Speaker 1: It's raining, the kind of hard, unrelenting rain that only
Speaker 1: comes in the shoulder months, a pool or October, when
Speaker 1: you're never sure if it's safe to pack away your
Speaker 1: heavy curt our. Windows, fog in the little kitchen, blur
Speaker 1: in the high street's head lights, until all I can
Speaker 1: really see is my own reflection as I stare brown
Speaker 1: garlic through pasta. It's Thursday, which means it's Thursday. Surprise, Night,
Speaker 1: Julius sways up and down. I once made it up,
Speaker 1: but the truth is she started it one Thursday, four
Speaker 1: years ago. I opened the door to her standing barefoot
Speaker 1: on the counter, balancing a pizza on one hand like
Speaker 1: a silks performer. To Night's surprise means I'm making her
Speaker 1: favorite linguine with caramelized onions and that tangy peppery goat cheese.
Speaker 1: I had to trick across the city for I've set
Speaker 1: the table with the worried blue vas She likes napkins
Speaker 1: folded in a way she always teases me about. I'm trying.
Speaker 1: You know, it used to be easy. Now I have
Speaker 1: to remind myself. Her text comes at six on the dot,
Speaker 1: and I read it twice first to make sure and
Speaker 1: then because something Emmy always aches for her messages, even
Speaker 1: now after so many running late after class, might go
Speaker 1: for a quick drink with the team. Love you, she
Speaker 1: draws in the excommission shoots me an emojia wineglass with
Speaker 1: jazz hands. I smile, I try to. It isn't the
Speaker 1: first time she's be late lately, and honestly, her new
Speaker 1: class is a huge deal. She's proud of it. And
Speaker 1: nine and two there's no shame in thriving. I set
Speaker 1: her plate in the oven to keep it warm. I
Speaker 1: kill time with emails, Shuffle for Spotify playlist, Refresh her
Speaker 1: Instagram to see if maybe there's a poeto. Nothing new,
Speaker 1: just a group shot from earlier in the week, everyone
Speaker 1: in black leggings, with those impossible accidental poses. I work
Speaker 1: at not worrying. I'm not her keeper. She needs friends.
Speaker 1: She's allow of fun, all those things ye think when
Speaker 1: ye want to believe the best, or at least play
Speaker 1: at being cull and evolved. The rain picks up sheets
Speaker 1: against the window acoustically, until the apartment feels like the
Speaker 1: whull of a ship, a little isolated, a little lost.
Speaker 1: By eight, the pastas dried along the edges of the
Speaker 1: pan despite the heat from the oven. By nine thirty
Speaker 1: I've texted her again, All good should I wait up?
Speaker 1: No reply. By the time she finally comes in, it's
Speaker 1: after ten thirty. I hear her before I see her
Speaker 1: at the jingle of her keys. How heals unfamiliar to
Speaker 1: a always creaky floor. She's flush, dark, hair loose from
Speaker 1: its practice. Braid eyeline are smudged in a way I
Speaker 1: used to cold, smoky, but to night is just messy.
Speaker 1: She comes in fast, almost crashing the door behind her,
Speaker 1: and stands at the entrance, shaking her hair out like
Speaker 1: a dog trying to rude itself of rain. Hey, I
Speaker 1: try to sound breezy, even though it's quiet in a
Speaker 1: way that feels new between us. Well, Ben, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: She drops her bag by the shoes, peels off her jacket.
Speaker 1: The air around her shop laid wine, citrus perfume, an
Speaker 1: edge of sweat that always means she's had a big glass.
Speaker 1: She smells expensive, like someone fresh off an evening out,
Speaker 1: and that startles me because Julia doesn't drink much, or
Speaker 1: at least she never used to, not beyond a glass
Speaker 1: at dinner. You okay, I ask, mindlessly, shifting our plates
Speaker 1: around as if late night dinner is still on the table.
Speaker 1: She's already walking away toward the bedroom. Networking thing ran late.
Speaker 1: You know how it goes. Sorry, baby, She doesn't meet
Speaker 1: my eyes, instead flicking her damp hair into a bun
Speaker 1: and rubbing her forehead with a distracted hand. I let
Speaker 1: out a salt fluff, mostly from myself. Guess I picked
Speaker 1: the wrong night for pasta. She pauses in the whole way,
Speaker 1: clounces that the table is so startled by its neatness,
Speaker 1: then manages a faint smile. Looks amazing, I'm starving, but
Speaker 1: I smell like a gym locker. Let me rinse off.
Speaker 1: The question has an edge of dread. She's avoiding me,
Speaker 1: but I tell myself she's just wiped. Yeah, dinner can
Speaker 1: wait five minutes, I say, though we both know it's
Speaker 1: not five minutes. She disappears into the bathroom and the
Speaker 1: water starts instantly, drowning out any chance of conversation. After
Speaker 1: half an hour, I push her plate into the fridge
Speaker 1: and turn off the kitchen light. When she comes out,
Speaker 1: she's already got on that old final sleep shirt she
Speaker 1: reserves for headaches. She crawls into bed, scrolling her phone
Speaker 1: beneath the covers. I brush my teeth in silence, wanting
Speaker 1: to ask more, wanting to pull her back from whatever
Speaker 1: place she's lost in. Instead, I set my glasses on
Speaker 1: the nightstand and listen to her Breathe already's low and distant,
Speaker 1: as if she's fallen asleep on purpose. That's not Julia,
Speaker 1: or it is, but it's changed, and I can't name how.
Speaker 1: Not yet. It wasn't always this way, of course. I
Speaker 1: met Duly the kind of night that makes you superstitious.
Speaker 1: Our crawl twenty nine years old, full of myself for
Speaker 1: knowing about some pop up gallery and a warehouse, expecting
Speaker 1: to be the most interesting person in the room. She
Speaker 1: was there on a dare, dragged in by a friend
Speaker 1: from her spin class, wearing a red dress of bright
Speaker 1: You couldn't ignore her. She tried to get me to
Speaker 1: house after two glasses of cheap wine. I said I
Speaker 1: had two left feet, and she accused me of a
Speaker 1: lack of imagination. She moved like someone electric, but her
Speaker 1: confidence wasn't intimidating, just expansive, like I was allowed inside
Speaker 1: her world if I could laugh at myself. We married
Speaker 1: a little over a year later twenty seven from me
Speaker 1: twenty six for her and life move quick. I landed
Speaker 1: a junior account road at a bitiicat agency. She was
Speaker 1: the doll in of three city gyms by then, already
Speaker 1: getting offers to branch out, kerch teach classes, run workshops.
Speaker 1: We didn't have the big house with rolling fund. Some
Speaker 1: people manage after a few years, but we made you.
Speaker 1: Stayed in the little maud and walk up on Maine,
Speaker 1: went for ten mile hikes at least one day every weekend,
Speaker 1: did big city things like splitting groceries and bar tabs
Speaker 1: with cash. It wasn't flashy, but it fit us out
Speaker 1: least that's how I thought of it. For our first
Speaker 1: three years, we never missed a single Thursday date, not
Speaker 1: even when we had to improvise with take out sushi
Speaker 1: on the hoode of our car. There were rituals, Lunches
Speaker 1: at that ancient cafe with the wobbly tables, brunch at
Speaker 1: the bookstore when neither one of us wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to waistaff Sundays spent badgering each other, but work. Tell
Speaker 1: me you were high in your low for the wheat
Speaker 1: was Julia's annoying, ernest, favored. I don't mean to pretend
Speaker 1: it was perfect. Julia was always more kinetic. I used
Speaker 1: to joke that she'd take three jobs at once if
Speaker 1: her body would let her. She was restless with ambition,
Speaker 1: and I found it dazzling, even as it sometimes made
Speaker 1: me feel like a footprint in her rush forward. I
Speaker 1: got used to being the support of husband, the quiet
Speaker 1: guy beside her. When she hosted an inventor, got another
Speaker 1: fitness column published, I liked it, maybe too much. My
Speaker 1: work was stable, a little boring, but it gave me
Speaker 1: an excuse to be her biggest hype man. As she
Speaker 1: always said, other cracks you only see later after the fact.
Speaker 1: Probably lately our conversations fell shallow, like with skimming the
Speaker 1: surface of things that matter. Text at work used to
Speaker 1: come every hour, is down to a couple a day.
Speaker 1: Little cafe. It's a special thing. When we managed to
Speaker 1: meet instead of baseline routine. She joined Elevate Fitness Lough
Speaker 1: last summer, a big move. Honestly, Julia's style always drew people,
Speaker 1: but this was her idea of legitimacy, the chance to
Speaker 1: really build something. She talked about it NonStop, raved about
Speaker 1: the space. The crew of the clients. There was someone
Speaker 1: named Mark, mentioned often branded as her partner in crime
Speaker 1: for new class concepts, A genius coach, she said, sly,
Speaker 1: laugh in her voice. I shook his hand once. He
Speaker 1: seemed friendly enough, big grinning dude. But I'd barely gotten
Speaker 1: Julia's name out of my mouth before he was sidling
Speaker 1: off with a stack of protein shakes. Not much else
Speaker 1: had changed. I still got up first, make coffee, did
Speaker 1: the crosswood at the kitchen table. She still messaged me
Speaker 1: bad puns still crashed on the catch in my lap
Speaker 1: some Thursday nights. Still the undercurrent of hurry had grown.
Speaker 1: I chalked it up to career things. Figured it had
Speaker 1: slow done eventually. Lately, though, everything feels temporary, like we're
Speaker 1: making plans in pencil, waiting to erase and start again.
Speaker 1: For the first few weeks after her new class started,
Speaker 1: I told myself the new pace was good for her.
Speaker 1: She was always electric after teaching, spilling stories over dinner,
Speaker 1: the hilarious client who worked out halfway through her cour circuit,
Speaker 1: the playlist that somehow made half the client cry. The
Speaker 1: time mout pulled a muscle showing off. I liked listening.
Speaker 1: Most of the time. It was the way her eyes glended,
Speaker 1: the high flush in her cheeks. But then little habits
Speaker 1: started shifting. Her phone always faced down, now lot with
Speaker 1: the pascoat she'd never bothered with before. I noticed because
Speaker 1: we were ordering fruit one night, and when I reached
Speaker 1: for her phone to check the menu, she no, she
Speaker 1: did away, lightly smiling. Let me do it. I've got
Speaker 1: a draft save before. Swapping phones to check calendars or
Speaker 1: order pizza with second nature so a routine. It was funny.
Speaker 1: This time. She tucked it into her lap as she searched,
Speaker 1: not offering it back. She started working late on Fridays,
Speaker 1: two our old pizza in movie night networking drinks, she said,
Speaker 1: looking sheepish but insistent. It's for my image, you know,
Speaker 1: I have to look like part of the club. I
Speaker 1: teased her, getting too cool for movie nights. She grinned,
Speaker 1: but there was a friction behind her eyes, like she
Speaker 1: didn't want to be caught between laughing and something else.
Speaker 1: Twice in one week, I offered to swing by Elevate
Speaker 1: after work, no big deal, just to hang out and
Speaker 1: drive her home. Both times she waved me off, said
Speaker 1: the classes ran late, meeting stacked up after hours. I
Speaker 1: made a joke about her having a secret life. Her
Speaker 1: laugh was tight. You could barely make it through my
Speaker 1: warm ups last time. Believe me, you're not missing much.
Speaker 1: Go home and enjoy you Thursday. I'll be late as hell.
Speaker 1: I tried to swallow it. This was growth right, She
Speaker 1: was finally taking her talent seriously, and wasn't that what
Speaker 1: I always said I wanted for her? I should be happy.
Speaker 1: I repeated the thought enough times that I started to
Speaker 1: believe it that weakened. I set uppers of visions at
Speaker 1: a tiny Italian place for our anniversary lunch four years
Speaker 1: since our first date. Technically. She came out of the shower,
Speaker 1: towels in a nest around her hair, and blinked at me.
Speaker 1: Wait till, my god, is that to day? Her face crumpled,
Speaker 1: hands flying to her mouth. She scrambled for her phone,
Speaker 1: half laughing and half mortified, and mumbled about back to
Speaker 1: back work, brainstorms, whip mark. Maybe I'm more tired than
Speaker 1: I thought, she said, trying to play it off, but
Speaker 1: even her smile was apologetic. It's okay, we're both busy,
Speaker 1: I told her. And when I'm end it, I'll try to,
Speaker 1: but the dull ache in my chest was a warning bell.
Speaker 1: I pretended I couldn't hear. That night, she slid into
Speaker 1: bed and turn away from me, fast enough that I
Speaker 1: didn't get to kiss her cheek. I lay staring at
Speaker 1: the ceiling for a long time, the sound of her
Speaker 1: breathing proof that at least she was still there for now.
Speaker 1: I wondered what support looks like when all you want
Speaker 1: is to be enough. I started to notice the little
Speaker 1: routines that fell away. Every morning for years, she'd blend
Speaker 1: a smoothies banana boat milk, half a scoop of protein
Speaker 1: powder because YE need the carbs. Ben. Now it's just
Speaker 1: me in the kitchen most mornings. Her she's already gone
Speaker 1: from beside the door, A note sometimes left on a
Speaker 1: sticky sorrowery super early loveyard. She's out earlier and back layer.
Speaker 1: I tell myself, she's grinding, but my hands tremble a little,
Speaker 1: making my own eggs physical affections lips too. I lean
Speaker 1: in for a kiss before work, and she's already bout
Speaker 1: over her phone or searching her bag for her headphones.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the last time she slid her hand
Speaker 1: into mine on the warped downtown this one Wednesday. I
Speaker 1: get home before her, and out of some anxious simples,
Speaker 1: I check our joint bank account. I tell my is
Speaker 1: to see if our wrench are cleared, one of those
Speaker 1: harmless domestic things you do when half your bills are
Speaker 1: a not a pilot. What I find instead of six
Speaker 1: tidy charges at wine barkhol Vinya dotted across three weeks.
Speaker 1: Vigna isn't near eleviate, not near home. I know it
Speaker 1: because a guy from work tried to drag me there
Speaker 1: for a networking his trendy to hip for my taste,
Speaker 1: and honestly a little out of our usual orbit. The
Speaker 1: bills aren't extravagant, thirty here, forty there, enough to notice,
Speaker 1: not enough to make of us. If she's having meetings there,
Speaker 1: why not tell me? That night, I asked Julia about
Speaker 1: her schedule for the week, thinking maybe I can surprise
Speaker 1: her for lunch. She says her are weeks of patchwork.
Speaker 1: Clients drop and randomly. Sometimes I teach, sometimes Mark does,
Speaker 1: Sometimes we team up if there are too many nubies.
Speaker 1: I ask which days are her teaching days? She fumbles,
Speaker 1: I think I have Thursday evening maybe Saturday afternoon, but
Speaker 1: I have to check. People always switch. She looks at
Speaker 1: her phone, scrolling texts too fast for me to see.
Speaker 1: The next afternoon, I mention the wine bar in passing.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Vinya? Saw a couple charges
Speaker 1: on our card. She doesn't look up from her laptop,
Speaker 1: just says, oh, write team drinks after work. One of
Speaker 1: the elevant investors likes to treat us. It's nothing special.
Speaker 1: I didn't think you care. Her tone is a little sharp,
Speaker 1: like she wants me to move on. The words come
Speaker 1: out before. I think you never mentioned it. She shrugs. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I barely remember half of them. They buy the first
Speaker 1: round I sneak out early, if anything, and the boring one.
Speaker 1: I want to believe her, I really dear. Later that week,
Speaker 1: at lunch near the Downtown court House, Melissa drops by
Speaker 1: our table. She's a friend of ours, closer to Julia,
Speaker 1: but we all used to meet up after work. She
Speaker 1: slides into the chair across from me as if she's
Speaker 1: running from some invisible storm outside. Hey didn't expect to
Speaker 1: see you guys here. She glances at the empty side
Speaker 1: of the booth before I tell her Julia is working.
Speaker 1: I actually saw your wife the other night, she offers,
Speaker 1: digging into a briefcase for her phone. Vigniebarsch. She added,
Speaker 1: m someone from her work looked like they were having
Speaker 1: a great time. Big guy pon a tail, athletic kind
Speaker 1: of cute. Honestly, was that mock? I always forget who's
Speaker 1: who at that place? I laugh off the twining jim
Speaker 1: My gut, Probably just Mark. They're always working late now,
Speaker 1: Melissa grins look like after hours. To me, they seemed close.
Speaker 1: You weren't with them, No, I must have missed the invite,
Speaker 1: I say, two light too sharp. Meliss A lasts busy
Speaker 1: texting someone. Those trainers are always mixing business and drink. Right,
Speaker 1: Julia's killing it over there, seriously, hope you two are
Speaker 1: finding a balance with her crazy hours. I nod. She
Speaker 1: stands indistinct in a rush and jogs out, umbrella open.
Speaker 1: Before I can think of anything to ask. That night,
Speaker 1: I suggest in a promptu weekend trip a few days
Speaker 1: at a cheap be and b nothing fancy, just to
Speaker 1: get out of the city and walk along the cliffs
Speaker 1: like we used to. Julia lights up, leans over her
Speaker 1: dinner to grip my hand in hers. Yes, oh my god, yes,
Speaker 1: I would love to. But two days before she cancels,
Speaker 1: texting me from the gym instead of calling. They're piloting
Speaker 1: a new program Ben Mark and I are covering for Hannah.
Speaker 1: I can't scape it. I'm so sorry. I try to
Speaker 1: sound supportive, but my chest burns. I let it go.
Speaker 1: Like always, she brings up Mark Moore in the weeks
Speaker 1: that fall. He's basically the master mind behind all the
Speaker 1: new choreography, she says, swirling a fork above her salad,
Speaker 1: she list marks insatiable energy, how he talks her out
Speaker 1: of creative roots. It's admiration, but it sounds concentrated, a
Speaker 1: little too sharp. I caution myself not to be jealous.
Speaker 1: Teammuck as key. That's all, except I can't stop wondering
Speaker 1: when his names start a cropping up in every other anecdote.
Speaker 1: When did she start describing him as hilarious, brilliant? It
Speaker 1: God's end. I try to be rational. Maybe i'd talk
Speaker 1: about a new mentor if I had one, But her
Speaker 1: voice is different, quieter, almost reverent. The next Thursday is
Speaker 1: ordinary until it isn't. I wake around two a m.
Speaker 1: Thirsty and pat to the kitchen. As I passed the
Speaker 1: bath room, I catch low whispers Julius, crouched on the
Speaker 1: edge of the tap, blue foam light framing her face.
Speaker 1: She doesn't hear me. I do that thing, half east drop,
Speaker 1: half hate myself until I pick out phrases. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wish you could see it down tomorrow. Maybe her words
Speaker 1: are muffled, I claim my throat deliberately. The conversation cuts off.
Speaker 1: She unlocks the door phone behind her back. Sorry did
Speaker 1: I wake you, she asks, vost Bridle just needed to
Speaker 1: check to morrow's schedule. Mark had to swap some classes.
Speaker 1: She hugs the phone to her chest, then slides past
Speaker 1: me without meeting my eyes. I wash my glass in silence,
Speaker 1: listening to the soft thuncovered bedroom door closing. My heart pounds,
Speaker 1: racing in a way that makes me. Naw says. If
Speaker 1: you don't trust your own partner, what do you trust?
Speaker 1: That isn't a refuge. We lie on opposite edges of
Speaker 1: the mattress or breaths. Even my own shallow sex is
Speaker 1: different lately every time we try, she's somewhere else, entirely
Speaker 1: as half shuddered movements text beck and polite. I want
Speaker 1: passion or even a fight, just to feel something. Twice,
Speaker 1: I plan to prize dinners, candles and all, but she
Speaker 1: brushes them aside. Can we reschedule? I'm wiped. Maybe next week.
Speaker 1: I check her Instagram the next morning. Shulia's feet is
Speaker 1: almost exclusively Jim Saffrey's and panoramic group shots of shiny,
Speaker 1: smiling crews, her body tense and proud in every pose.
Speaker 1: I'm not in any of them, not a single mention,
Speaker 1: not even in the tags. I scoll back a year
Speaker 1: to see if I've before. I realized at the bottom
Speaker 1: of our laundry one night, press between my t shirts
Speaker 1: is a silk scarf. It's channel or a very convincing
Speaker 1: fake brush for all nothing Julia has worn in the
Speaker 1: seven years I've known her. She's in a kitchen when
Speaker 1: I show her. I think he grab this by mistake.
Speaker 1: I say, polite to the point of ridiculousness. She blinks,
Speaker 1: fumbles for an answer, then shrugs, well, that must be hannahs.
Speaker 1: She always borrows my gym bag. I grab her stuff
Speaker 1: by accident. Last week. I think she smiles too eager,
Speaker 1: ducks back to her laptop before I can ask anything else.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's nothing, but my mind won't let it go.
Speaker 1: After two weeks of leving on eggshells, waking up every
Speaker 1: morning more tired than the last, I decide to try
Speaker 1: something different. It feels desperate, may be childish, but I
Speaker 1: need peace. I need a reason to stop chasing shadows.
Speaker 1: I show up at Elevate for her six p m class,
Speaker 1: sneakers on, determined to surprise her like we used to
Speaker 1: do in the early days before busy men and sherbel
Speaker 1: The gym smells sharp, disinfectant lemon robomats, the faint mask
Speaker 1: of effort. Music thumps from behind a mirror wall. I
Speaker 1: scan the faces, finally catch Julia leading a group through
Speaker 1: coss circuits, eyes burning determinedly. She falters just for a
Speaker 1: second see me, but quickly recovers that falter is a
Speaker 1: small betrayal, then quickly smoothed over with a y professional smile.
Speaker 1: When the class ends, I make my way to her,
Speaker 1: my heart thudding like a high schooler Luke who finally
Speaker 1: decided to sweat. She teases, breathless. Her team hovers nearby, watching.
Speaker 1: Half way she introduces me to Mark, whose every bit
Speaker 1: as charming as I expected. A tall and easy spoken
Speaker 1: tight handshake, wide smile. The Julia always talks about you,
Speaker 1: he grins. May be too bodly, you too, must be
Speaker 1: pretty solid. She's a beast in the gym. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you keep up. Chilia's cheeks flush, and for
Speaker 1: a second, the cloud between us lifts. She steers me
Speaker 1: into postcoss chatter, tells stories, crackstrokes. Maybe things will be fine.
Speaker 1: We walk home together. She is animated old Julia for
Speaker 1: a stretch, even wrapping her arm around me as we
Speaker 1: cross Maine for the first time in months. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like I'm losing her. That night, I cook again,
Speaker 1: humming my old playlist. As she rummages in her bag
Speaker 1: at the kitchen counter, her phone buzzes, screen lighting up
Speaker 1: with the text see you at Viinya. The contact has
Speaker 1: saved with just a heart emoji. I don't see the number.
Speaker 1: She grabs the phone almost before I process what I read.
Speaker 1: She glances at me, smiles, hurried and guilty, just Mark,
Speaker 1: reminding me we've got an early meeting tomorrow. Work never
Speaker 1: ends right. There's an edge to her voice. She slips
Speaker 1: into the bedroom, door closing quietly behind her. I've finished
Speaker 1: a Dish's hand shaking. I don't confront her, not yet.
Speaker 1: I spend that night half awake, replaying old memories and
Speaker 1: new doubts. Julia's laughed from the class, the hurried smile
Speaker 1: as she clutched her phone, the absurd intimacy of a
Speaker 1: text from a heart emoji. Our old lunch is th
Speaker 1: fizzled out. The scarf Needer of us could explain every
Speaker 1: small moment Bill's stacking like bricks until breathing hurts. The
Speaker 1: next morning, Julia is up before me, already gone by sex.
Speaker 1: The scarf is gone from the laundry pile. I sit
Speaker 1: at the table, scrolling through old charges vinya four times
Speaker 1: last week, two left rides from Elevate to Attique Hotel
Speaker 1: on sixteenth. Know whe near our apartment or her work.
Speaker 1: I want to erase it all, but stories don't erase themselves.
Speaker 1: That afternoon, I message Melissa Vos tight as I ask
Speaker 1: about when she saw Julia Vinny. Mliss's response is careful,
Speaker 1: but there's a hesitation. I saw her with Mark. I
Speaker 1: think they were close, hands touching, laughing, like they were
Speaker 1: in their own world. Sorry, hope, I'm not overstepping. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was nothing. I thank her say, I was just
Speaker 1: being paranoid, But the guilt is thick, Mine for snooping,
Speaker 1: hers for seeing what maybe neither of us wanted. For
Speaker 1: two days, they try to let us slide. I cleaned
Speaker 1: the house obsessively. I organize our old photos in box
Speaker 1: set on my computer, looking for signs of erosion. Times
Speaker 1: when her gaze drifted somewhere I couldn't see. Finally, I
Speaker 1: decide I need proof, or closure or something dangerous. Julia
Speaker 1: mentions she's covering an evening class, won't be home until late.
Speaker 1: More piloting with Mark. I pack up my laptop, text
Speaker 1: her I'll be working late. Two pitch to finish, might
Speaker 1: crash at the office. She doesn't respond, and I take
Speaker 1: it as a s all an agreement. At five thirty,
Speaker 1: I drive to elevate the park on the fire end
Speaker 1: of the block, praying she won't wat me. My heart
Speaker 1: pounds so hard I forget to breathe. She finishes her
Speaker 1: class at six forty five. She wipes down the mass,
Speaker 1: hugs one of her colleagues, someone I don't know, and
Speaker 1: disappears into the office. Fifteen minutes later, she walks out
Speaker 1: and hurry Jim Back's lung over her shoulder. Mark is
Speaker 1: waiting by the curb in an old black jeep. She
Speaker 1: slides into the passenger seat with a laugh, and I
Speaker 1: almost miss it, but their hands link across the gearshif
Speaker 1: before the car pulls away. They drive in the direction
Speaker 1: of Vina. I feel like a stalker, pulse stuttering as
Speaker 1: I follow a block behind. There's rain in the air again,
Speaker 1: hazing the windows, distorting every light. I watch them park,
Speaker 1: watch them walk in, laughing or hand tracing his forearm,
Speaker 1: his mouth close to her ear. For my car, the
Speaker 1: glow of Vinea's windows is soft focus, the kind of cozy,
Speaker 1: golden blair that used to mark our best nights together.
Speaker 1: Julia's posture is animated, relax. I love a visible through
Speaker 1: the glass, eyes bright in a way I haven't seen
Speaker 1: in months. I text her, fingers numb, how's your night going?
Speaker 1: A reply is instant. Still at the gym, finishing up
Speaker 1: some paperwork might be late. I sit in the car,
Speaker 1: phone clenched while my body goes cold. I watch them
Speaker 1: leave the bar, arms linked as the head east toward
Speaker 1: the Botteque Hotel. From the lift for seats, I follow again,
Speaker 1: stopping a block away when I see them go in
Speaker 1: heads close his hand on the small over back. I
Speaker 1: wait for five minutes, maybe ten. Then I turn the
Speaker 1: key and drive home radio off. The darkness, holding every
Speaker 1: imagined sound between my ears. The city is hush, wet, acidic,
Speaker 1: with the smell of rain. My apartment is colder that
Speaker 1: it should be. I stand in the kitchen, hands on
Speaker 1: the counter, staring at the oftent timer because it's the
Speaker 1: only thing in my life that stands still. Something finally clicks.
Speaker 1: Not an explosion, not relief, just the quiet knowledge that
Speaker 1: the person I loved with my hall foolish, hopeful self
Speaker 1: is somewhere I don't recognize. I don't cry, I don't scream.
Speaker 1: I just breathe, shallow, again and again, like a swimmer
Speaker 1: about to go under. I must have stood there for ten,
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen minutes, hands flat on the cold granite counter,
Speaker 1: absorbing the silence to waste. Scab takes in heat. When
Speaker 1: the street lights flickered outside, a finch certain for a
Speaker 1: second that should already let herself in, But it was
Speaker 1: just a delivery van lumbering up the curb, head let
Speaker 1: slipping through the blinds. My breath fogged the kitchen window.
Speaker 1: I stayed there until the tenseness in my legs thretten
Speaker 1: to buckle me. I forced myself to move, pulling my
Speaker 1: phone from my pocket and opening our extra just to
Speaker 1: see it. Her last message that tidy lie still at
Speaker 1: the gym, finishing up some paperwork might be late. Sat
Speaker 1: at the bottom blue bubbles read. I scrolled up something
Speaker 1: perfers and me counted the number of exclamation points how
Speaker 1: frequently she said love you, then the way a person
Speaker 1: tries to put out a fire with confetti. Half of
Speaker 1: me wanted to reply, are you safe or come home soon?
Speaker 1: The rest of me wanted to hell my phone through
Speaker 1: the brittle glass. Instead, I walked the perimeter of our apartment,
Speaker 1: restless as a caged animal, touching the knickknacks and footos
Speaker 1: that marked the geography of our togetherness. This that slowly
Speaker 1: shell free, fought over from the flea market, lime green
Speaker 1: and useless except for the polar its clicked to string,
Speaker 1: one from Niagara, one at her sister's back yard wedding.
Speaker 1: One of me in a bath robe, mugging while she
Speaker 1: snapped a foot from the bed and catched it professional husband.
Speaker 1: I lingered at these many monuments searching for the version
Speaker 1: of Julia whose hand clung to my waist in those
Speaker 1: old frames, as if the photos themselves might explain where
Speaker 1: she'd gone. I found myself in our closet, not looking
Speaker 1: for anything, just touching the sleeve of her dunimed jacket,
Speaker 1: the one she never let me borrow, so soft from
Speaker 1: where it might as well be a second skin. I
Speaker 1: glanced down at the laundry basket, worried for a second
Speaker 1: I'd see another impossible thing, but all that greeted me
Speaker 1: with socks, sports bra one of my t shirts that
Speaker 1: had been co opted. A dull, ordinary mess of life.
Speaker 1: I sat on the floor and there for a while,
Speaker 1: staring up at the hangars, futilely listening for her key
Speaker 1: in the lock. At some hour, I made tea too hot,
Speaker 1: sculded my tongue, and dumpty down the drain out. Despite
Speaker 1: the restlessness didn't fade. I realize in a remote mortifying
Speaker 1: way that I was rehearsing confrontation lines in my head,
Speaker 1: practicing ways to sound casual, then angry, then deeply winded,
Speaker 1: depending on what mark I'd have to wear when she
Speaker 1: came home. But none of it felt real, just borrowed
Speaker 1: emotions from movies on nightime radio shows, which the people
Speaker 1: always know the right thing to say. In a moment
Speaker 1: of betrayal, I began pacing, searching for evidence, maybe not
Speaker 1: even of what I suspected, chist of something. Her laptop
Speaker 1: was open on the living room desk, where she'd left it,
Speaker 1: this screen asleep, charger coiled neatly beside the mass. I
Speaker 1: stared at it, knowing her password was acause to me
Speaker 1: now I never thought to learn it, And now I
Speaker 1: wondered when passwoods had stopped being tiny gestures of trust.
Speaker 1: I almost laughed. I didn't try to break in. I
Speaker 1: was too tired to be that person. Instead, I thumbed
Speaker 1: timelessly through her Instagram again. The stories were always gimulated
Speaker 1: or shots of coffee cups, jokes with her crew. I
Speaker 1: swept back through old highlights, searching for references I'd missed,
Speaker 1: new faces cropping up half with her re used story
Speaker 1: montagehand at the edge of a frame, Mark's brodsail wet
Speaker 1: behind a row of kettlebells. Nothing over her, nothing casual,
Speaker 1: just more evidence that I wasn't looking closely. Before the
Speaker 1: night went on, I lay on the living room, couch
Speaker 1: blanket to run over me like a flag of surrender.
Speaker 1: It was one ah am, then too, and still she
Speaker 1: hadn't come home. The absence stretching thinner and thinner until
Speaker 1: I couldn't be sure which I feared more, hearing her
Speaker 1: key or excepting that she was never coming back at all.
Speaker 1: Around three, I finally drifted uneasy, not sleep, but not
Speaker 1: truly awaken, a fog of grief and anticipation. When I
Speaker 1: awoke again, sunlight had already edged over the tops of
Speaker 1: the buildings opposite our window. The couch, never designed for
Speaker 1: grown men, had dug fresh lines into my skin. I
Speaker 1: sat up slowly next, stiff, blinking against the insistent day.
Speaker 1: The world outside was loud, delivery trucks, the early clan
Speaker 1: of garbage cairns, the low rattle of some one's ancient bike.
Speaker 1: Normal Thursday, except nothing was normal. I rolled off the couch,
Speaker 1: every joint protesting. The apartment was empty and silent. Shirlia
Speaker 1: was gone, her shoes were missing, the bedroom tidied as
Speaker 1: if she never slept there. On the kitchen counter she
Speaker 1: left an apple wrapped in a note, saw you asleep?
Speaker 1: Hope your meeting goes okay? Love you the mighty face sleep,
Speaker 1: as if to seal the end of a secret. That
Speaker 1: day at work, I couldn't focus. I clicked through emails
Speaker 1: with the efficiency of a man trying to locate a
Speaker 1: single word in a dictionary. Every time my phone buzzed
Speaker 1: every team's notification, my heart lurched, But Juliet didn't text
Speaker 1: again after her note. I checked our joint account. Another
Speaker 1: viny charge lunch hour, this time a little lower, possibly
Speaker 1: of drink in a salad. I told myself, But who
Speaker 1: goes so wine bomber day in jim clothes unless you
Speaker 1: won privacy, And I hated how easily my brain filled
Speaker 1: in the dark between details. I sat a long while
Speaker 1: before messaging Melissa. I wanted to ask for more, if
Speaker 1: she had seen anything else, if Julia had ever mentioned
Speaker 1: me that night. I tied, do you remember who she
Speaker 1: was with? Then deleted it, sent thanks again for letting
Speaker 1: me know. Hope I didn't sound weird. Instead, Melissa sent
Speaker 1: back a heart and a waving emoji. That was all restless.
Speaker 1: I decided to walk to Elevate that evening, not because
Speaker 1: I thought i'd find Julia. Her schedule had changed again,
Speaker 1: she said, covering a late class in a different location,
Speaker 1: but because I needed to see the place to remind
Speaker 1: myself of real things. The gym was busy than I expected,
Speaker 1: pulsing with music, glass doors farged from exertion and condensation.
Speaker 1: I paused outside, feeling like a trespasser. I watched groupstrift
Speaker 1: through the lobby, trainers corralling regular as into line. Mark's
Speaker 1: voice unmistakable, always the loudest in the room, beaming over
Speaker 1: the track, pumping thru tey speakers. He spotted me, gave
Speaker 1: a polite chin nod. Hey, Ben, looking for Julia. She
Speaker 1: swapped to the South Street studio to night last minute
Speaker 1: client said to say hey, if I saw you. His
Speaker 1: tone was friendly, easy, full of nothing at all, but
Speaker 1: his eyes flickered down to my hands, as if searching
Speaker 1: for a sign of intent. I just want to ask
Speaker 1: about scheduling, I lied, trying to nail her down for
Speaker 1: a weekend trip. She's been a ghost lately, he laughed,
Speaker 1: the kind of open practice. Laughed that trainer's learn to
Speaker 1: use unannxious clients. She works too hard. Man can't get
Speaker 1: her to take a break, even when we all beg
Speaker 1: She loves this week in classes, He rocked back onto
Speaker 1: his heels, taking car keys out of his pocket. Tell
Speaker 1: her to come up for her. Sometimes she forgets. There's
Speaker 1: more to life than a hite class. Am I right?
Speaker 1: I smiled, Ask nothing more. I watched as he left
Speaker 1: to lock up, watched the rest of the crew clean
Speaker 1: and shuffle gear from the big mirrored room to the
Speaker 1: supply closet. Everything seemed ab aboard. Everything seemed normal, except
Speaker 1: for the sliver of a knees in Mark's gaze as
Speaker 1: he checked me for questions. I wasn't ready to ask.
Speaker 1: As I left, the Jim drizzle stunned my face. My
Speaker 1: sneakers slipped on the slick sidewalk, and I cursed the
Speaker 1: weather for making me feel more off balanced than I
Speaker 1: already was. Back home, I rummaged in the closet for
Speaker 1: an excuse to open Julia's Jim Baggos denserby to look
Speaker 1: for our shared headphones, a small theft to could justify.
Speaker 1: Inside I found all new worker clothes, three Granolla bars,
Speaker 1: a fresh roll of tape, a crumpled receipt from Vinear,
Speaker 1: two glasses of Sauvignon blanc, one Mediterranean platter. The date
Speaker 1: was last Friday, seven p m. I turned the receipt
Speaker 1: over in my hand, heart racing, and tucked it back
Speaker 1: in the front pocket, as Julia often did when she
Speaker 1: was in a hurry. The helplessness was a low, persistent harm.
Speaker 1: Confrontation pressed against the back of my tongue, but had
Speaker 1: its old habits, specially are hard to break. I didn't
Speaker 1: see Julia until late that evening, when she let herself
Speaker 1: in head damp from rain or sweat. I never got
Speaker 1: to ask, which she seemed surprised to see me sitting
Speaker 1: on the couch. Heyed your home early, she said, voice bright, practiced,
Speaker 1: thought you had that picture of view. I worked from home.
Speaker 1: I tried to keep my tongue even noncommittal. She gave
Speaker 1: a small laugh, God and jealous. Traffic was a nightmare.
Speaker 1: She slid past me toward the bathroom, not waiting for
Speaker 1: a reply. As the door click shot, I caught a
Speaker 1: whiff of orange blossom her fancy shower gel. Some out
Speaker 1: something as mundane as her ascent felt incriminating. We ate
Speaker 1: dinner In his silence. Both flew to our phones under
Speaker 1: the pretense of reading articles or scrolling social feeds. She
Speaker 1: picked at her fruit, answering my occasional work questions with monosyllables. Twice,
Speaker 1: her phone lit up, and she pressed the screen down unreadable.
Speaker 1: Once I heard the distant chime of Mark's name as
Speaker 1: a new message byno slid by surly dropped her fork
Speaker 1: and went to change her laundry. In the middle of dinner,
Speaker 1: I tried to clear my throat to force conversation. You've
Speaker 1: been busy lately. Are you holding up? I asked, half
Speaker 1: way between genuine concern and investigation. She froze only for
Speaker 1: a split second, then rolled her shoulders in a mock stretch. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I feel great tired, but it's good tired, you know.
Speaker 1: I'm just this good momentum. I want to nail this launch.
Speaker 1: She gestured vaguly in the direction of her laptop, as
Speaker 1: if to project itself could serve as a shield. It
Speaker 1: sounds like my t's been a good partner for you
Speaker 1: on these classes, I said, testing the words, flinching as
Speaker 1: I heard myself sound like a jealousyclme husband. She set
Speaker 1: her fork down, perhaps just a bit too carefully. He's fine, bent, competent,
Speaker 1: super organized, always brings extra snacks. She shrugged, as if
Speaker 1: my question had landed in a different room. You know
Speaker 1: how team workers makes it easier when people pull their weight.
Speaker 1: I waited, hoping she say more, but she only smiled
Speaker 1: thinly and dove into her phone again. Later, as we
Speaker 1: ready for bed, I watched her change out of her
Speaker 1: gym clothes, watched the lines of exhaustion etched deeper across
Speaker 1: her face in the bathroom mirror. I wanted to offer comfort,
Speaker 1: to step behind her and place my hands on her waist,
Speaker 1: as I always had, but I didn't move. She glanced
Speaker 1: at me once, eyes searching, then flicked the light off
Speaker 1: and slid between the covers. I sit into bed after her,
Speaker 1: staying on my side, staring at the ceiling while her
Speaker 1: fingers tapped quietly against her throne, quick bursts of light
Speaker 1: illuminating the blanket pulled up to her chin. I could
Speaker 1: have asked, I could have reached out, but the room
Speaker 1: was barricaded by silence. Eventually, she rolled over and pretended
Speaker 1: to sleep. I wondered which one of us at that
Speaker 1: moment wanted to disappear more Over the next week, our
Speaker 1: lives fell into a steady aching limbo. I tried to
Speaker 1: plan another lunch of the old fe Julia cleaned the stuff,
Speaker 1: meeting another drop client, fake details piling up like dishes.
Speaker 1: Nobody wanted to wash. Our group texts with friends dried up.
Speaker 1: Melissas message something funny one morning, and Julia simply hard reacted,
Speaker 1: no words. The barrister at our corner coffee shop, who
Speaker 1: used to hold our drinks aside for Saturday runs, asked
Speaker 1: where Julia had been lately one evening. Sick of sitting
Speaker 1: inside my own skin, I suggested we get sushi from
Speaker 1: our favorite place. Julia hesitated, it's kind of late and
Speaker 1: I really should finish a training plant to night. She
Speaker 1: softened as I hovered in the doorway. Offered tomorrow or
Speaker 1: the weekend. It's always next time, I blurted, before catching
Speaker 1: myself more bitter than I intended. She met my eye,
Speaker 1: then really met it, a wounded flash breaking the surface. Ben,
Speaker 1: I'm doing the best I can. I've really am, I'd
Speaker 1: almost apologized, instead a shrug, left her to her laptop glow,
Speaker 1: and poured myself a whiskey I hardly tasted. In the
Speaker 1: pit of night, loneliness grew legs. I trolled through bank
Speaker 1: statements again, fingers moving almost involuntarily. More viny receipts left
Speaker 1: her eyes flaring up like distressed signals usually clustered. On
Speaker 1: Thursday and Friday. My heart leaped at a lift drop
Speaker 1: off near our building last Tuesday. Part of me hope
Speaker 1: for a mistake, but the pick up was the Beautyque
Speaker 1: hotel again, just after midnight. I tried to rationalize, lots
Speaker 1: of people stay at hotels for business, right, Maybe Julia
Speaker 1: invited a guest trainer. Maybe Elevate was putting someone up
Speaker 1: for the week. But each lie I fed myself came
Speaker 1: out hollow, worming from the inside. That Friday, as I
Speaker 1: was prepping dinner, the buzzer rang. It was Melissa's umbrella,
Speaker 1: half collapsed, cheeks rosied from wind. I missed our trivia nights,
Speaker 1: she said, spinning a bottle of wine. Julia invited me,
Speaker 1: but I figured she'd be working. She's downstairs on a call,
Speaker 1: I think, I said, which was only half a lie.
Speaker 1: Julia had docked into the Stawell tar ands her a
Speaker 1: message minutes earlier. Melissa hung her coat by the door
Speaker 1: and dropped onto our couch, severing the room with the
Speaker 1: sharpness I hadn't noticed in her before. We talked about
Speaker 1: work City News who from our friend group had become
Speaker 1: insufferable since going Peter, I tried to act normal. Melissa,
Speaker 1: always more sensitive than she let on, rested her chin
Speaker 1: in her hands. Can I ask something weird? She said
Speaker 1: at last, for a slow, conspiratorial Are you too okay?
Speaker 1: You and Julia, she just seems I don't know, like
Speaker 1: she's trying to win something I can't see. I almost
Speaker 1: choked on my water. What do you mean when I mean?
Speaker 1: I saw her at Vinya again, this time with Mark.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to say anything, but there was this vibe,
Speaker 1: not a work vibe. She glanced over her shoulders at Julia.
Speaker 1: Might materialize. God, I sound like a gossip. I shook
Speaker 1: my head, embarrassed by the tightness in my throat. No,
Speaker 1: it's I've noticed things too, Melissa studied me, headcocked. He
Speaker 1: deserved to know. If something's off, just don't let it
Speaker 1: eat you alive. Okay. Sometimes people really are distress, and
Speaker 1: sometimes I don't know. I hope it's nothing. But if
Speaker 1: you want to talk, don't go weird loner on me,
Speaker 1: al Roy. She left before Julie returned, disappearing as quietly
Speaker 1: as she came leaving behind her bottle of wine and
Speaker 1: a warning note in her tone. I wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to ignore That night. I waited for Julia to emerge
Speaker 1: from her call. She patted into the kitchen, hair tousled,
Speaker 1: eyes runed in faint Mascar shadows. Melissa says hello, I said,
Speaker 1: voice neutral. She slipped a glass from the cabinet and
Speaker 1: port water, fiddling with the pitcher. Yea, she texted, sorry,
Speaker 1: I missed her. I was working on the new onboarding
Speaker 1: forms for the gym. Marks all over me about logistics.
Speaker 1: There it was again Mark's name. Another stone in the pocket.
Speaker 1: Did you guys go to Vigni to day? She blinked
Speaker 1: gard if for a microsecond, then smoothly replied, oh, for
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes. Staff meeting investors are annoying, nothing to
Speaker 1: write home about. She flashed a blank smile, one I'd
Speaker 1: seen her give clients who complained about pricing. I nodded,
Speaker 1: cataloging the lie with the others. The next afternoon, around two,
Speaker 1: Julia announced she was heading out early for hot yoga
Speaker 1: class with her crew. She changed out fits three times, leggings,
Speaker 1: then jeans, then back to leggings, before finally settling on
Speaker 1: a top I'd never seen with a neck un just
Speaker 1: shy of daring. You look nice, I said, aiming for casual,
Speaker 1: trying to impress the yoga instructor. She talked, her hair, smiling,
Speaker 1: just feeling good to day, trying to remind myself I'm alive, alive,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask when she'd stopped feeling that way
Speaker 1: in my presence. She left with a kiss on my cheek,
Speaker 1: as if nothing about all life had been appended by suspicion.
Speaker 1: I watched her walk down the hole, then checked the
Speaker 1: Eber app on my phone, her account shared with mine
Speaker 1: for ages booked her destination just two blocks shy of Vinya.
Speaker 1: Thirty minutes later, her location stopped moving, paining from the
Speaker 1: same spot as to wine Borrow Maine. By now, it
Speaker 1: was less about confirmation and more about learning how I'd
Speaker 1: ignored the story I unraveling beneath my nose. I sat
Speaker 1: at the kitchen table for an hour, phone in my hand,
Speaker 1: not texting, not searching, just waiting to feel something other
Speaker 1: than the dollic of loss. When Julie came home three
Speaker 1: hours later, there was barely a whiff of alcohol. She
Speaker 1: was flushed but distant, flinching at the sound of my voice.
Speaker 1: When I offered to your dinner, she answered in the
Speaker 1: rhythms of habit, sure, honey, whatever you're having, you good
Speaker 1: for laundry, Like an actor reading from a too familiar
Speaker 1: script ritual, I realized had died here. I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: which one of us had killed it. Day blurred into
Speaker 1: each other more mis routines's lunch is forgotten, meetings, moved,
Speaker 1: texts that required follow up questions just to receive an answer.
Speaker 1: Physical closeness all but vanished when she did reach for me.
Speaker 1: Her arms felt weightless, motions uncertain, body heat gunk cold
Speaker 1: before it reached mine. Sex what little remained turned into
Speaker 1: a distant, obligatory act. She would roll over after eyes
Speaker 1: shining in the dock, with something very much like regret
Speaker 1: or relief for both, and then she disappear into the
Speaker 1: bathroom on pretexts, tiff based skin cream, miss messages. One night,
Speaker 1: unable to take the distance, I stood at the bathroom
Speaker 1: door and spoke quietly, jewels, are you in love with
Speaker 1: some one else? There was a pause, creaking with the
Speaker 1: tension of hell breath. The faucet ran, then a forced laugh. Ben,
Speaker 1: don't be dramatic. I'm just tired. It's work stuff you
Speaker 1: always say. You want me to go after more, right,
Speaker 1: Her voice trembled at the corners. I waited, but she
Speaker 1: said nothing further. The door unlocked, and she breezed past me,
Speaker 1: not touching my arm. In the morning, a scoff that
Speaker 1: belonged to neither of us was gone from the laundry,
Speaker 1: and a new one, emerald soak, hung from the bathroom hook.
Speaker 1: I press my nose to the fabric. Perfume expensive not Julie,
Speaker 1: is not mine. The scarf hands in my hand a
Speaker 1: second longer, the air goncile with the stink of unwarm perfume.
Speaker 1: My thumb flattens the fall, just once, thinking evidence, that's
Speaker 1: what this is. Now, when I drop it back on
Speaker 1: the hook, it feels like closing a file. Still, all
Speaker 1: my certainty sits like a bruise under my breastbone for robbing.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I am more afraid of Julia
Speaker 1: coming back to the apartment or of her never returning.
Speaker 1: Either way, there is a heaviness to the silence, a
Speaker 1: hush that feels more rigimental than peaceful. I drift through
Speaker 1: the next hours with no ambition except to avoid confrontation
Speaker 1: as cowardly. But I can't talk to her. I can't
Speaker 1: even compose a text. Instead, I see quest on myself
Speaker 1: in a half lit living room, laptop open on an
Speaker 1: Oldsbred sheet to telegraph, busied and ward off the urge
Speaker 1: to her hash. Every clue outside the city calls up
Speaker 1: beneath the jagged rain and fading street light. I can
Speaker 1: barely bring myself to chip my phone. At nine, a
Speaker 1: key rattles in the lock. Julia enters, quietly, carrying herself
Speaker 1: in a way that feels practiced. Shoulders up, jim bag,
Speaker 1: balanced hair fresh from a blow dryer. Her eyes flick
Speaker 1: quickly to where I'm sitting, then away to anywhere else.
Speaker 1: I raise my head, the ear between us fulworth and
Speaker 1: said challenges here relate? How let's press together? A noncommittal smile. Sorry,
Speaker 1: classic calivate night. Everyone's got an idea. No one wants
Speaker 1: to leave. She lines her sneakers by the door with care,
Speaker 1: tore to heel, and clutches her phone as if it
Speaker 1: might anchor her. Did you eat? I ask, forcing my
Speaker 1: tone steady a bit, we grab salads. She doesn't mention
Speaker 1: who he is, and I make no effort to fill
Speaker 1: the gap for her. She takes her bag to the bedroom,
Speaker 1: then quickly returns, eyes darting past mine. Posture rigid. Don't
Speaker 1: wait up, o K, I need to send some class notes.
Speaker 1: She disappears down the hole again, door quietly sneaking shut.
Speaker 1: I can't bring myself to follow her. I sit in
Speaker 1: the thin spill of hoy light pulse in my ears.
Speaker 1: The quiet is different now, not just the absence of conversation,
Speaker 1: but a vacuum, a kind of negative space where everything
Speaker 1: we once cared about sits heavily in the dark. For
Speaker 1: an hour, I toy with the idea of stormy in
Speaker 1: to manning answers instead, A pays count my steps, cycle
Speaker 1: through drafts of angry texts that never gets sent. Around midnight,
Speaker 1: when the city has emptied itself of business, A gather
Speaker 1: receipts from my desk drawer of vineya left hodel. I
Speaker 1: spread them across the coffee table. Neat rows of evidence
Speaker 1: have pulled from the shadowed corners of our life. The
Speaker 1: satisfaction in the order, though I know it won't make
Speaker 1: the coming hours easier. At last, some inner lover flips.
Speaker 1: I slide into the coal sheets of our bed, stare
Speaker 1: at the ceiling, trying to rehearse how to begin in
Speaker 1: their holloluminal space between sleep and waking. Images rise Julia's
Speaker 1: back as she walks out of class. Her hand remarks
Speaker 1: the precise weight of her laughter against a wine bar window,
Speaker 1: the ordinary details, her socks bowl next to mine, Her
Speaker 1: old towel on the radiator feels suddenly theatrical, as if
Speaker 1: someone sit dressing a home they ever lived in. Sleep
Speaker 1: finds me in flurries, thin, nervous. When I wake, it's
Speaker 1: not Julia beside me, but gray dawn and the echo
Speaker 1: of a question that's been building. If she returns my
Speaker 1: gaze tomorrow, would I even recognize her? By morning? She's
Speaker 1: gone again. A perfunctory note on the counter reads training
Speaker 1: new clients. Don't wait, I'll tax free. The heart is
Speaker 1: a shape I suddenly low. The next twenty four hours
Speaker 1: all maintenance, a limp for work. Emails, shut out well
Speaker 1: meaning coakers. Duckmliss's texts Foard has no flavors on no depth.
Speaker 1: I tell myself I'll be ready when the time comes,
Speaker 1: But each hour that passes ratchet's up. My dry My
Speaker 1: anger is like a fever that when quite break. That evening,
Speaker 1: she comes in earlier that I expect. There's a brightness
Speaker 1: to her voice, force and brittle. How is work? She
Speaker 1: asks to cross the kitchen island, her hands busy with
Speaker 1: the mug, tiring, I say, watching her fingers fumble with
Speaker 1: the te big packet, and nails biting the edge of
Speaker 1: the cardboard. She doesn't ask for what happen at work.
Speaker 1: She never does any more. We move around each other,
Speaker 1: two halves of her ruined dance. There's a kind of
Speaker 1: politeness to our movements, a tacit agreement not to touch,
Speaker 1: not to fight. I can't decide if the avoidance is
Speaker 1: messy or just cowardice in disguise. After dinner, I disappear
Speaker 1: into the bedroom, close the door. Shulia's voice drets faintly
Speaker 1: from the living room. She's speaking lower, perhaps on a coal,
Speaker 1: perhaps on eRating her own guilt to the empty apartment.
Speaker 1: I press my pond to the back of the door,
Speaker 1: as if bracing for impact. I fall asleep in my
Speaker 1: clothes and draw on his side of the bed. I'm
Speaker 1: meant to eye the next night. The pressure finally breaks.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the kitchen sprein turning, aimless in my bowl.
Speaker 1: When Julia comes in after another networking evening, she pauses
Speaker 1: as she hangs up her jacket. There's a stillness to
Speaker 1: her body, tends for flight, her ice sweet, the room wants,
Speaker 1: searching for signs. She stands by the entryway, bag tied
Speaker 1: against her hip and something like pity wells in mithir.
Speaker 1: How was work, I ask, voice gentle, almost disarming. She
Speaker 1: blinks once, her eyes reluctant to meet mine. It was fine,
Speaker 1: long day, ran laid again. Sorry where were you? I ask,
Speaker 1: not letting my tone harden. She lifts her chain. I
Speaker 1: told you drinks. You know how it is. Mark and
Speaker 1: the team wanted to celebrate the new class. It's no
Speaker 1: big deal, Ben. There's a practiced erraness to her voice. Adale.
Speaker 1: She realizes just how rehearse it sounds. I nod slow, controlled.
Speaker 1: I want to let it go, some self preserving Liz,
Speaker 1: A part of me wanting discourry away, to deny learning
Speaker 1: anything new. Instead, they pushed the ball aside. The receipts
Speaker 1: are already in my pocket, once off by my anxious thumbs. Julia,
Speaker 1: can you look at me? She hesitates, then lures herself
Speaker 1: on to the edge of the couch, setting her phone
Speaker 1: face down on a folded magazine. She squares her shoulders, defensive,
Speaker 1: even in the posture of every day exhaustion. I stop
Speaker 1: by your class the other day, I begin voice. Even
Speaker 1: you look surprised to see me. Her muff tugs in
Speaker 1: a strain approximation of a smile. You just cut me
Speaker 1: off guard. I mean you never come to the gymy.
Speaker 1: She stops, seeing my face abandons the prudence. I press
Speaker 1: on you introduce me to your team. Mark too, he
Speaker 1: was friendly, said you guys were solid. I forced smile,
Speaker 1: that old teeth, nothing behind the eyes. She nods, searching
Speaker 1: my face for clues. Well, yeah, it's true. He's just
Speaker 1: a colleague. Ben. I pull out the receipts, laid them
Speaker 1: gently on the coffee table, one by one, a silent
Speaker 1: accounting vinya lift, the hotel, the scarf, the weird sudden meetings,
Speaker 1: all of it. My voice still hasn't broken, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if that strength of just evidence of being
Speaker 1: hollowed out. Julia's eyes dart to the paper, then away.
Speaker 1: I'm silent letting her fill the gaping void. She laughs defensively,
Speaker 1: a single fox sharp bark. Ben, Seriously, you're going through
Speaker 1: our bills. This is insane. It's just work stuff Marx.
Speaker 1: He's part of the job. There's nothing true. Mark is
Speaker 1: not just part of the job, I say, quietly, evenly.
Speaker 1: I saw you Julia Affinia holding his hand, going to
Speaker 1: the hotel with him. Ye lawed about where you were,
Speaker 1: about what you were doing. If it's nothing while I
Speaker 1: she freezes every feature pul tight. For a moment, I
Speaker 1: think she might lie again or run, but then something melts.
Speaker 1: May be her resolve, may be just her patience cracking
Speaker 1: under the accumulated way of denial. Her voice is small, trembling.
Speaker 1: It wasn't supposed to you. I didn't mean for it
Speaker 1: to happen like this. She covers her eyes, shoulders folding inward.
Speaker 1: I just needed something. I didn't know what else to do.
Speaker 1: Needed what my hand shake. I want to scream. Instead
Speaker 1: everything comes out soft and credulous, her words stutter, halting.
Speaker 1: I felt dead here, Ben. Every night I came home
Speaker 1: to the same same stock feeling nothing was changing, except
Speaker 1: maybe we were were tired, both waiting for something. Else,
Speaker 1: the gym, the classes, Mark was just he made things
Speaker 1: feel easy again. I felt wanted, like I met, like
Speaker 1: someone wanted to hear my thoughts, not just check in
Speaker 1: clock out. Her hand hovers over her eyes, like the
Speaker 1: act of seeing me might burn. I forced a breath.
Speaker 1: So you just let our lie, our marriage turn into
Speaker 1: a beccap plan, she flinches. I didn't plan for any
Speaker 1: of it. I tried to end it, but every time
Speaker 1: I came home, Ben, you was so far away with
Speaker 1: your job, your routines, that hurt. I know that's not
Speaker 1: an excuse, but I needed to feel alive somewhere. A
Speaker 1: sob shakes her voice. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I lied.
Speaker 1: They just couldn't come home and smash everything, not when
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what I wanted there. It is the
Speaker 1: words I'd known were true, only now she says them
Speaker 1: where we can both hear. Now mock it's almost a whisper.
Speaker 1: Does he know about me? About us? Her laugh is sharp, bitter.
Speaker 1: He knows I'm married, He doesn't care. He said I
Speaker 1: had to figure it out for myself. He's not the answer, Ben,
Speaker 1: I know that. Her voice grows suddenly, pleading it wasn't
Speaker 1: just sex. It was talking, wanting, not feeling invisible. But
Speaker 1: now I don't know what's left, just that I ruin everything.
Speaker 1: I want to ask more, to mand an inventory of betrayal, elijer,
Speaker 1: of every night, every touch, every time she said she
Speaker 1: was tired and wasn't. I wanted tears, and I don't
Speaker 1: want them at all. Instead, my vuss cracks. You could
Speaker 1: have talked to me, you could have told me you
Speaker 1: weren't happy. Her fingers twist the corner of the cushion.
Speaker 1: I tried. You always said you wanted me to grow,
Speaker 1: to take chances. I became some one else, and you
Speaker 1: were too busy to notice. It's both of us, me
Speaker 1: for running before, leaving me alone in this apartment all
Speaker 1: the time, pretending things were fine. I almost laugh, A
Speaker 1: cold shock sound. That's what this is. Now, blame, she snaps,
Speaker 1: suddenly angry. I was wet but fierce. No, yes, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm so sorry. It's my fault. I lied,
Speaker 1: but I wanted you to fight for me, and all
Speaker 1: I got was silence. I felt like a roommate, not
Speaker 1: a wife. Mark made me forgether for five seconds, and
Speaker 1: then I hated myself for it. I just I don't
Speaker 1: know how to come back. We both fall silent outside,
Speaker 1: ray needles the windows again, static on glass. She looks
Speaker 1: at me like she's expecting a verdict. My mouth moves,
Speaker 1: but nothing comes. Is it over? She whispers, finally, the
Speaker 1: words so small I nearly missed them. Is there anything
Speaker 1: left here for either of us? I look at her,
Speaker 1: this stranger who was my wife, and I ways left, love,
Speaker 1: mangle by lies, anger, bending under all what could have beens.
Speaker 1: The urge to scream, to claim one last angry gesture
Speaker 1: to solves into exhaustion. She starts to cry, real shaking
Speaker 1: sobs that leave or hunched. I never wanted to hurt you,
Speaker 1: she says, broken, But I did, and I can't take
Speaker 1: it back. I want to tell her she did that
Speaker 1: with every choice she made after the first. She burns
Speaker 1: something irreplaceable. Instead, I sit on the edge of the couch,
Speaker 1: mind blank, feeling the weight of what neither of us
Speaker 1: can repair. My hands are in my lap, useless. I
Speaker 1: don't recall standing up, only that my body moves with
Speaker 1: a finality I didn't know as possible. I need to go,
Speaker 1: I say, I can't this place us not if this
Speaker 1: is all that's left. She doesn't try to stop me.
Speaker 1: She nods once, and I see every year we spent
Speaker 1: to get a collapse in that gesture of silent concession.
Speaker 1: I pack a bag in under ten minutes. Julia follows
Speaker 1: me to the door, still shivering. She reaches from my arm,
Speaker 1: then lets it fall. Ben, Please just tell me if
Speaker 1: there is a chance. I look at her a searching,
Speaker 1: hoping to summon some trees of clarity or mercy. Instead,
Speaker 1: all I can find is a raw emptiness, a horizon,
Speaker 1: a cat shout. I don't know, I say, I need space.
Speaker 1: She doesn't answer. I close the door behind me. Her
Speaker 1: sobs shut about the click of the lock. I pause
Speaker 1: on the landing, listening inside. I can hear nothing, no footsteps,
Speaker 1: no crying, only the regular old sigh of a building
Speaker 1: groaning as it settles. The night outside is dripping quiet.
Speaker 1: My clothes feel too thin. I text Melissa, can I
Speaker 1: crush at your place for a day or two? Sorry
Speaker 1: for the ask. Her reply is instant, of course, come
Speaker 1: now if you want. I'll leave the key under the mat.
Speaker 1: Cab collects me at the corner. I watch the street
Speaker 1: lights below past the driver is silent, the radio lohum
Speaker 1: of other people's routine problems. I let my head rest
Speaker 1: against the window, feeling heat seep off my skin, adrenaline
Speaker 1: crashing into numbness. When I arrive, Mliss opens the door
Speaker 1: in sweapons. I circle with concern, in something like relief.
Speaker 1: She doesn't try to hug me. She just takes my bag,
Speaker 1: gestures who ward the guest room, and disappears to her bedroom,
Speaker 1: feet padded quite on the hardwood. I close the door
Speaker 1: behind me, low the blinds, set my bag at the
Speaker 1: foot of the narrow bed. My phone buzzes several times, Julia,
Speaker 1: I don't look at the messages. On the night's tent.
Speaker 1: There is a glass of water and a folded blanket,
Speaker 1: as if every kindness is both a mercy and a
Speaker 1: reminder that I am now an uncertain guest in the
Speaker 1: world I built. The stillness is consuming. I sit on
Speaker 1: the edge of the bed, keys digging into my palm.
Speaker 1: I stand, open the backpack, pull out the old photo
Speaker 1: album Julia May for our three year anniversary, half hiking
Speaker 1: half city. Snap shuts sun light in both I leaf
Speaker 1: through it, slow, my throat thickening. Then I open my
Speaker 1: phone scold to my reminders. Find our anniversary notification, bright Red,
Speaker 1: make dinner for Julia. I hold my thumb over it, hesitate,
Speaker 1: then pressed elite. The room feels empty for the act,
Speaker 1: but lighter too, as though a window cracked and let
Speaker 1: in new I placed the album facedown. For a moment,
Speaker 1: I just stand looking at the close book, the deep
Speaker 1: hush of an apartment, one step closer to being a
Speaker 1: home again. There's a relief and ending, even a painful one.
Speaker 1: I slide into bed, let my head fall against the
Speaker 1: pillow and stare at the pale rectangle of city glow
Speaker 1: along the curtains, breathing shallow, feeling for the first time,
Speaker 1: the edge of grief begin to peel away. At hours
Speaker 1: before I sleep, my mind doesn't so much race as
Speaker 1: one and nummy sharp, not darting for memories, but Ladindemann's bull,
Speaker 1: resisting the urge to rewindo fast forward. For a long time,
Speaker 1: I lay twisted up in the covers, listening to the
Speaker 1: drone of sooty noise seeping through Molessa's window of carl alarm,
Speaker 1: a couple in an argument that's too far off to
Speaker 1: make out the words. The slow thought of my own pulse.
Speaker 1: My phone lights up every so often. Julia's name are
Speaker 1: an unrecognizable number until I set it to do not
Speaker 1: disturb and turn the face to the wall. Sleep is fitful, shallow.
Speaker 1: I wake to dawn, pouring gray light over my borrowed sheets,
Speaker 1: feeling every hour I didn't rest, my neck aches and
Speaker 1: there's a taste in my mouth. I don't recognize bitter's
Speaker 1: old coffee left too long on a burner. I blink
Speaker 1: at this drange ceiling, the walls hung with Mlissa's old prince,
Speaker 1: and feel the slow churn of what leaving really means.
Speaker 1: I try to make myself useful in her kitchen, set
Speaker 1: water for coffee, re arrange mugs. Meliss appears bleary eyed
Speaker 1: but gentle. She asks nothing direct, just passes me in
Speaker 1: an open cereal and leaves me to the noise of
Speaker 1: the morning news. I can't tell if angryful or aching
Speaker 1: for some one to demand more. My day's empty. My
Speaker 1: calendar had one line, Thursday Surprise for long since irrelevant
Speaker 1: now once Julia would have already texted by now some
Speaker 1: absurd memor an I forgot to pack lunch, please deliver
Speaker 1: now there's nothing it feels like an echo chamber, every
Speaker 1: silence circling back to who we were at the ringing
Speaker 1: Hollow in place of our jokes are short hand. By
Speaker 1: mid day, the isolation bites. I open my emails, stare
Speaker 1: blankly at what requests my creative directors take all the time?
Speaker 1: Ye need let us know if you want to talk
Speaker 1: languages announcewered, I type out half responses, trust them, start
Speaker 1: up again. Nothing sticks. I'm haunting my own in books,
Speaker 1: performing the actions of a functional adult, while my brain
Speaker 1: quietly spent as the long old lines. I dead up,
Speaker 1: try or walk, just to feel the chill air and
Speaker 1: sea strangers half way around the block. I double back,
Speaker 1: agitated by the sight of happy couples by the post
Speaker 1: lunch crowd spilling out of the corner cafey Will Melissa
Speaker 1: and Julia and I once sat for hours, back when
Speaker 1: our lies overlapped without effort. Back at the apartment, my
Speaker 1: form pings Julia again, a string of text sultanating between
Speaker 1: apology and demand. Please talk to me. You can't just leave.
Speaker 1: I'll give you whatever space you need, Just say if
Speaker 1: you'll come back then, not even five minutes later. You
Speaker 1: can't ignore me forever this is my left to I
Speaker 1: feel the impulse to respond, to say something definitive, even mean,
Speaker 1: but the words it heavy in my chests, unformed. Instead,
Speaker 1: I close the thread and scroll aimlessly through my camera roll,
Speaker 1: deleting nothing, keeping the relics of us for reasons I
Speaker 1: don't understand. In the afternoon, someone knocks Melissa, returning from
Speaker 1: yoga with a measured smile, a piece offering in the
Speaker 1: form of hot pastries. She sits with me, half cross legged,
Speaker 1: giving me the space to speak or not. Eventually I start,
Speaker 1: how do you I hesitate. There's no way to frame
Speaker 1: the question that isn't childish. How do you just let
Speaker 1: go believe someone when they say sorry, even when you
Speaker 1: know it's art enough. She doesn't answer, quickly, staring into
Speaker 1: her mug as if the answer might surface with enough patience.
Speaker 1: You don't rarely, she says, you just get tired of
Speaker 1: picking at the same wound. It's like an old injury.
Speaker 1: You don't forgive exactly one morning, you just stop, expecting
Speaker 1: it to stop hurting Anon, but don't quite believe it.
Speaker 1: My mind flashes to Julia Shells, full of her books,
Speaker 1: her easy laughter in moments and guarded I remember how
Speaker 1: we promise after dumb fight in our second year, just
Speaker 1: tell me, even if it's bad, tell me before it
Speaker 1: eats us alive. We said it with all the assurance
Speaker 1: of people who thought they understood the hardest things were
Speaker 1: always outside, never in. I knew volley of text from Julia.
Speaker 1: I called your work. They said you weren't in. I'm
Speaker 1: scared out, Ben, Just let me know if you're okay.
Speaker 1: Then you left your jacket and your watch. When are
Speaker 1: you coming to get your stuff? Well, Elson not. It's
Speaker 1: the fast of m screen, but doesn't press when she
Speaker 1: leaves a scroll through the back cloak. Feeling the heat
Speaker 1: in my palm that night after the city get soft
Speaker 1: and slow, I tap out a reply. Three sentences I
Speaker 1: added and re edit. I type, I need more time,
Speaker 1: don't come here, please respect that. I delete it, then
Speaker 1: finally simply I'm alive. Please don't contact me for a
Speaker 1: few days. I'll let you know when I'm ready to talk.
Speaker 1: There's relief after hitting send, a smaller weight sliding off.
Speaker 1: But it's not justice, Nothing like justice. I stare at
Speaker 1: the message awhile, wondering how you know when space is enough?
Speaker 1: If there is ever a return from this kind of break.
Speaker 1: I lie on the guests bed, letting the city's muffled arguments,
Speaker 1: and late night laugh to sift through the walls. In
Speaker 1: the hush, it hits me. Julia's experiencing her own private hell,
Speaker 1: tasting the edge of the absence she created. I picture
Speaker 1: her crumpled in the half dark, fingers gripping her phone,
Speaker 1: waiting for something impossible. We sat away back. There's a
Speaker 1: brief fantasy that I'll wake up and be able to
Speaker 1: raise the week, reset the clock to some earlier, say
Speaker 1: forer hour. But that world is gone. The clock only
Speaker 1: points forward now. My boss emails again the next morning,
Speaker 1: asking if I need a longer re leave, a few
Speaker 1: days at home. I barely register. The concerned routine has
Speaker 1: lost its edges. I ignore everything except the most basic tasks.
Speaker 1: I send Julia's single line about picking up things once
Speaker 1: the weekend comes, nothing more. Her reply is mercifully short. Okay. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: the physical, the logistics is all that's left to negotiate.
Speaker 1: What is ours? What is mine to reclaim? I start
Speaker 1: making Silli liess on my phone, toothbrush shoes, the lost
Speaker 1: of my books, lapped up charger, everything else seems trivial,
Speaker 1: already insignificant. By Saturday, three days after I left, I
Speaker 1: am standing in the vestibule of our apartment building with
Speaker 1: my bag slung over my shoulder, waiting for Julia to
Speaker 1: buzz me up. The rain is gone, replaced by that
Speaker 1: blank city humidity that's neither warm nor cold. I squeeze
Speaker 1: the strap, fidgeting, heart thudding in a slower, more measure
Speaker 1: way than I expected. She lets me in without a word.
Speaker 1: I climb the stairs, insure of what expression to arrange
Speaker 1: on my face. When I enter, Julia is waiting by
Speaker 1: the kitchen table, hair tied back as red but dry.
Speaker 1: The apartment is immaculate, scrub into something almost foreign. She
Speaker 1: has collected my things, stacked in knee piles on the table,
Speaker 1: my jacket, watch, two mugs, I jokingly claim, is mine,
Speaker 1: my laptop, charge, her hog wind round itself, even a
Speaker 1: few toiletries in a galln bag. She stands close to
Speaker 1: the window, body turned away. I can see the tension
Speaker 1: in her shoulders, The self consciousness in the twist of
Speaker 1: her ring. He urged to say something mean, dismissive, or
Speaker 1: even just practical, ripples up my spine, But nothing comes
Speaker 1: up instead. I move quietly through the apartment, conferring each
Speaker 1: little possession, bagging the left of hers Julia hovers in
Speaker 1: the background, ready to intercept if I speak. But when
Speaker 1: I offer her a tight smile, fragile on winning, she
Speaker 1: matches at a shadow of gratitude in the upward twitch
Speaker 1: of her mouth. Only when I'm at the threshold of
Speaker 1: the door does she speak, voice soft and low. Ben
Speaker 1: if you ever want, if you ever want to talk,
Speaker 1: really talk, I'll be here. I'm not asking forgiveness. I
Speaker 1: justt it her courage falters. I wish I could go back.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for however long that matters. For a long beat,
Speaker 1: time contracts. There's only the whole way of the scrub department,
Speaker 1: Julia's slight form receding in the kitchen light. I want
Speaker 1: to say something simple, gentle, honest, that I love her,
Speaker 1: that I wish I could stop repeating every mistake in
Speaker 1: my mind, that in some universe we could have done
Speaker 1: this differently. But what I say is only take care
Speaker 1: of yourself, Julia. She nods, blinks twice, and then looks
Speaker 1: away out in the corridor. My hand shakes so badly
Speaker 1: I nearly drop my bag. Everything feels both lighter and
Speaker 1: devastatingly heavy, the air just as thick, but somehow more breathable,
Speaker 1: now that words have passed between us, even these finer ones.
Speaker 1: I walk down the steps, shoes echoing bay, knocking my thigh.
Speaker 1: Each footful seems to count out just how far I
Speaker 1: am from the life I thought I understood a tally
Speaker 1: of distance between a shared history and this abrupt, singular
Speaker 1: presence at the street. I don't look back. The apartment
Speaker 1: window was a pale blow, indistinguishable among disins stacked above roughbrick.
Speaker 1: I step into the floor of late afternoon crouth throbbing
Speaker 1: past on their Saturday errands, and move with them. My
Speaker 1: phone is silent, no messages, nothing more to take. I
Speaker 1: think about what's next only in the smallest term's dinner, sleep,
Speaker 1: maybe tomorrow, something as banal as laundry, O coffee. No
Speaker 1: big gestures, just the daily business of survival. Back at Meliss's,
Speaker 1: the album I left face down still sits on the
Speaker 1: night stand. I slide it into my duffel, careful not
Speaker 1: to glance at the cover. That night, as I lie awake,
Speaker 1: listening to the city's vibration, A sense settles that's not
Speaker 1: quite lost, not quite relief, more unempty, out of strange,
Speaker 1: freeing solitude, I turn my phone off finally, and in
Speaker 1: the hush that follows, the exoptens, just for an instant,
Speaker 1: into the beginning of something like peace.