a string of misunderstandings,
Speaker 1: a messy, tangled version of Lucas weathering the blizzard of adulthood,
Speaker 1: nothing more. Perhaps I had spent weeks performing an elaborate,
Speaker 1: pointless autopsy of my own trust issues. But as I
Speaker 1: sorted through our laundry, something sharp pricked at my palm,
Speaker 1: A folded print out tucked in the pocket of Lucas's
Speaker 1: field jacket. I opened it, hands trembling, an emil thread
Speaker 1: not old, with MAPP directions under the subject Hannah's Lake
Speaker 1: cabin this Saturday, three p m. Supplies run and dinner.
Speaker 1: Can't wait h The print dates swelled in my vision.
Speaker 1: The same weekend, Lucas worked late, his phone out of reach,
Speaker 1: his face unreadable. I placed the paper back. My arm's
Speaker 1: going numb. Outside, Lucas watered the rose bushes, oblivious. I
Speaker 1: watched him from the kitchen window, wondering when exactly it
Speaker 1: became normal for me to lurk at the edge of
Speaker 1: the life I'd built, waiting for proof I never wanted.
Speaker 1: I spent the next days in a fog, smiling for colleagues,
Speaker 1: laughing at jokes, going through the motions, but always always
Speaker 1: the question, what was Lucas hiding behind the scaffolding of
Speaker 1: his love, his apologies, his half truths? How long had
Speaker 1: he been building elsewhere islands of trust and pleasure? Unreachable
Speaker 1: by my ordinary hope. That night, I closed my note book,
Speaker 1: the entries stacking up to something resembling certainty, and listened
Speaker 1: as Lucas made small talk about deadlines, about the neighbour's
Speaker 1: new car, about everything except what lay roiling just beneath
Speaker 1: the surface, waiting to be exposed. The following day, I
Speaker 1: left for the studio before Lucas woke, riding an anxious
Speaker 1: hummed down the freeway with the radio muttering beside me.
Speaker 1: My brain, restless, played endless loops, the scent on his collar,
Speaker 1: the oddness of his laugh lately, the folded print out
Speaker 1: burning in the back of my mind. I tried to
Speaker 1: channel the nervous energy into my design work, mock ups
Speaker 1: mood boards for a campaign promising fresh starts and transparency.
Speaker 1: The irony wasn't lost on me. At lunch, my coworker
Speaker 1: June tapped a brittle manicure on my cubicle partition, offering
Speaker 1: to split a salad. I agreed out of habit, barely
Speaker 1: tasting the vinaigrette. As she sorted through anecdotes about her
Speaker 1: boyfriend s sudden yogur obsession. I nodded at all the
Speaker 1: right intervals, my eyes locked on the open slack windows
Speaker 1: on my monitor. Lucas's messages were rare, short, hope your
Speaker 1: day's not too crazy, See you late. When I got home,
Speaker 1: the house was dark but for the golden light pooling
Speaker 1: beneath the study door. Lucas was inside, pencil in hand,
Speaker 1: hunched over a sheaf of sketches, headphones around his neck.
Speaker 1: I hovered in the doorway. You coming up for air soon?
Speaker 1: He glanced up, smiled, slow to materialize, Almost done. Babe,
Speaker 1: You want tie or something else for dinner? Anything, I said,
Speaker 1: voice softer than I felt. His eyes darted to a
Speaker 1: pile of folders on the side table, then back to me.
Speaker 1: You O kay, I hesitated, asked, do you need help
Speaker 1: with anything? He ran a hand down his face, the
Speaker 1: wedding band glinting under lamplight for a beat. He looked tired,
Speaker 1: not defiant, not guilty, just weighed down by something I
Speaker 1: couldn't name, just a headache. Give me fifteen I'll be out,
Speaker 1: he said. He put the headphones back on, head already
Speaker 1: bowed over the paper upstairs. I flicked on the bathroom light,
Speaker 1: pressed cold water to my cheeks for a strange moment,
Speaker 1: I wondered if this was how my mother had started
Speaker 1: eavesdropping to passe, the small inflections in a man's voice,
Speaker 1: the clues gathering like dust moats in corners. I told
Speaker 1: myself I didn't want to become a version of her,
Speaker 1: not the woman who turned her life into an investigation.
Speaker 1: After dinner, Lucas went for a run, lacing his sneakers
Speaker 1: while scrolling absently on his phone. You want to join,
Speaker 1: I shook my head. I'm wiped. Sorry. Running was always
Speaker 1: his reset, the way he burned off whatever mess he'd
Speaker 1: collected in the day. Still, I watched from the porch
Speaker 1: as he jogged off into twilight, his form gradually swallowed
Speaker 1: by trees. I waited until I could no longer see
Speaker 1: the knon of his vest, then shut the door, quickly unsettled.
Speaker 1: Ten minutes later, my phone dinged a payment alert. Lucas
Speaker 1: had just bought an energy drink at the mini mart
Speaker 1: near the main road. Twenty minutes earlier, I'd seen a
Speaker 1: mist call from a local number unrecognizable. I let it go.
Speaker 1: I really tried, but that following Saturday angst wore me down.
Speaker 1: Lucas left a little before nine, carrying the forest green
Speaker 1: toat a travel mug of black coffee steaming in his hand.
Speaker 1: I might go for a hike after he said, almost
Speaker 1: off hand. If I do, i'll be home before dinner.
Speaker 1: Need anything sunflower seeds? I tried a playful smile. He laughed, surprised.
Speaker 1: I'll see what I can do. He kissed my forehead,
Speaker 1: scent of cedar wood curling after him. After he left,
Speaker 1: I pored over the notepad again. My journal was a wild,
Speaker 1: fevered map, times, names, scents, receipts, supply run, brewery, hike.
Speaker 1: Hannah always faintly in the background, never quite stepping into
Speaker 1: the center. This time, instead of sulking at home, I
Speaker 1: forced myself to move, threw on jeans, old boots, gabbed
Speaker 1: my keys, and left for the Saturday farmer's market. There
Speaker 1: I saw Sophia. She was bagging scarlet tomatoes, hair braided
Speaker 1: down her back. Smile open you shopping solo to day?
Speaker 1: She asked, Lucas is at the rescue or maybe hiking?
Speaker 1: I replied, casual as I could muster. Sofia's eyes flickered
Speaker 1: the briefest contraction of her brow. Oh that's cool, I
Speaker 1: hear Hannah's a big hiker too. Then she seemed to
Speaker 1: think better of it, changed the subject to her new
Speaker 1: pottery class. I bought bread I didn't need, left as
Speaker 1: soon as I politely could. In the car, I scrolled
Speaker 1: through Hannah's public social pages. There were the expected things,
Speaker 1: group photos, rescue animals, blurry hikes. Yet I kept seeing
Speaker 1: the same dog the pit mixed with honey eyes in
Speaker 1: shot after shot. In two photos, I noticed a reflection
Speaker 1: in a window, some one tall, stocky, with hair dark
Speaker 1: like Lucas's, only barely visible. My heart ticked faster. By noon,
Speaker 1: the sun was sharp and the world felt stretched raw,
Speaker 1: for reasons I refused to analyze. I drove out toward
Speaker 1: the lake, the same one from the credit card receipt,
Speaker 1: mapped twenty minutes south. The shawland bustled, teen's dangling feet
Speaker 1: from the dock, families grilling, the low drone of voices
Speaker 1: bouncing off water. I walked toward the cafe. The barista
Speaker 1: was sweeping up outside, whistling hey, I started quietly, can
Speaker 1: I ask you something? I think my partner might have
Speaker 1: been here last week end? Tall guy buzzed in for coffee.
Speaker 1: She shrugged, thinking Saturday. Maybe there was. A group came
Speaker 1: in kinder late for lunch. A guy with a beard
Speaker 1: sat him. I hesitated, I think so she grinned, shoulders loose.
Speaker 1: They had cards spread out talking about volunteer stuff, most
Speaker 1: of em regulars. Oh there was a hanner. I know
Speaker 1: she brought that dog. Her description trailed, but the mea
Speaker 1: was acid clear. Thanks, I said, and walked out with
Speaker 1: a forced smile. On the drive home, I called Lucas
Speaker 1: voice tight, how's your height going? He responded instantly, background
Speaker 1: noise muted, just wrapping up heading home soon you with
Speaker 1: any one a pause now, just solo today, needed to
Speaker 1: clear my head. I ended the call quickly, wanting to scream,
Speaker 1: wanting to laugh, wanting most to disappear. I returned home,
Speaker 1: house empty, and somehow alien memory lapped in the way.
Speaker 1: Lucas used to come back from hikes with pockets stuffed
Speaker 1: with river stones, snapshots of trail markers, the enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: sharing every experience. Now his stories were sketchy, abbreviated, shrouded
Speaker 1: under the guise of decompressing. That evening, when Lucas walked in,
Speaker 1: hair wind blown, skin flushed, he wore a new water
Speaker 1: bottle banded with an unfamiliar decal and the sat heavier
Speaker 1: than usual in his hand. He came straight to me,
Speaker 1: hugged me with arms that felt too tense. For a
Speaker 1: split second, the scent of floral shampoo, not mine, clung
Speaker 1: to his jacket. Good hike, I whispered. He pressed his
Speaker 1: mouth to my forehead, peaceful. Didn't see another soul. Lie's
Speaker 1: taste bitter even in passing. But I didn't call him out.
Speaker 1: Not yet. That week I started seeing the world through
Speaker 1: a freshly fractured lens. At work, I'd catch myself staring
Speaker 1: at my inbox instead of actually replying, turning over every
Speaker 1: slip of the tongue Lucas had offered me. In recent weeks,
Speaker 1: even small things started to bristle with significance. His reluctance
Speaker 1: to look me in the eye, the way his phone
Speaker 1: never left his pocket, his sudden gilt soaked enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: unloading the dishwasher, his new playlist of melancholy folk songs.
Speaker 1: More than once his phone rang while he was out
Speaker 1: of ear shot. Twice it was empty one afternoon. Again
Speaker 1: it was h I remembered the looping handwriting on the envelope,
Speaker 1: the matching initial from our apartment mail. I traced the
Speaker 1: message preview while folding laundry, memorizing patterns. One night, in
Speaker 1: a fit of uneasy bravado, I tried again to gently
Speaker 1: needle for details. Does Hannah still work at the Rescue?
Speaker 1: I asked, as we watched paint dry on a canvas
Speaker 1: in our living room. Lucas's mouth flickered a non committal smile. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's one of the old timers. Why just I remember
Speaker 1: Sophia mentioned you were grabbing drinks with her a while back.
Speaker 1: Didn't realize you were close, he shrugged, without meeting my eyes,
Speaker 1: fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt. She's just friendly,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of ropes everyone into brewery trips. I
Speaker 1: didn't know you liked IPA's. I teased as lightly as
Speaker 1: I could. He finally looked at me, smile barely there
Speaker 1: trying new things. I guess we all need a hobby.
Speaker 1: He turned up the music, a signal topic closed. The
Speaker 1: next morning, I caught him reading texts over breakfast, thumb
Speaker 1: flickering so quickly he barely looked up when I slid
Speaker 1: his mug toward him. I let the silence sit, then
Speaker 1: tried another approach. We ever going to that Portuguese place?
Speaker 1: Or did you already go with your friends? Lucas licked
Speaker 1: his lips, eyes darting, Oh, I went for lunch with
Speaker 1: Josh last week. Sorry, totally space telling you it was
Speaker 1: just okay, honestly overrated. I didn't believe him, not about
Speaker 1: the lunch, and certainly not about the quality. I found
Speaker 1: myself studying everything, as if spying on a stranger. What
Speaker 1: music played when he showered, now always with the door locked,
Speaker 1: What left overs he chose, the pastor I'd cooked, or
Speaker 1: the salad he said wasn't really his thing. Each difference
Speaker 1: was small, stupid, but they created the sense of a
Speaker 1: life slightly mislon mind from the old template. The biggest shift, though,
Speaker 1: wasn't routine but effect. Some evenings found Lucas bounding in
Speaker 1: with that effusive energy I had fallen for, flipping my
Speaker 1: notebook shut, dragging me into his lap, making drowsy jokes
Speaker 1: about running away and buying a cabin in the woods
Speaker 1: just us. Other nights he came home pallid and stormy,
Speaker 1: hugging me perfunctorily before disappearing behind a locked study door.
Speaker 1: One evening, a group of us ended up at a
Speaker 1: new bar. Lucas had organized it, texting me mid afternoon,
Speaker 1: be fun to see people, low key promise. I expected relief. Instead,
Speaker 1: watching him across the table, chatting with mutuals, I saw
Speaker 1: a subtler performance. Lucas radiated stories, laughter, but there was
Speaker 1: a way he listened only to certain voices. How his
Speaker 1: eyes always drifted to the entrance whenever the door creaked.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until an hour in that Hanner appeared, tall,
Speaker 1: dark curls, the kind of smile that seemed to test
Speaker 1: the a's temperature before settling. She made her way over
Speaker 1: to Lucas, who stood hugged her quickly. The embrace was brief, friendly,
Speaker 1: but there was a softness, a too familiar pat on
Speaker 1: the shoulder. I found myself tallying the seconds, trying to
Speaker 1: remember if Lucas hugged other friends that way. I introduced myself.
Speaker 1: Her handshake was cool, her accent manicured a faint trace
Speaker 1: of Montreal. You're the designer, right, she said, Lucas always
Speaker 1: brags about your work. I nodded, unsure what to say.
Speaker 1: Our conversation lasted only minutes before she slid off to
Speaker 1: greet another friend, leaving a half finished drink on the bar.
Speaker 1: After Hannah left, Lucas seemed disoriented, drinking faster, talking louder. Later,
Speaker 1: when he made an excuse to pay the tab, I
Speaker 1: watched him stand outside, phone pressed to his ear, head
Speaker 1: tipped away from the window, as if guarding every word.
Speaker 1: On the drive home, headlights flickering along the wet streets,
Speaker 1: I finally broached it. You and Hannah seem really tight,
Speaker 1: he snorted softly. She's a friend from volunteering. She's going
Speaker 1: through a rough patch, that's all. I nodded, gaze fixed
Speaker 1: on the road ahead, just asking. Lucas reached for my hand.
Speaker 1: Don't be weird about this. I'd tell you if something was,
Speaker 1: you know, off. I considered telling him about my own
Speaker 1: father's betrayals, the decades of being told not to be weird,
Speaker 1: not to look too closely. Instead, I pressed my palm
Speaker 1: to his and said, I just want you to be
Speaker 1: straight with me. There was a pause, edged and delicate,
Speaker 1: then always erin. Always. The reassurance landed flat, but I
Speaker 1: didn't argue. That night, I dreamed of our wedding, blurred faces,
Speaker 1: the bouquet heavy and alien in my hands, When I woke,
Speaker 1: Lucas was already gone, the bed cold on his side.
Speaker 1: The note book grew denser. Hannah rescuer, brewery, hiking, emil,
Speaker 1: cabin supplies, not work that hand in photo, silver ring,
Speaker 1: m T messages or is it h Lucas tense routine,
Speaker 1: changed excuses. I pressed the pens so hard it till
Speaker 1: the top layer of the page. A few days later,
Speaker 1: Sophia called, can I drop something off? She arrived just
Speaker 1: after five, a tin of cookies balanced on her hip,
Speaker 1: nervous energy radiating. How are you? She asked, an odd
Speaker 1: intensity in her question. I hesitated, then blurted, you saw
Speaker 1: Lucas with Hannah, didn't you? Sofia colored, glancing away once
Speaker 1: or twice. The brewery, the lake thing. I thought, maybe
Speaker 1: you knew, or that it wasn't serious. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to interfere. Were they alone? My voice trembled the pause
Speaker 1: spoke for her. Yea erin. I maybe it's nothing, but
Speaker 1: it seemed familiar. I nodded, numb, relief and horror curdling inside.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Sophia reached out, squeezed my hand, her own
Speaker 1: eyes glassy, Tell me what you need. I'm here after
Speaker 1: She left the house, felt cavernous with both possibility and dread.
Speaker 1: That week end, burning now with determination rather than fear,
Speaker 1: I decided I couldn't keep observing from the wings. Saturday,
Speaker 1: I texted Lucas, feeling cooped up. Mind if I tag
Speaker 1: along to day, maybe I'll finally meet that legendary rescue team.
Speaker 1: He replied quickly, Not a good time, crazy day, short
Speaker 1: on volunteers. They'll have us deep cleaning, not pretty rain check.
Speaker 1: Love you. I waited thirty minutes, then called his hiking
Speaker 1: buddy Mark. My hands damp with sweat. Hey, random question.
Speaker 1: Lucas mentioned you all help with Lakewood trail clean up.
Speaker 1: Does Hannah go too? Mark sounded distracted. Oh yeah, she
Speaker 1: and Lucas do supply runs. Sometimes they just go, the
Speaker 1: two of them. She's got that old Subaru. He's been
Speaker 1: a fixture at her cabin lately. I barely managed a
Speaker 1: thank you. It felt as if the universe had shrunk,
Speaker 1: crowding every theory into one tight corridor. That evening, with
Speaker 1: a heart pounding against my ribs, I told Lucas we
Speaker 1: need to talk. He looked startled, then defensive. Is this
Speaker 1: about Sophia? Because she warned me, you were asking questions.
Speaker 1: His eyes met mine harder than before, but underneath I
Speaker 1: saw it the same flicker of shame my father used
Speaker 1: to wear whenever my mother asked a question that cut
Speaker 1: too close. I was almost grateful for the clarity that followed,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't ready yet to let the confrontation happen.
Speaker 1: In the heat of shock, I spent the rest of
Speaker 1: the night in the spare room, staring at the ceiling wire,
Speaker 1: while in the hallway Lucas's shadow moved back and forth.
Speaker 1: In the early hours, I realized I could not politely
Speaker 1: wait for happiness to return, nor could I fully grieve
Speaker 1: what hadn't yet been confirmed. Aloud, I rose, made coffee
Speaker 1: and scrolled again through every piece of evidence, receipts, messages,
Speaker 1: Sofia's sad apology, the print out in Lucas's jacket. It
Speaker 1: was a tapestry, now ugly but solid. The next morning,
Speaker 1: Lucas emerged, bleary eyed, voice stiff. Are we okay? I
Speaker 1: feel like you're angry all the time lately I faced him,
Speaker 1: clutching the mug, every muscle in my face, trembling to
Speaker 1: stay composed. Are you seeing some one else? His lips parted,
Speaker 1: then closed. Know what the hell erin? Where esther coming from?
Speaker 1: Moments stretched thin as wire, I recited quietly. You volunteered,
Speaker 1: but you weren't there. You bought coffee at the lake,
Speaker 1: but you told me you were working. I know about Hannah.
Speaker 1: I know. He blinked, jaw clenched, fingers drumming on the
Speaker 1: kitchen counter. That's crazy, you're making connections that aren't there.
Speaker 1: I shook my head, pressing the mug tighter until heat
Speaker 1: shot into my palm. If there's something I should know
Speaker 1: now is the time? He stared at me, then grabbed
Speaker 1: his coat and left, slamming the door hard enough to
Speaker 1: rattle the glass. I didn't chase him. I didn't cry.
Speaker 1: I wrote instead, the words turning blocky and imprecise. Truth
Speaker 1: is not always loud, but it's unignorable. I waited for
Speaker 1: Lucas to come home, feeling panic and peace interchange inside me.
Speaker 1: When he finally returned, he collapsed beside me on the couch,
Speaker 1: smelling of crisp air and maybe maybe regret. I said,
Speaker 1: one final time, if you want us to have any future,
Speaker 1: don't lie to me now. His hands shook where they
Speaker 1: lay on his lap, and for one split second I
Speaker 1: saw him, young, un guarded, the man who'd kissed me
Speaker 1: in a crowded kitchen years ago. Then the mask slid
Speaker 1: down again. I haven't slept, He murmured, Can we just
Speaker 1: pretend for a while? I almost agreed, But the gap
Speaker 1: between pretending and surviving had grown irreconcilably wide, and for
Speaker 1: the first time I did not try to cross it.
Speaker 1: Lucas's presence in our home turned heavy, tangible, as if
Speaker 1: every surface he touched became coated with residue. I couldn't
Speaker 1: wash off. I heard his movements even when I was
Speaker 1: supposed to be alone, the cautious creak of floorboards outside
Speaker 1: the spare room at midnight, the muffled closing of drawers,
Speaker 1: the running of water long after I knew his teeth
Speaker 1: were already brushed. On Sunday morning, the air between us
Speaker 1: was colder. He made coffee without asking if I wanted some,
Speaker 1: drinking it by the door, while scrolling anxiously through his phone, waiting,
Speaker 1: maybe on a text from her, or simply for whatever
Speaker 1: would happen next. I sat at the kitchen table, arms
Speaker 1: wrapped tight against my chest, staring at the note book
Speaker 1: I'd used to chart his betrayals. The last line was
Speaker 1: a question, what happens when he finally admits it. I
Speaker 1: couldn't breathe without feeling the cage of possible answers. Lucas
Speaker 1: moved through the rooms slower than usual, as if walking
Speaker 1: under water. The normal cadence of our week end, shared errands,
Speaker 1: plans for dinner, inside, jokes had cracked. Neither of us
Speaker 1: filled the silence. Around noon, Sofia texted quiet as always,
Speaker 1: thinking of you here if you need anything. I didn't reply.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to say that wouldn't open a vein.
Speaker 1: Lucas came into the kitchen, hair still damp, avoiding my eyes.
Speaker 1: He looked smaller, curled inward, older. I'm going to run
Speaker 1: by the office, he said, making it sound like a question,
Speaker 1: not an announcement. My jaw clenched. Do what you have to,
Speaker 1: I said, refusing to look up. He hovered uncertain, then left,
Speaker 1: keys jangling in his fist. The door clicked closed, the
Speaker 1: emptiest sound in the world. I closed the note book,
Speaker 1: setting it on top of a pile of bills. There
Speaker 1: was nothing left to record. The hours crawled. I did
Speaker 1: the pointless work of the grief stricken, emptied the dish washer,
Speaker 1: changed the sheets in the guest room, vacuumed dog hare
Speaker 1: that never existed, let myself stand in the closet and
Speaker 1: touched the sleeve of Lucas's jacket, where I'd found the
Speaker 1: print out I could never unsee. In the mid afternoon light,
Speaker 1: I paced the living room like it was neither mine
Speaker 1: nor his, waiting for some signal from the universe. None came.
Speaker 1: My phone vibrated another message from Lucas, this time longer.
Speaker 1: Can we talk to night? I don't want to fight,
Speaker 1: I need to explain. Please, let's just have a real conversation.
Speaker 1: I stared at the message until the screen dimmed. The
Speaker 1: familiar urge to forgive, to push this crisis back into
Speaker 1: its box, pulsed under my skin, but I forced myself
Speaker 1: not to answer. My father's hobbled apologies scurried through my memory, sincere,
Speaker 1: sounding full of regret that never managed to change anything.
Speaker 1: I would not inherit that kind of endurance. By five dusk,
Speaker 1: pressed finger prints against the windows. I made myself a
Speaker 1: sandwich and ate its, standing crumbs collecting on the tile floor.
Speaker 1: I watched the neighbor's dog bark at passing cars. The
Speaker 1: world kept spinning, indifferent to the private catastrophe unfolding in
Speaker 1: my home. The back door opened behind me. Lucas stood there,
Speaker 1: shoulders squared, eyes red rimmed, but dry. Can we just talk,
Speaker 1: he asked, not moving closer. Now s as good a
Speaker 1: time as any. I answered. He sat across from me,
Speaker 1: hands folded, wedding band, winking beneath the overhead light. I
Speaker 1: waited for him to speak, heart knotted into something sharp
Speaker 1: and defensive. He began, finally, I know you already know
Speaker 1: most of this about Hannah, about what I what's been happening.
Speaker 1: He pressed his palms flat on the table, voice thin,
Speaker 1: I didn't set out to hurt you. I swear to God,
Speaker 1: I didn't. It wasn't supposed to be a thing, the
Speaker 1: volunteering that was real at first. She just she noticed
Speaker 1: things about me I thought i'd lost, made me feel
Speaker 1: like I wasn't drowning every day. I let him keep
Speaker 1: talking as the words tumbled out, half apology, half rationalization.
Speaker 1: We started spending more time together. She understood when work
Speaker 1: was hell, she didn't I'm not blaming you, Erin, I'm
Speaker 1: not it's just I let it get away from me.
Speaker 1: I lied because I was ashamed, and because she made
Speaker 1: things feel easy. The edge of desperation crept in. Now
Speaker 1: it wasn't all physical at first, just talking, letting myself
Speaker 1: be seen. That's shitty enough, I know. Then after a
Speaker 1: while it was more dinners, nights at the lake, her cabin,
Speaker 1: things I never planned to say yes to, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't stop. I should have told you God, I'm a coward.
Speaker 1: I knew I breaking us, and I I still did it.
Speaker 1: I was silent so long. He looked frightened by it,
Speaker 1: his breathing shallowed, eyes searching my face for some sign
Speaker 1: of mercy. Say something, he whispered. I spoke slowly, voice
Speaker 1: thudding with restrained fury. Was any of this real us?
Speaker 1: I mean, did you ever want this life? Or was
Speaker 1: this all just a holding pattern until something more exciting
Speaker 1: came along? He shook his head violently. Don't say that
Speaker 1: your It was real still is for me. I just
Speaker 1: lost myself. I thought maybe something was wrong with us,
Speaker 1: and then Hannah filled the gaps. But she's not you,
Speaker 1: she could never be you. His words tripped over themselves,
Speaker 1: growing less convincing. The longer, he went, You and me erin.
Speaker 1: We were always solid. I just made a mistake. I
Speaker 1: almost laughed, how simple that sounded. A mistake is when
Speaker 1: you buy the wrong bread. Lucas, this is ruin. Tears
Speaker 1: welled in his eyes but never spilled. I'm sorry. I'll
Speaker 1: do anything anything you want. I'll cut her out, I'll
Speaker 1: quit my job, move out, whatever it takes. I just
Speaker 1: I don't want to lose you. His need vibrated in
Speaker 1: the space between us, pleading, remorseful, and utterly finally powerless.
Speaker 1: The table, the house nothing felt shared any longer. Behind
Speaker 1: my anger, exhaustion bled through. I don't know what I
Speaker 1: want yet. I need you gone to night. I need this,
Speaker 1: I gestured broadly. I need it to stop, at least
Speaker 1: until I can think. He nodded, voice breaking on a
Speaker 1: single syllable O K. For the first time since I'd
Speaker 1: met him, I saw Lucas, truly saw him as a
Speaker 1: man stripped of all stories. There was nothing left to
Speaker 1: distract either of us from consequence, the silence settled in again,
Speaker 1: brutish and absolute. Upstairs, I could hear the faint static
Speaker 1: of the radio through the bathroom door, the normal clicks
Speaker 1: of evening in a home about to become only mine.
Speaker 1: Lucas moved quietly through the house, gathering his things, stuffing
Speaker 1: clothes blindly into a tote bag. I heard drawers opening
Speaker 1: and closing. The careful way he folded a jacket. He
Speaker 1: never bothered to hang on a hook before his footsteps.
Speaker 1: Time not to disturb me, but every sound he made
Speaker 1: carved a deeper groove in the night. He passed by
Speaker 1: the kitchen to fetch his boots, avoiding my eyes. I
Speaker 1: sat perfectly still, watching every detail, the trembling line of
Speaker 1: his shoulders, the careful, grief stricken way he placed his
Speaker 1: coat by the door. He stopped, hand on the knob.
Speaker 1: I'll text when I get to mark s, he said,
Speaker 1: his voice tentative, the words floating up as if asking
Speaker 1: for permission. Don't, I replied, gently, but without shaking. I
Speaker 1: need time. Please give me that. My voice was a
Speaker 1: stranger s deliberate, unbending. He nodded, face gray with loss.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for all of it. Then he left, a
Speaker 1: gust of cold air tracing in absence through the hall.
Speaker 1: The door clapped shut behind him. The house drew in shuddering.
Speaker 1: The relief didn't come I sat on the kitchen bench,
Speaker 1: back rigid, staring at the place in the tile where
Speaker 1: a soft patch marked where he used to stand to
Speaker 1: make morning coffee. I made no move to clean up,
Speaker 1: to fill the emptiness to call any one. After a
Speaker 1: little while, the light faded outside, the unswept crumbs glittered
Speaker 1: on the counter. The radio upstairs finally clicked off. My
Speaker 1: phone pinged again, Lucas's name on the screen, little blue
Speaker 1: dots of an apology I would not read. I tossed
Speaker 1: the phone on to the table, face down. After half
Speaker 1: an hour of blankness, I forced myself up numb, then
Speaker 1: turned to practical action. I stripped the bed in the
Speaker 1: guest room, pulled out a fresh set of sheets, and
Speaker 1: made the narrow mattress by rote tight hospital corners, an
Speaker 1: orderliness that gave my hands something to do. I stacked
Speaker 1: Lucas's remaining shoes by the front door, removed his shaving
Speaker 1: kit from the bath through counter, placed his charger and
Speaker 1: a stack of unopened mail on top. The objects felt
Speaker 1: like evidence, not memories. I texted Sophia, words blunt, can
Speaker 1: you come over for a bit? No need to talk,
Speaker 1: just be here. Her reply was immediate On my way.
Speaker 1: When she arrived, she brought silence, but it was a
Speaker 1: kinder quiet. She sat beside me on the sofa, wordless
Speaker 1: as I stared at the blank television screen, knees drawn up.
Speaker 1: We existed between the aftershocks, her hand reaching for mine.
Speaker 1: When my resolve began to wobble, phone buzzing again, Lucas's name.
Speaker 1: I silenced it, then, with slow fingers, deleted the full conversation.
Speaker 1: No more messages, no more little windows begging for my attention.
Speaker 1: A clean slate of emptiness grew in its place. Later,
Speaker 1: I pulled out the trash bin, emptying bitter fragments of
Speaker 1: the day, the torn sandwich wrapper, clumps of hair from
Speaker 1: the vacuum, yesterday's newspaper. I was methodical, careful not to
Speaker 1: break down. If I let even one memory slip, I
Speaker 1: knew it would all come crashing in. When Sophia finally
Speaker 1: left hug taking a beat too long, I bolted the
Speaker 1: front door behind her, double checked the lock, and padded
Speaker 1: barefoot into the kitchen. The house was so quiet it
Speaker 1: felt like someone had stolen all the air. In the morning,
Speaker 1: gray dawn seeping passed unwashed windows. I found myself at
Speaker 1: the edge of the bed, covers, twisted last night's clothes
Speaker 1: still on My muscles ached with exhaustion, but inside me
Speaker 1: everything felt wind scoured and cleared out. I wandered to
Speaker 1: the study and stood among the remnants of Lucas's things,
Speaker 1: the sketches, the coffee mug, stray batteries, and folded receipts.
Speaker 1: I opened the note book, read the entries one last time,
Speaker 1: and removed each posted, each receipt, each proof. I put
Speaker 1: them all in a pile, closed the cover and placed
Speaker 1: it deep in the bottom drawer of my desk. Not gone,
Speaker 1: but not in reach either. Standing at the counter, I
Speaker 1: scrawled a fast e mail to my therapist urgent need
Speaker 1: to talk, then one to my boss family emergency need
Speaker 1: a few days off. Only facts, no explanations. I stared
Speaker 1: at the fridge for a minute, unsure what to do
Speaker 1: with the rest of the emptiness. I boiled water for coffee,
Speaker 1: measured out grounds, let the smell fill the kitchen. It
Speaker 1: was the first normal thing I'd done in days, but
Speaker 1: nothing in this house was normal. The mug in my
Speaker 1: hand felt too heavy, the ticking of the clock too loud.
Speaker 1: I found myself shifting through spaces from hallway to kitchen,
Speaker 1: to bedroom to study, Lacking the gravity to settle anywhere.
Speaker 1: I caught sight of our wedding photo on the bookshelf
Speaker 1: and turned it face down. Outside, the day brightened slowly,
Speaker 1: sun grazing the dewy grass, mocking my shrunken world. When
Speaker 1: I leaned against the glass door to the back yard,
Speaker 1: I pressed my forehead to the cold. I watched a
Speaker 1: bird pull a worm from the air, part of a
Speaker 1: drama I d once shared with Lucas on spring Sundays,
Speaker 1: Coffee on the steps, his boots muddy, our words wandering.
Speaker 1: My body was leaden, nerves raw. I rinsed my face
Speaker 1: in the bathroom, dried it on a towel that still
Speaker 1: smelled faintly of his cologne. The urge to text him, anger, longing,
Speaker 1: even just a question, flitted at the edge. I ignored it,
Speaker 1: breathing through waves of everything. The knowledge that my future
Speaker 1: was now unmade was both horror and liberation. In the afternoon,
Speaker 1: Sofia dropped by with groceriyes she'd insisted on picking up
Speaker 1: for me. I tried to wave her off, but her
Speaker 1: persistence was a comfort I couldn't deny. We unpacked together,
Speaker 1: side by side, intense quiet, neither knowing what to say.
Speaker 1: She set eggs in the fridge, bread on the counter,
Speaker 1: then hugged me brief and fierce. Call if you want
Speaker 1: to talk or just sit like this, okay, she said.
Speaker 1: I nodded. The urge to apologize, the habit to smooth
Speaker 1: over some one else's discomfort tugged at me, but I
Speaker 1: let it slide away, unneaded. After she left, I opened
Speaker 1: the freezer, finding Lucas's last pint of vanilla ice cream
Speaker 1: half hidden on the upper shelf. I considered throwing it out,
Speaker 1: but instead I left it where it was, meaningless and cold.
Speaker 1: My phone flashed again, another unread message from Lucas, then silence.
Speaker 1: At dusk, I walked the perimeter of the back yard,
Speaker 1: hands in my jacket pockets, counting the paving stones, tracing
Speaker 1: the outline of the plot we d once planned to
Speaker 1: turn into a garden. The beds were still empty, weeds
Speaker 1: curling in the cracks. I let my shoes muddy, not caring.
Speaker 1: When I finally came inside, exhaustion claimed me. The house
Speaker 1: felt echoing and strange. I lay on the living room rug,
Speaker 1: staring up at the ceiling, illuminated by the dust moats
Speaker 1: swirling in the left over sun. That night, every surface
Speaker 1: in the house was evidence of routine and collapse, memory
Speaker 1: and loss, the detritus of a life abruptly changed. I
Speaker 1: let it settle, unresisting, knowing there would be no sleep,
Speaker 1: but at least for the first time, no secrets. I
Speaker 1: stayed on the rug until my back ached and my
Speaker 1: jaw grew sore from the tension. Listening to the ordinary
Speaker 1: knocks and complaints of the house. I let every drip
Speaker 1: and wind rattle thread itself through me. Sometime past midnight,
Speaker 1: I moved mechanically washed my face, brushed my teeth, changed
Speaker 1: into soft clothes that didn't remind me of any one.
Speaker 1: When I went to bed, I left the hall light on,
Speaker 1: not ready for darkness's finality. I didn't cry grief, waited
Speaker 1: patient at the edges. By morning, more messages from Lucas
Speaker 1: clotted the screen. I deleted them without reading, putting the
Speaker 1: phone on do not disturb. I retreated to the balcony
Speaker 1: with my coffee. The wind sharp and almost cleansing. My
Speaker 1: hands shook on the mug. I realized I'd started to
Speaker 1: taste the bitterness of anger more than the salt of heartbreak.
Speaker 1: Part of me, numbed by the endless spiral of investigation,
Speaker 1: felt almost relieved to have finally crashed through the bottom.
Speaker 1: Around midday, my mom called I let it ring out,
Speaker 1: only to have her leave a voicemail in her tired,
Speaker 1: soothing voice, just checking in love you. She didn't mention Lucas,
Speaker 1: didn't press for details. I knew she'd heard something mothers
Speaker 1: always know, but I also knew that if I let
Speaker 1: her in now, I'd absorb all her sadness in addition
Speaker 1: to my own and drown. I did not reply. I
Speaker 1: moved through the house, tidying with the nervous energy of
Speaker 1: someone waiting for another shoe to drop. I repotted a
Speaker 1: sad fern by the kitchen window, swept the porch through
Speaker 1: the withered sunflowers in the compost. The door bell startled
Speaker 1: me a delivery groceries I had ordered and forgotten. I signed,
Speaker 1: barely glancing at the courier. Life absurdly still demanded to
Speaker 1: be lived. As twilight pressed in the phone rang Lucas's
Speaker 1: name again again, this time unexpectedly. It was followed by
Speaker 1: a text that read, only can we meet at the
Speaker 1: house to night, just for a conversation. I need to
Speaker 1: leave you the keys. There's nothing else, I swear, I
Speaker 1: just want to do this right. Stomach tightening, I replied, simply,
Speaker 1: just the keys, Lucas, eight p M. That's all. After
Speaker 1: hitting send, I sat in stillness so deep it felt surgical.
Speaker 1: I gathered my journal receipts, the battered note book and
Speaker 1: shut them away in the deepest drawer I could find
Speaker 1: each gesture and incision, cutting the story out of my
Speaker 1: day to day world. I poured a glass of water,
Speaker 1: pressed the rim to my lips, and rehearsed what I
Speaker 1: needed to say in as few words as possible. He
Speaker 1: arrived at exactly eight, as precise with this new boundary
Speaker 1: as he'd always been careless with anniversaries. When I opened
Speaker 1: the door, Lucas stood outside, hands deep in jacket pockets,
Speaker 1: eyes ringed and exhausted. I let him in without a word,
Speaker 1: step aside, but not welcoming him. He paused in the doorway,
Speaker 1: looking smaller than I'd ever seen him. Wordlessly, he opened
Speaker 1: his palm and placed his single key, just the plain
Speaker 1: house key, no office fobs, no bottle openers, on the
Speaker 1: console by the door. It made a soft, almost apologetic tap.
Speaker 1: He'd rehearsed this too. For a moment, I almost wondered
Speaker 1: if there was a script for this particular type of funeral,
Speaker 1: and etiquette for endings when there's nothing left to parcel
Speaker 1: out but guilt. He cleared his throat. I booked a
Speaker 1: hotel for a week, Mark said, I could crash longer
Speaker 1: if needed. He looked around the entryway, eyes lingering on
Speaker 1: the scuffed base board, the framed photo of the harbor
Speaker 1: from our first apartment. I didn't know what to pack,
Speaker 1: just grabbed the basics. You can donate anything else, or
Speaker 1: call if you find something important, I swallowed. I'll let
Speaker 1: you know. My voice felt dry, unused. He nodded, face twisted.
Speaker 1: I know sorry means nothing, but I am. I wish
Speaker 1: his voice broke, but he didn't finish. I found the
Speaker 1: words only because I'd rehearsed them. I hope you figure
Speaker 1: your life out, Lucas. I can't do that for you,
Speaker 1: not any more. He stared at me for a long,
Speaker 1: desperate beat, like he might collapse or protest or try
Speaker 1: to take everything back, but he didn't. Instead, he turned
Speaker 1: squeezed the bridge of his nose and left. The door
Speaker 1: closed quietly behind him. No slam, no performance, just finality.
Speaker 1: I waited still as the house breathed around my solitude.
Speaker 1: It swelled and shrank, A living map for two now
Speaker 1: shrunk to one. Sophia called voice soft as I washed dishes.
Speaker 1: I hadn't even dirtied. Did he come by, she asked?
Speaker 1: I said yes. Do you want me there? Another yes,
Speaker 1: though there was nothing left to say. She arrived and
Speaker 1: settled on to the couch with me. For the first
Speaker 1: time in months, I spoke without crying, just the plain details,
Speaker 1: the small, dumb facts of betrayal and the business of ending.
Speaker 1: We sat in easy quiet, broken only by the kettle's
Speaker 1: whistle and the little exchanges people who still care make
Speaker 1: when caring is all there is left to do. When
Speaker 1: Sophia left, after hugging me longer than needed, after promising
Speaker 1: not to ask me to talk if I didn't want it,
Speaker 1: I closed and locked the door, Moving through the darkened
Speaker 1: house on silent feet. In the bedroom, I gathered the
Speaker 1: last tangible signs of Lucas's existence. Socks, half used shampoo,
Speaker 1: a receipt from the Mexican place where he once made
Speaker 1: me laugh, I dumped them into a paper bag, placed
Speaker 1: it by the front closet. I didn't want to look
Speaker 1: at any of it. Then, drawn by instinct more than courage,
Speaker 1: I found the note book with all my careful notes,
Speaker 1: the lines drawn between names and dates, circles around the
Speaker 1: clues I'd so painstakingly collected. I scrolled through my phone,
Speaker 1: deleting every photo that felt like evidence and not memory.
Speaker 1: I ached with both victory and loss. I poured the
Speaker 1: remaining wine down the sink. I turned down the bed sheets,
Speaker 1: as if there were still a ritual worth preserving. I
Speaker 1: brushed my teeth, I washed my face. When I finally stopped,
Speaker 1: hands trembling, I stood before the back window. The world
Speaker 1: outside was black and cold and new. I slid the
Speaker 1: glass door open, felt the bite of spring air, and
Speaker 1: stepped outside. I listened to the wind rummage through the
Speaker 1: garden to my own breath, hollow but steady. When the
Speaker 1: sun finally crested the tree line, damp, warm, alive, I
Speaker 1: felt the weight in my chest lift, not with closure,
Speaker 1: but with the clean neutrality of empty space. My feet
Speaker 1: pressed into earth, taking in the hush where heartbreak had been.
Speaker 1: I let the cold wrap around me not trying to
Speaker 1: fix it or solve it, not hoping for forgiveness or answers,
Speaker 1: just be it,