Speaker 1: I let myself in as quietly as I could, even
Speaker 1: though Sophie always drooked that my keys sounded like the
Speaker 1: well's tiniest wind chine. The hall was dim and cool,
Speaker 1: our apartments familiar, hush, stretching out. As I padded to
Speaker 1: the kitchen, the low blue cloth of the city bleeding,
Speaker 1: and at the edges of the blinds. I set my
Speaker 1: bag down with an accidental thump. It sounded loud, too
Speaker 1: loud against the hush. Her corner works missus empty, and
Speaker 1: the lights were off, but the laptops sat open, making pale,
Speaker 1: colorful shadows ripple against the wall. It was just past ten,
Speaker 1: not too late for either of us usually, but something
Speaker 1: about being home unexpectedly, walking into our space when I
Speaker 1: hadn't been expected, gave the aristatic charge. I wondered if
Speaker 1: she was in a bathroom or loss in a podcast.
Speaker 1: Her headphones clamped on made sketching, curled up in bare
Speaker 1: There was no faint hum of the shower, no sense
Speaker 1: from her bath oils, only a breathless sort of stillness.
Speaker 1: I walked by her desk. She's always been territorial over
Speaker 1: her nest A Chords, coffee mugs discarded, sticky notes and
Speaker 1: evolving graveyard of old Pantone chips. Usually, if I peeked
Speaker 1: at her sketches or pers she'd roll her eyes and
Speaker 1: joke I had to sign an NDA, But lately she'd
Speaker 1: just been shutting her sketchuck altogether, leaving things unfinished. At
Speaker 1: least that's what I thought. But the laptop was on,
Speaker 1: and something new was splash acost screen. The colors burned
Speaker 1: almost neon, swirling in a pellet Sophy rarely touched. She
Speaker 1: preferred muted jewel tones, brothy shades, subtle pops. Here, though
Speaker 1: was hot pink, acid yellow. A cracked open turk was
Speaker 1: fighting for space around shapes that bled across each other's borders.
Speaker 1: The typography was playful, twirled into odd animated ligatures. It
Speaker 1: didn't look like her, not though I knew anyway. I
Speaker 1: didn't touch it, just stood back a half step behind
Speaker 1: the ghost of foot chair and certain why I felt
Speaker 1: embarrassed to be near her work. A strange tinny pinpus
Speaker 1: from her phone on the corner of the desk. She'd
Speaker 1: left its screen up on silent, a habit she only
Speaker 1: adopted last month. Bright letters split across the glass to
Speaker 1: night was wild, same time next week. The sender's number
Speaker 1: was unregistered, just a flat plus one, no name, only
Speaker 1: the message in the cutcheon smirk. I stepped away, got
Speaker 1: tightening with something I couldn't quite name, jealousy of her relevance,
Speaker 1: maybe both. Just then the front door clicked, keys jangling.
Speaker 1: Sophy swept him with a bust of night air and
Speaker 1: the scent of coffee clinging to her jacket. She stopped
Speaker 1: in the entryway, as flicking to where I stood by
Speaker 1: her desk, smile rising then fading fast. Here home, her
Speaker 1: voice was carefully bright, like a whole surprise by a guest.
Speaker 1: Bags at her feet, shawlders tensed for just a second
Speaker 1: too long, I thought, wait, I thought your client meeting
Speaker 1: was late. It got canceled. I planted myself in the
Speaker 1: kitchen doorway, hands vaguely pretending to dry themselves on a towel.
Speaker 1: Did you just get in? She dumped her coat in
Speaker 1: the closet, voice trailing, yeah, just now. I growbed coffee
Speaker 1: on the way. Sorry, I was going to text if
Speaker 1: you were coming home late. We stood a bee too long,
Speaker 1: both aware of the lit laptop over her shoulder. She
Speaker 1: moved to click at clothes, but it was painfully obvious.
Speaker 1: She was avoiding my eyes. She hesitated with the smirk,
Speaker 1: murmured design emergencies. You know how it goes, then said
Speaker 1: she was starving, and drifted into the kitchen to rummage
Speaker 1: in our disaster drawer of miss match take out menus.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's smallest things, the way she pulled a menu
Speaker 1: without looking, the way she didn't ask about my meeting,
Speaker 1: didn't ask if I joined her for Ticicot, already in
Speaker 1: her own after dark world. I stood three feet away
Speaker 1: and felt further than I had in a year. Surfaces
Speaker 1: matter to us. It's how we started critiquing playing. She
Speaker 1: always sad color was character, and some days she found
Speaker 1: one that had made me fall in love all over again.
Speaker 1: I always felt like she was the color and I
Speaker 1: was the frame. I wanted to ask whod messaged her?
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask about the angry pinks on the monitor. Instead,
Speaker 1: I led with the neutral new project, which was almost
Speaker 1: a joke. She just shrouked clients were branding, were playing
Speaker 1: with a new palette, kind of messy but fun. She
Speaker 1: busied herself with the electric kettle, staying half turned from me.
Speaker 1: I nodded, hiding how little of her answer I found satisfying.
Speaker 1: In the years we've worked side by side, we've dumped
Speaker 1: thousands of words into each other's laps about color, type, shape,
Speaker 1: as shared language. Lately, though, it was like I'd lost
Speaker 1: my vocabulary and she found another dialect. Altogether, we didn't
Speaker 1: talk about the odd message. I told myself it was
Speaker 1: nothing professional, probably or friend. That night, she fell asleep
Speaker 1: almost instantly, hair twisted up in fuon on the night stand,
Speaker 1: face down. I lay next to her, not touching. With
Speaker 1: the city's muted noise draining away, I remembered the time
Speaker 1: should snuck up behind me while I obsessed over cunning
Speaker 1: on a client's cereal packaging and scribbled fat purple mouka
Speaker 1: all over the mock up cackling people remember joy not
Speaker 1: perfection Alas she'd said. We'd laugh for ten minutes. I
Speaker 1: realized I hadn't laugh with her in days, not really.
Speaker 1: Morning came bright, pouring light into every spare inch of
Speaker 1: our tiny kitchen. She made up milk lattes in the
Speaker 1: French press, humming. I dumped my sketches on the table.
Speaker 1: She always loved my habit of working analog said it
Speaker 1: was charmingly stubborn. She plucked up the top, drawing, squinting.
Speaker 1: You really will fight the screen until we're both eighty,
Speaker 1: warn't you? No, I said, back lit, pixels kill romance.
Speaker 1: She rolled her eyes, but I saw her smile, a
Speaker 1: real one, small but there. You should try the iPad.
Speaker 1: Less romantic, but less risk pain, she said. She circled
Speaker 1: a corner of my blue print. This shape, period could
Speaker 1: push it, make this nakedive space boulder. We battered ideas
Speaker 1: back and forth. She made fun of my old blue
Speaker 1: color palette. And the client's a dentist, not a smurf,
Speaker 1: and I pretended to be wounded. We worked around each
Speaker 1: other in ankle socks and hoodies, she singing badly, me
Speaker 1: pretending to mind. It was better than last night, at
Speaker 1: least until her phone bought with another alert, and she
Speaker 1: shot up, I need to pose something to private. She
Speaker 1: turned away, thum flying across the screen, shutting the phone
Speaker 1: with the click. I stared at her back, hot shaped,
Speaker 1: lovely and more guarded than it used to be. Our
Speaker 1: sundays used to be lazy art fairs, Vinyl on the
Speaker 1: old sound system. The two of us sneaking off of
Speaker 1: Cossus and sketch books to the park. It was how
Speaker 1: I knew I loved her. She'd make the wolf feel
Speaker 1: like a color I'd never named. Our routine was lesser
Speaker 1: rat and more a dance, each knowing when to lead,
Speaker 1: when to follow. When she got her first big solo commission,
Speaker 1: we jumped in the show with our clothes unto celebrate.
Speaker 1: Now she raced out to the new co working space
Speaker 1: half our mornings, talking about all the creative energy. The
Speaker 1: place wasn't cheap, but she said it was worth it.
Speaker 1: Every one's making word stuff that pushes me to try harder,
Speaker 1: she said, practically glowing. I offered to tag along sometimes,
Speaker 1: grab an empty desk, work quietly in a corner. She
Speaker 1: shook her head so quickly it almost offended. It's just
Speaker 1: not your kind of vibe, bunch of hypercaffeinated worders. Not
Speaker 1: you've scene. Besides, you'd hate the music. She was probably right,
Speaker 1: but it's done. For years. We'd gone everywhere as a pair,
Speaker 1: even if only to roll our eyes at the world together.
Speaker 1: That old partnership, familiar and competitive, was part of what
Speaker 1: I love Lately. It was as if she carved out
Speaker 1: a new life and made sure I wasn't in it,
Speaker 1: but I didn't say anything. I convinced myself it was
Speaker 1: creative burnout, her need for new inspiration. I told myself,
Speaker 1: if I forced my way in, i'd seen threatened, maybe controlling.
Speaker 1: We kept up with mutual friends, but it was different now,
Speaker 1: her laughter looser, mine more strained. One night I texted
Speaker 1: her at six to ask what time she be on.
Speaker 1: She answered over an hour later, it might be late.
Speaker 1: Stuff ran over. I made dinner anywhere left of us
Speaker 1: from a place we both liked, and let it go
Speaker 1: cold while answering emails. She came in at midnight said
Speaker 1: she was sorry so much round the chaos. Some changes
Speaker 1: sneak in until you can't remember when they started a
Speaker 1: week later, we attended Mara's birthday at house. The barber
Speaker 1: local design folks congregated around I pa flights and unflattering neon.
Speaker 1: Mara's laugh was loud enough to rattle window panes or bad.
Speaker 1: She shrieking for one last on. The whole group was motley, crue, clients, freelancers,
Speaker 1: gallery kits, everyone talking at once. Sophie Hunt closer tomorrow
Speaker 1: than to me, which wasn't abnormal, after all, Mara was
Speaker 1: her friend. First. I caught snatches of their conversation about
Speaker 1: a lunatic deadline and the strengths, a joke about a
Speaker 1: secret curry spot. At one a m someone threw an
Speaker 1: arm around Sophie, cackling, not another midnight curry hunt. The
Speaker 1: whole group exploded with laughter except me. I look blankly
Speaker 1: at Mara. What minnight curry hunt? Mara blinked, that slice
Speaker 1: smile slipping over her face as she took me in.
Speaker 1: I thought you were there, weren't you. Sophie's voice was
Speaker 1: a little too chipper. No, No, that was all just
Speaker 1: late night delirium. You know how it is nothing really,
Speaker 1: She shot Mara a look, tight lipped, and quickly pivoted
Speaker 1: to let's get more frizer. Before I could pass the implication.
Speaker 1: It stuck in my memory all night, that look, that
Speaker 1: shift of conversation. Was she keeping things from me? Or
Speaker 1: was I overthinking? They all seemed an on the joke.
Speaker 1: I wondered how many stories she had been in lately
Speaker 1: that I hadn't even realized for being Redden. I started
Speaker 1: watching her hands as she worked at home, sometimes fidgety,
Speaker 1: sometimes too precise, our late night design talks started to fade,
Speaker 1: were replaced by her muttering about deadlines for collaborations or
Speaker 1: just a new thing with people who get it. A
Speaker 1: few days later, she came home with bags from a
Speaker 1: coffee chain she always mocked. The local place was closed,
Speaker 1: she offered, before I could comment. It seemed benign until
Speaker 1: I hugged her and her jacket gave off a spicy
Speaker 1: pepri clonne that definitely wasn't mine, somewhat seasitrus blend, nothing strong,
Speaker 1: but enough to make me pause. Are you a worring perfume?
Speaker 1: She looked genuinely confused for half a second, then her
Speaker 1: brows tensed. Oh god, no, it's all over the cold
Speaker 1: working place. Their cleaning people used this I don't know,
Speaker 1: sanctified eucalyptus and all the garbage. Even my hoodie reeks.
Speaker 1: She made a big show of sniffing her sleeve and
Speaker 1: ringing her nose, then threw the jacket over her chair,
Speaker 1: already on her phone. It was plausible. I guessed the
Speaker 1: place was supposed to be at sea, full of scent triggers,
Speaker 1: big on weird branding, But my brain leaped back. Sophie
Speaker 1: always noticed smells sometimes to a fault. She would have
Speaker 1: complained about it, So why was this the first mention?
Speaker 1: Before I could turn that over, she dropped her laptop
Speaker 1: on the coffee table, files locked behind a password not
Speaker 1: unhoud of. She'd done it for certain clients, but she'd
Speaker 1: always trusted me with a staff, or at least never
Speaker 1: cared if I peaked. I asked, did you change your password?
Speaker 1: She shrugged, keeping her eyes on her work. I have
Speaker 1: to now this client's kind of hyphprofile. They made me
Speaker 1: sign a bunch of nondisclosure stuff. I tried to leave it,
Speaker 1: but curiosity nod. You can trust me, eats off. It's
Speaker 1: not like I'm going to leak your mock ups, she hesitated,
Speaker 1: fingers dancing. Of course, it's just a habit. Now, don't
Speaker 1: make it a thing. Okay. A short Pau's tense bristling.
Speaker 1: Then she closed her laptop and turned to rummage in
Speaker 1: the fridge, humming tinlessly, shutting down the conversation with movement
Speaker 1: for so social media changed too. She used to post
Speaker 1: process shots and jokes, tagging me in everything we explored.
Speaker 1: Before I realized she'd stopped her stories when private. The
Speaker 1: fault post now tagged her close friends. I caught a
Speaker 1: glimpse of her scrolling through names, then locking the app
Speaker 1: before I could see the screen. Our biggest couple's client
Speaker 1: emailed one Wednesday, would it be possible for Sophie to
Speaker 1: handle this round solo? I called clarify, Confused, The client
Speaker 1: sounded almost apologetic. Sophie's work style just matches our vision
Speaker 1: better for this. I hope that's okay. Sophie shrugged when
Speaker 1: I brought it up. Don't take it personal, babe, they
Speaker 1: liked my typography better. You know it's true. It wasn't untrue.
Speaker 1: Her compositions had a warmth, a looseness I could never fake.
Speaker 1: But we'd always split praise and criticism straight down the middle.
Speaker 1: It occurred to me late at night how easy it'd
Speaker 1: have been for her to let me fade from that
Speaker 1: project without a fight. Over dinner night later, I tried
Speaker 1: to ask about the new coworking people. Anyone interesting there,
Speaker 1: anyone I know? She nodded absently. Some gallery types. Late
Speaker 1: night freelancer is O and Cam. He's knew in town,
Speaker 1: came from La or something, runs a few creative meet ups.
Speaker 1: She tipped her head. Why jealous? I gave her a
Speaker 1: look that was supposed to be playful but felt brittle
Speaker 1: even in my own bones. Just curious, you haven't mentioned
Speaker 1: anyone new in a while, She shrugged Cam's fanny. Smart
Speaker 1: a little much sometimes but harmless. We mostly taught branding,
Speaker 1: don't overthink it ly, but that was it. A week later,
Speaker 1: a joined friend, Jamal, who worked occasionally with us, both texted,
Speaker 1: hope you and Sophia making Cam feel welcome. His jokes
Speaker 1: are wild. Didn't expect her to find her meme twins
Speaker 1: so fast? Haha. I stared at my phone for a
Speaker 1: long time, thumb stuck above the reply button. Cam again,
Speaker 1: mean twin. It struck me just how off bounce i'd been.
Speaker 1: Everyone seemed to know something about Sophie's work. Husband accept me.
Speaker 1: That night, lying awake, I reviewed every time Sophie mentioned
Speaker 1: esthetic Synergy, How frustrated she sounded when I asked to
Speaker 1: see her new work, how she'd started hesitating before answering
Speaker 1: even basic questions about her projects. My mind ping pond.
Speaker 1: Had we always shared this much? Was I being possessive
Speaker 1: for wanting a window into her process? While was a
Speaker 1: catching the edge of something real, the shadow of a
Speaker 1: secret slipping from her grasp. It got harder to pretend
Speaker 1: nothing had changed between us. We ate dinners with a
Speaker 1: new dangerous politeness, surface level chat, no gentle ribbing. She
Speaker 1: was restless, texting under the table, sometimes stepping away to answer.
Speaker 1: I started noticing details and her routines that had never
Speaker 1: been there before. Her friend group quietly shifted to suddenly
Speaker 1: people I'd never heard of featured in her stories, always
Speaker 1: from obscure candle lit balls or clotted studios that looked
Speaker 1: daily in her wardrobe changed too. She started worrying bold
Speaker 1: patches on her thrifted jackets, knew jewey, a koppa cuff,
Speaker 1: a geometric set of rings, things that belonged in an
Speaker 1: esthetic mood board. I had never seen her build theory spawn.
Speaker 1: She was just evolving. Maybe it was a phase. Maybe
Speaker 1: I was afraid of change, threatened by her finding a
Speaker 1: groove in a scene where I wasn't sent a stage.
Speaker 1: One Thursday, mid afternoon of freelance client, I thought we
Speaker 1: were still tackling together, requested Sophie for check in, not me.
Speaker 1: I reached out, trying to sweeth things over, and the
Speaker 1: reply was almost too polite. We loved both your inputs,
Speaker 1: but Sophie's really clicking with the recommendation from Camm's group,
Speaker 1: no mention of me. I was annoyed, But more than that,
Speaker 1: I was aware of a gap opening between us, not
Speaker 1: just personal but professional. Our marriage had always survived on
Speaker 1: a fierce kind of equality. It was as if she
Speaker 1: was chiseling her own island out from under both our feet.
Speaker 1: Sophie stopped talking about type feces and textures at night.
Speaker 1: Now she mused about people who just get your vision
Speaker 1: from a gut level. Her tone held something sharp, defensive.
Speaker 1: When I pressed gently to see what she meant, she
Speaker 1: shook her head. Why does it matter, Ali, you ever process?
Speaker 1: I need to breathe a bit. I tried backing off,
Speaker 1: but the tension stuck. Her phone was glued to her hand,
Speaker 1: her collaborators unnamed and invisible. I sometimes caught her smiling
Speaker 1: at TeX's gay, soft cheeks blooming. I tried to rationalize,
Speaker 1: maybe this was Sophie refuelling the storm before another round
Speaker 1: of fierce collaboration. But doubts scratched in my chest. Music
Speaker 1: changed in the apartment to her playliss louder, more electronic.
Speaker 1: At first, I protested it we already live in a
Speaker 1: technocenta kitchen. But she just laughed, told me I was
Speaker 1: a grandpa. She didn't apologize. Over dinner with friends, she
Speaker 1: was suddenly impatient, reaching for inside jokes. I didn't share.
Speaker 1: When Morrow recounted a legendary come on a log, I
Speaker 1: felt like an outsider in my own life, I asked
Speaker 1: Mark Quitetly later she met cam. Oh. Sure, Sophie and
Speaker 1: camera arrived together at the space. Have you not visited
Speaker 1: they have like this whole designed banter thing people practically
Speaker 1: pay to evesdrop. She grinned, but something in her eyes
Speaker 1: made me uneasy. I spent a night stirring at the ceiling,
Speaker 1: her arm draped over my chest like a weight. I
Speaker 1: wanted to wake her up, shake her, ask what was
Speaker 1: going on? Was I losing her slowly? Day by day? Oh?
Speaker 1: Was all this just noise? Me reading jealousy into a
Speaker 1: stage of her growth that didn't include me. None of
Speaker 1: my questions found a good answer. One day, coming home
Speaker 1: early again, I pretended to my last client ad as
Speaker 1: Sophie was sitting at the table, phone in hand, obviously typing.
Speaker 1: As I came in, she tucked it away fast, finished
Speaker 1: a message and shut it down. Her laptop beep shut
Speaker 1: as I walked in, documents disappearing. We're off they, she asked,
Speaker 1: not meeting my eye. Not really, I tried to read her.
Speaker 1: She focused on peeling a sticker off a take up box.
Speaker 1: Clint Hell, she offered. I nodded, same as always. They
Speaker 1: want seven creative routes and want to pay for one.
Speaker 1: She laughed, but it felt distant. I asked, gently, you
Speaker 1: working with Kem on that new gig. Her pause was
Speaker 1: a little too drawn out, sort of. He's got ideas
Speaker 1: wildly unrealistic, but sometimes useful. He's good for sparking things.
Speaker 1: I searched her face for Are you happy? She looked
Speaker 1: up slowly. What does that mean in general? I hesitated. No,
Speaker 1: I mean with your work, with all this with us.
Speaker 1: She tapped her nails on the table, thinking I love us.
Speaker 1: I just sometimes I wish it could be a little
Speaker 1: less clinical. I know that sounds bad. It's not about you,
Speaker 1: It's not, I wanted to say, but it feels like
Speaker 1: it is. A forced smile. Reached across and squeezed her hand.
Speaker 1: She didn't squeeze back, not quite, and since she was
Speaker 1: up were filling cups, the warmth between us hoard uncertain. Later,
Speaker 1: I saw her back her sketch book in a bottle
Speaker 1: of that same branded coffee into her tote. She was
Speaker 1: heading to the co working space again, always a place
Speaker 1: I couldn't follow. One evening, desperate to call my way
Speaker 1: back from the brink, I planned a date night at home,
Speaker 1: no laptops, no folms. I cooked badly, but she laughed
Speaker 1: at my failure to keep aky Oak's intact. For a while,
Speaker 1: it was easy, the old give and tick, Slipping back.
Speaker 1: Held by half a bottle of wine, she loosened up
Speaker 1: shoulders and clenching. I didn't ask about calm this time.
Speaker 1: I let her steer the conversation to old horror stories,
Speaker 1: clients who paid eleven months late, type foundriies that went
Speaker 1: belly up of night, the time she nearly set her
Speaker 1: hair on fire at an installation. When she looked tired,
Speaker 1: I took her hand and squeezed. She squeezed back we
Speaker 1: ate dessert out of the container. She admitted for us low,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in the dread moall lately, always
Speaker 1: playing catch up, like everyone's doing something more interesting, and
Speaker 1: I'm just stuck. Even with you. I feel seen, but
Speaker 1: I feel static, Like do you ever wish you could
Speaker 1: just hip her? Set on your style or your whole persona.
Speaker 1: I nodded, heart twisting sometimes, but I think sometimes where
Speaker 1: our omwors critics, maybe you're closer to where you want
Speaker 1: to be than you realize. She looked at me, something
Speaker 1: re of flickering in her gaze. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: I used to feel like making stuff if he was oxygen.
Speaker 1: Now I feel, I don't know, burned out, like I
Speaker 1: need to prove I'm not just eliazin souvie the brand.
Speaker 1: That night, our intimacy felt real, but it was layered
Speaker 1: with guilt on my end, relief that maybe I misread everything,
Speaker 1: and a sliver of fear that this brand talk was
Speaker 1: just curd for her wanting a new life. For two
Speaker 1: weeks she was around more, collapsing on to the couch
Speaker 1: with me after late meetings, pulling me into her process.
Speaker 1: Not quite like before, but nearly I thought we were better.
Speaker 1: Then one morning, over coffee, whilst she rushed out the
Speaker 1: door or receipt from her tote fell on to the table.
Speaker 1: The bar's name was unfamiliar Canopy, the date and time
Speaker 1: stamped ten fifty seven p m. And night, she swore
Speaker 1: she was at the co working space finishing up with
Speaker 1: her team. That night, she texted grinding at the studio,
Speaker 1: don't wait up, love you. I said nothing at first,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to leap a shadows, But as she left,
Speaker 1: I googled the bar Swank Demult, only two blocks from
Speaker 1: the coworking place, popular with the vart crowd. She'd never
Speaker 1: mentioned it. Later I looked at her phone, telling myself
Speaker 1: it was just for peace of mind. I caught sight
Speaker 1: of a message dread at the top Cam, no surname,
Speaker 1: just Camp. Half a dozen messages back and forth, most unreadable,
Speaker 1: but the most recent, only an hour old. Miss you
Speaker 1: already last night was the best. My ears buzzed. I
Speaker 1: put her phone down quickly, almost clumsily. Sophie didn't mention
Speaker 1: anything that day but working late or meeting Cam. When
Speaker 1: she came home, she sunk onto the couch, exhausted, new
Speaker 1: wearing sdangling, can you heat up the leftoverst I'm dead?
Speaker 1: I obeyed, and for a moment watched her legs curled
Speaker 1: under her scrolling stories, some amusement playing over her lips.
Speaker 1: I wondered, who she was laughing with, wondered what stories
Speaker 1: I would or wouldn't be permitted to know. I started
Speaker 1: noticing how all these details built together, the hidden files,
Speaker 1: the after hours drinks, passwords, the sudden shift in our
Speaker 1: client list, mutual friends, carelessness, mentioning calm as her constant companion.
Speaker 1: Sophie's work changed again, fearing bold, experimental, like the project
Speaker 1: i'd seen that first night, less and less like her,
Speaker 1: or maybe more in a way I didn't realize or
Speaker 1: belonged to any more. One evening, testing the water, A
Speaker 1: texted Mara, hey, is the co working space still taking
Speaker 1: new folks? My studio is too quite Lightly was thinking
Speaker 1: of joining you and soft sometime, She replied three hours later,
Speaker 1: chipp her but cautious. Oh it's wild. They're right now.
Speaker 1: Cam's running all the lace sessions, lords of folks in
Speaker 1: it and not. Sophie's basically never home. Ha it's intense,
Speaker 1: ha ha. How are you too? Holding up that mention again?
Speaker 1: Cam always linked to Sophie. I pressed, seems like they
Speaker 1: worked tight, good collab. Mara's answer was evasive, Yeah, super tight.
Speaker 1: It's a weird little creative incubator can get clickery at tbh,
Speaker 1: but you and Sophie are still the ojis. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: She's not running off with the competition lull. I stared
Speaker 1: at the message for a long time. It was a joke,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. There was static in my veins, a
Speaker 1: thrumbing sense that whatever was happening was just beyond what
Speaker 1: I could prove, but far from imaginary. I stopped sleeping
Speaker 1: well in bed. Sophie's breathing steady mine ragged. I searched
Speaker 1: for reasons to believe her explanations, but the evidence mounted.
Speaker 1: I went digging. In her shared calendar, Sophie marked frequent
Speaker 1: meetings and vague climb Key follow up Brinstone private room
Speaker 1: concept review. Most were late at night, some matching public
Speaker 1: event check ins that I scolled past on Khan's public stories,
Speaker 1: swipes from gallery openings that drinks with the crew. Sophie's
Speaker 1: reflection caught in the background of one video, glass in hand, laughing,
Speaker 1: pressed close to someone just off frame. Most of the
Speaker 1: tags were private view only for close friends. I checked
Speaker 1: our banking app late night bartabs at places we'd never
Speaker 1: gone together, or out a cash of doors fewer than
Speaker 1: a block from the co working space, Eubis hailed her
Speaker 1: dresses only a few blocks from our home. After midnight.
Speaker 1: None of us proved much, but together pressed in the
Speaker 1: architecture of an inside joke. I wasn't meant to get one.
Speaker 1: Evening I got desperate. I've reached out to our freelance
Speaker 1: client under the guise of clarifying a deliverable. I slipped
Speaker 1: in as lightly as I could. How's the workflow been
Speaker 1: for you now that it's mostly Sophie and the co
Speaker 1: working crew. There was a pause, then a carefully word
Speaker 1: of reply. We love Sophie's direction. Cam seems to mesh
Speaker 1: with her well. She's recommended him for the last few deliverables.
Speaker 1: It's been a dream, of course, we miss your touch.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can all meet together next time. I realized
Speaker 1: then how far I had been sidelined. Sophie's orbit shifting
Speaker 1: closer to Cam, my partner and I no longer holding
Speaker 1: the same gravity Every night. More patterns snapped into focus.
Speaker 1: Sophie's growing secrecy matched to corresponding lightness in her demeanor.
Speaker 1: She was more playful with every one but me. When
Speaker 1: I offered to join her at the co working space
Speaker 1: again and just for a quick peak, not to crump
Speaker 1: your style. She ducked out. The group's just heads down
Speaker 1: this week, so many big ideas, he'd be bored. I
Speaker 1: promise on a whim. I searched social media for photo's
Speaker 1: hout at the space. Hundreds of shots, some public, most private.
Speaker 1: One slipped into a friend's story on a close friends list,
Speaker 1: had never been invited to, fluttered past when Jamal accidentally
Speaker 1: showed me his phone. Sophie and calm Arm slung over
Speaker 1: each other's shoulders at canopy, heads thrown back, laughing as closed.
Speaker 1: In that way, only people who have lost themselves in
Speaker 1: the moment can manage, I said nothing in Jamal quickly
Speaker 1: scrolled away. Almost sheepish people blow off steam. It's a
Speaker 1: pressure cooker the spaces, he said, but his voice rang false.
Speaker 1: I asked Sophie that night, trying not to seem accusatory.
Speaker 1: You have fone canopy, She paul to loading plates in
Speaker 1: a dish orsher. Is that a new bar? I've heard
Speaker 1: of it, but haven't gone Too expensive, isn't it? I blinked.
Speaker 1: The lie hung heavy between us. I had the receipt
Speaker 1: in my back, could quote her tap to the penny,
Speaker 1: I told myself. She was just tired or embarrassed, or
Speaker 1: maybe she'd gone with the group and didn't want me
Speaker 1: to feel left out. I could feel the boundary between
Speaker 1: us hardening. She stopped volunteering small physical affections, her hand
Speaker 1: on my thigh at dinner, our lips, brushing my cheek
Speaker 1: coming in from the cold, never explicitly rejecting, never cold,
Speaker 1: just stabs. And I missed her, and she was ten
Speaker 1: feet away every night. One Friday, I tried to set
Speaker 1: up a joint portfolio review, the kind we managed every month,
Speaker 1: with Mara or another beer. She said she was absolutely slammed,
Speaker 1: voice rising annoyings, like a sudden static charge. If I
Speaker 1: show you all my work, you're just going to pick
Speaker 1: apart the parts that are getting me excited. Can't I
Speaker 1: have anything that's just mine? A long silence. It was
Speaker 1: the closest we'd come to a fight in months. I apologized,
Speaker 1: careful not to blurt out what I was really feeling,
Speaker 1: that she was slipping so far out of reach. I
Speaker 1: know no longer recognized the pieces she left behind, as
Speaker 1: I was still I needed to know more. I asked
Speaker 1: Mara again about the co working crew. This time bluntly,
Speaker 1: is something up with Sophie? I keep hearing about her
Speaker 1: in cam Sometimes I feel like I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on any more, Mara outs, sighing, sounded genuinely tired.
Speaker 1: A ly people change coms a catalyst, everyone makes better
Speaker 1: work around him. He's magnetic. Sophie's grown a lot, and yeah,
Speaker 1: she spends a lot of time with him. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean she's replacing you. Everyone's just wordily intense. Right now,
Speaker 1: I push, just work stuff. I pause. Then Mara replied,
Speaker 1: they're close. I won't lie almost inseparable at the space,
Speaker 1: but people need outlets. You and soft have always been solid,
Speaker 1: right solid? Was that still true? A spring gathered, our
Speaker 1: world narrowed her late nights grew later. My morning's lonely.
Speaker 1: She'd leave coffee for me, sometimes a sticky note to
Speaker 1: back late love you, but the notes felt like props
Speaker 1: from another script. Some nights I watched her sleep, warm
Speaker 1: and quiet and unfazed by my silent suspicion. I wondered
Speaker 1: if she was dreaming of a new life or simply
Speaker 1: dreaming of feeling new, dreaming of color beyond blue. I
Speaker 1: walked to the co working space one night, just to
Speaker 1: see it up close. The building was modern, floodlet, awash
Speaker 1: with murals that looked like sleep deprived hallucinations. Through the windows,
Speaker 1: I saw bursts of laughter, weird sculptures, can stacked as trophies.
Speaker 1: Sophie wasn't visible from the outside if she was inside.
Speaker 1: She chosen a private corner far away from the street.
Speaker 1: When I got home, I almost texted her to ask
Speaker 1: where she was. Then deadn't. I sat at our kitchen table,
Speaker 1: beneath the new, cold white bulbs and tried to work,
Speaker 1: but couldn't. I started keeping a list, a secret, little
Speaker 1: arcave of clues, hoping something would add up enough that
Speaker 1: I knew what to do, what to say. The neon projects,
Speaker 1: lot files, private stories, new names, calm always at the center,
Speaker 1: hidden receipts, the laughter, and places I did not know.
Speaker 1: And yet I found myself questioning my own objectivity. Maybe
Speaker 1: this was how marriages change. Maybe she needed space, new collaborators,
Speaker 1: fresh air. Maybe people growing a pot didn't have to
Speaker 1: mean secret and shame. But then I'd remember the way
Speaker 1: her face shifted when she got those messages after midnight,
Speaker 1: How she let silence stretch between now, as if she
Speaker 1: were holding her breath, waiting for something small but vital
Speaker 1: to snap. I studied her each morning, as if memories
Speaker 1: and details would let me spot the lie. Her hair
Speaker 1: fell round her face, anew sharper layers, her makeup even
Speaker 1: out sharper lined, bolder experiments. She was becoming someone new,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't sure if I was meant to catch
Speaker 1: up or simply be left behind. The next time she
Speaker 1: drifted through the front door, passed two a m. She
Speaker 1: stashed her phone and disappeared directly to the shower. I
Speaker 1: waited until she was in bed before searching the laundry
Speaker 1: for any clue, but all I found was her new
Speaker 1: copper jewelry, abandoned on the bathroom counter, shining like sprize.
Speaker 1: Her sleep is deep, and even my own, thin and tattered,
Speaker 1: wouldn't last until sunrise. Whatever veil separated me from her world,
Speaker 1: it was almost translucent. I could see the shape moving
Speaker 1: around her, but the colors were all wrong. Each day
Speaker 1: I woke up, aking for the old pallet, even as
Speaker 1: part of me wondered if I had only seen what
Speaker 1: I wanted from the start. Saturday morning noon already pressing
Speaker 1: on the blind by the time I rolled out of bed.
Speaker 1: Sophie was gone, no note, no text either, unless she'd
Speaker 1: sent one. After I finally crashed, I scrolled my phone
Speaker 1: and found nothing except an old lovey from two nights back,
Speaker 1: and echo with no reply. Her side of the bed
Speaker 1: was still a little warm. In the kitchen, the French
Speaker 1: press was rinsed, but her travel mog was gone. Dirty
Speaker 1: plate in the sink too. Crumzella and her absent breakfast.
Speaker 1: Weekend mornings used to be out hether, the only time
Speaker 1: we let ourselves pretend freelancing wasn't a hustle that we
Speaker 1: could rest. We'd usually wander out somewhere together, osprawl across
Speaker 1: the living room, laptops and sketchbooks, tangling with our limbs.
Speaker 1: I stood in the middle of that emptiness, remembering how
Speaker 1: just months ago, Sophie would drag me out for one
Speaker 1: more walk, even in the coal, digging for new murals,
Speaker 1: new color stories to critique. Now she left quietly, her
Speaker 1: day beginning somewhere else. We're on one, Mara texted, heading
Speaker 1: to that paint for a party atting Drop. The few
Speaker 1: guys come. Tell allies not to wear white this time, ha,
Speaker 1: I thunder reply. I hadn't heard about it, not sure
Speaker 1: where Sophie is in left it at that the group
Speaker 1: chack kept rolling. Apparently the party was a last minute
Speaker 1: thing organized by Cam. My name didn't resurface in the plans.
Speaker 1: I checked Sophie's location and find my friends. I left
Speaker 1: of her from early days, mostly used to coordinate late
Speaker 1: night pickups or to keep track at festivals. She hadn't
Speaker 1: disabled it, though she rarely checked mine. The blue dot
Speaker 1: was at ink drop. I tried not to make too
Speaker 1: much of it, but the tension in my chest wouldn't
Speaker 1: let go. Why hadn't she even mentioned it? I debated
Speaker 1: for a wild minute just showing up, But then I
Speaker 1: pictured myself turning up alone, standing awkward and visible in
Speaker 1: a room full of people already locked into their own
Speaker 1: inside jokes. I closed the app. Instead, I wandered our neighborhood,
Speaker 1: fighting the urge to text her. I'd ended up in
Speaker 1: a tiny bookstore we'd once discovered together. Sophie had loved
Speaker 1: the window seat the way till I caught the dust
Speaker 1: over the art bucks. I looked at a displace she
Speaker 1: would have mocked. Kitchen designed manifestos, rules for creative living,
Speaker 1: all as shallow as elevator pitchers, my phone stayed silent.
Speaker 1: Half an hour later, while pretending to ree, I noticed
Speaker 1: an Instagram's story blinking through my feet, muted, obviously barely
Speaker 1: a glimpse, but unmistakable. Sophie's laugh in the background, noise
Speaker 1: Marra panning across a swirl of colors, hands dipping paint brushes,
Speaker 1: and Neon Calm's voice followed, loud and teasing. I had
Speaker 1: to replay it twice before catching Sophie half off frame,
Speaker 1: whirling through a messy dance with Cam. Their arms brushed,
Speaker 1: she leaned into him, casual and familiar. My heart pounded
Speaker 1: cold and sour. I told myself it was just the angle,
Speaker 1: just the context. To pardyat music, people flaying paint everywhere.
Speaker 1: But sitting there, knowing I hadn't been invited, wondering when
Speaker 1: Sophie would come home, I realized how many tiny decisions
Speaker 1: she was making that excluded me from her new orbit.
Speaker 1: I finally went home around dusk, pacing for hours. I
Speaker 1: tried to sketch, but everything came out rigid. Frustrated. When
Speaker 1: Sophie finally texted a past it, it was just still here,
Speaker 1: paint everywhere, promised to bring back snacks if they're edible.
Speaker 1: See you Lay, love You room in twenty I stared
Speaker 1: at that love you, the old feeling that we were
Speaker 1: a team. The pairing felt flinsy compared to the tangible,
Speaker 1: visible thing happening in real time, only balks away but unreachable.
Speaker 1: She came back close to midnight, shoes and hands splotted
Speaker 1: with streaks of blue and orange hay, smelling faintly of
Speaker 1: synthetic fruit and something else, a note of cologne or
Speaker 1: maybe just paint. Mocker solvents. You look like you lost
Speaker 1: a fight with a balloon animal. I tried, reaching for levity.
Speaker 1: She collapsed side was into a kitchen chair, smiling wide,
Speaker 1: spinning a tale about body painting a team. Really Cam's
Speaker 1: idiot moves with the pink gun. It was animated, colorful,
Speaker 1: almost almost the Soviet I loved. She pulled her shirt
Speaker 1: sleeve high, look at the spruce, got nailed with a
Speaker 1: foam roller. Her voice rummed with adrenaline. I saw some
Speaker 1: of Mar's stories, I said, keeping my tone. Even her
Speaker 1: face flickered, just briefly. She never stops filming. I hope
Speaker 1: she skipped when Cam dump to bucket on me. Chris,
Speaker 1: I ruin my favorite chenes. I wanted to ask, was
Speaker 1: I ever going to be included again? Or was I
Speaker 1: now consigned permanently to the audience. I rinsed her coffee
Speaker 1: mugg as chouan an looks like a good time, I said, Finally,
Speaker 1: you could have texted about it. She glanced at me,
Speaker 1: somewhere between defensive an apologetic. It was last minute. I
Speaker 1: assumed the group had pinged you to They didn't. She
Speaker 1: opened her mouth, paused, then shrugged, turning her attention to
Speaker 1: pay king at a paint stain on her palm. It's
Speaker 1: not like you're missing much, Ali, it's mostly posturing everyone
Speaker 1: trying to impress cam. He's exhausting, sun tent. I nodded,
Speaker 1: but the explanation didn't fit. The energy in her voice
Speaker 1: was engagement, not exhaustion. I watched as she peeled away
Speaker 1: a paint chip, body language closing in. I left her
Speaker 1: to her mess, a faint undercurrent of exclusion growing tighter.
Speaker 1: The next day, I tried to reclaim something. Let's joke
Speaker 1: a fe crawl, test those new places ye keep buying,
Speaker 1: I suggested, tone purposely light. She hesitated, then agreed, but
Speaker 1: spent the morning fielding messages, pausing often to reply to
Speaker 1: who I assumed was Mirror, but whose name I couldn't catch.
Speaker 1: At every cafe we stopped, she scanned the room, face
Speaker 1: brightening when the door shied, then dimming when it was nobody.
Speaker 1: She knew I watched her watching, chasing her presents, not mine.
Speaker 1: Half Way through brunch, as she was answering a flood
Speaker 1: of d MS, I glimpsed an open chat cam again,
Speaker 1: little cartoon avatar winking you two message a lot, I said,
Speaker 1: trying for needral. She corked an eyebrow slowly to put
Speaker 1: her phone down. It's just work. He's a maniac about process,
Speaker 1: wants to run everything ask me even outside clients. Seems intense,
Speaker 1: I offered. She smiled, a private secret smile. You get
Speaker 1: used to it. Some people just think on your wayvent,
Speaker 1: you know, takes the pressure off trying to translate everything.
Speaker 1: We fell silent, a chasm of words, and spoken for years.
Speaker 1: I've been that Waveland. Now it was apparently some one else.
Speaker 1: I let it drop, but over the next week the
Speaker 1: rhythm only amplified. One afternoon, she announced she was spending
Speaker 1: the weekend in a private sprint with her coworking group
Speaker 1: to meet a fake deadline. Cam's pushing us to break
Speaker 1: out of our comfort zones might run late all weekend,
Speaker 1: fair warning, she said, already packing supplies that Friday. I
Speaker 1: made dinner for myself, her empty chair in anka holding
Speaker 1: down the other end of the table. I debated going out.
Speaker 1: Tried calling friends, but everyone seemed looped into something I
Speaker 1: hadn't known to ask about our mutual circle. It became
Speaker 1: clear had started to treat us as several people, even
Speaker 1: when we remained a social power couple in theory. Sophie
Speaker 1: came home in the early hours, light steps, smell of whiskey,
Speaker 1: and something citrusy. I waited until she got into bed
Speaker 1: to ask how was the sprint. She cracked a tired
Speaker 1: grin half the crew cat bailing can got us two
Speaker 1: new clients in the middle of everything. No brakes, pure chaos.
Speaker 1: We cranked out free mokups. Might not use any of them.
Speaker 1: Sounds tight, I said, as if the words didn't scrape.
Speaker 1: She was already half asleep, verily hearing me in the
Speaker 1: lamp light. Her profiles oftened. I traced the outline of
Speaker 1: my eyes memorizing the familiar curve, wondering how that could
Speaker 1: change so fast under the surface. Sunday afternoon, I tried
Speaker 1: to reclaim us. I offered to cook a big dinner,
Speaker 1: something we used to do with friends, but just for
Speaker 1: us this time. I even bought wine, her favorite, let
Speaker 1: myself hope she was laid again, texting a string of apologies,
Speaker 1: got caught up. Promise I'll make it up to you.
Speaker 1: Love you three perfect hearts, the kind she never used
Speaker 1: an emails or with any one else. By the time
Speaker 1: she arrived, the food was dry, heat lamped, but I
Speaker 1: didn't care. I wanted to believe she was still here
Speaker 1: for me. She'd noticed. You're sweet. I'm sorry I made
Speaker 1: you wait, she said, foy, genuinely soft for a change.
Speaker 1: We settled on the balcony, food between us, and for
Speaker 1: a little while it felt normal. He laugh easier, my
Speaker 1: shoulders less nodded. She talked about her childhood, her mother's
Speaker 1: stained glass, the first time she caught the magic of
Speaker 1: color shifting inmi day sun. Do you remember the zudet,
Speaker 1: she asked, head resting against the cold metal rail. Of course,
Speaker 1: I said, Surprised you made us pose next to penguins.
Speaker 1: My hair was neon green. She laughed, deep and open.
Speaker 1: I wanted you to stand out even then. I wanted
Speaker 1: this her real close. I leaned in and brushed hair
Speaker 1: from her face. She let me as closing for a
Speaker 1: moment or breath catching, I felt a spark, more memory
Speaker 1: maybe than truth, but real enough for that minute. It faded, though,
Speaker 1: as her phone buzzed and she checked a message on reflex,
Speaker 1: holding up a finger. Sorry, just have to confirm a
Speaker 1: foul shift, crazy deadlines. She disappeared inside doors, sliding shut
Speaker 1: with a soft click. The next morning, as we sip
Speaker 1: what passed from Monday motivation, her sketchbook was closed and
Speaker 1: stat under a pile of receipts. My gaze flicked an
Speaker 1: edge of paper, peeking out a message to do list
Speaker 1: in Cam's handwritting big block letters, half the letters leopy
Speaker 1: and foreign. I couldn't read it upside down, but the
Speaker 1: top line paint escape repeat. Sophie noticed me looking slid
Speaker 1: the padaway chatty. As ever Cam makes the wordest lists,
Speaker 1: his handwriting is impossible, right, I nodded, unseaddled, what's escape about?
Speaker 1: She shrugged, aiming for breezy, just to design, pun chill
Speaker 1: al you' so literal. Sometimes this tiny moment stacked up
Speaker 1: heavy as stone. I spent more and more time lost
Speaker 1: in routines, building habits, just to fill the silence. I
Speaker 1: tried reaching for her, tried assuming this was a phase.
Speaker 1: Everyone creative burns out, everyone finds new muses. But beneath
Speaker 1: the fear gnawed. What if I'd lost my place in
Speaker 1: her life for good? Then a small chop shift in
Speaker 1: our finances. End of month's statements used to be a
Speaker 1: quick routine to compare gig payments, divvy up expenses. This
Speaker 1: time Sophie insisted on handling her separately. My new clients
Speaker 1: pay through a weird app. It'll RECKU your spreadsheet, she said,
Speaker 1: avoiding my eyes. There were more cash withdrawals too, smaller chunks,
Speaker 1: more often. I knew she'd never been cagey about money,
Speaker 1: not until now. Strange expensive jew returned up a thin chain,
Speaker 1: new ring things, got a deal from an artist at
Speaker 1: the space, She told me, impulse by you hate it.
Speaker 1: I shook my head, But I thought, you've never bought
Speaker 1: jeury for yourself for no reason. You always said presents
Speaker 1: were more fun. I noticed too, fortos on her phone,
Speaker 1: featuring those rings, her fingers entwined with someone else's, only
Speaker 1: the edge of a man's jacket in the frame, never
Speaker 1: clear enough to be proof, but doamin in the suggestion.
Speaker 1: One afternoon she got an unsolicited flower delivery, Sunflowers her favor.
Speaker 1: The note was printed, Bland keep shining See. I asked,
Speaker 1: point blank who see? She flushed, then composed herself, waving
Speaker 1: it off client cam's crews, trying to make the whole
Speaker 1: place more positive. Everyone's gifting is a thing, nice touch,
Speaker 1: I managed first. Then that night, eating takeout in silence,
Speaker 1: I fell to splead in me, one part dying to
Speaker 1: believe her, one part collecting proof like a forensic accountant.
Speaker 1: By now, my every question was calculation. How much can
Speaker 1: I ask without pushing her further away? Was my suspicion
Speaker 1: to poison? Or was it only quickening something that was inevitable? Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Mara texted me just to mem an air. Are you
Speaker 1: alive in there? Haven't seen you at the last three
Speaker 1: hands call me? I almost ignored it, but then decided
Speaker 1: maybe it was better to do something, anything other than
Speaker 1: spiral alone. We met a broken cup, her haunt. I
Speaker 1: could tell from the way Mara hugged me a little
Speaker 1: too firm, brow creast that she picked up on my
Speaker 1: exhaustion over coffee, hers black mine milky sweet details Sophie
Speaker 1: always mocked. We danced around small talk until I finally asked,
Speaker 1: is everything is wild at the coworking space? As Sophie says,
Speaker 1: I keep hearing about Cam. Morrow studied me, then lowd
Speaker 1: her voice, BALI, you know how these places get? People
Speaker 1: find each other, burn Hart, move on. Sophie's got her
Speaker 1: own thing with Cam. Nothing against you, but it's like
Speaker 1: her work's leveled up. Everyone says she's happier. That's great.
Speaker 1: I managed, just wish I understood the recipe. Mara's eyes
Speaker 1: flushed with something sympathetic. Creative chemistry isn't always transferable. Don't
Speaker 1: overthink it. You're still her anchor, right. I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask am I, but I bit it down. After Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift blared overhead for the third time. Maurice slid out
Speaker 1: of the booth, touching my arm. Whatever's happening, don't turn
Speaker 1: into a ghost. O. Kay. She's going through a thing,
Speaker 1: but you're still you. I nodded, grateful for some humanity,
Speaker 1: but also painfully aware of how little she'd actually told me.
Speaker 1: At home, the apartment felt emptyer, like Sophie was already
Speaker 1: moving out by degree. Her energy was always elsewhere, messages
Speaker 1: blinking at all hours from unreadable names. I found myself
Speaker 1: matching her avoidance, refusing to ask about her day, just
Speaker 1: letting the silent stretch still hope buttoned in at odd moments,
Speaker 1: were coming home with doughnuts for us both, even if
Speaker 1: it was late. Her comment about my blue sketches, I
Speaker 1: miss seeing what you'd make if you let go of symmetry.
Speaker 1: For once, she kissed my forehead once as I dozed
Speaker 1: at my desk, making a vague comforting sand before disappearing
Speaker 1: into a video call. These flickers kept me questioning. Was
Speaker 1: it only me bending out of shape, or had she
Speaker 1: simply left in spirit lawn Before I could admit, I'd
Speaker 1: began to tell you things lens in an invisible ledger.
Speaker 1: How often she laughed at my jokes, How long she
Speaker 1: stayed on her phone off at midnight. How she spoke
Speaker 1: about camp, sometimes with all sometimes impatience, always with a
Speaker 1: softness reserved for the very new. I haunted her Instagram,
Speaker 1: all photos of us buried by process shots, group selfies
Speaker 1: mostly safe for public fees you, but never really about
Speaker 1: our partnership any more. We became background even in her
Speaker 1: digital story. The growing sense their friends were in on
Speaker 1: it for at least not surprised was the last wedge
Speaker 1: between us Jamie another mutual message to ask how the
Speaker 1: famous Sophie and Kam were coping with pressure before gallery opener,
Speaker 1: As if I'd know his text you two thrupernet law
Speaker 1: only half kidding, I let the question Han. It felt
Speaker 1: like a joke at my expense, a quiet shopphotic from
Speaker 1: the world outside Day's blood. Together, I slept less, worked harder,
Speaker 1: ignored my own designed deadlines in favor of researching cam
Speaker 1: Harvard drop out, La Agency, Alam, and Instagram filled with
Speaker 1: group shots, no mention of Sovie except coded in haasticks,
Speaker 1: hash squad, hash lay crew, hashvan family. One night, I
Speaker 1: lay in bed next Sophie and quietly searched her close
Speaker 1: friend's story through a dummy account. Murrow had added me
Speaker 1: to you out of guilto solidarity. Video Sophie giggling in
Speaker 1: a booth, cam behind her running a stripe of neon
Speaker 1: paned down her arm. Caption best muse ever hearts and
Speaker 1: flame emoji's fluttering around cam's and durk comments threaded below.
Speaker 1: I watched Frozen. My mind ran wild. Was it a crush,
Speaker 1: an affair, a phase? If she was unhappy? Couldn't she
Speaker 1: just say so? Every time I replayed the story, a
Speaker 1: thousand tiny questions broke open, but the main aching one
Speaker 1: was always the same. If I asked, point blank, would
Speaker 1: she bother to lie? Or would she just say nothing
Speaker 1: at all? Why? Then? I was serving something in our
Speaker 1: marriage had been replaced, usurped, or at least at sour
Speaker 1: as to somewhere I couldn't reach. But as the days
Speaker 1: curled round, tread building under every polite conversation, I realized
Speaker 1: I was too afraid to find out which kind of
Speaker 1: nothing it really was. The night the truth finally pressed through.
Speaker 1: Her truth had already started living in step by step,
Speaker 1: but no doubt the name was one of those evenings
Speaker 1: when winters just starting to let go. Street lights flickered
Speaker 1: and quiet yellow outside our windows. Sophie wasn't home yet,
Speaker 1: but I waited, sketchbook open, pencil untouched. I planned to
Speaker 1: confront her, but all my words dried up the instant
Speaker 1: had tried them in my mouth. I kept replaying the video,
Speaker 1: the one from Marrowers hid in story. A moment so casual,
Speaker 1: so intimate, her head leaning close to cans under the
Speaker 1: hot kneon of the bar well, after spilling between them
Speaker 1: in a way I hadn't seen from her in years.
Speaker 1: That was the shape of it, undeniable living in public,
Speaker 1: everyone else already looking away politely. I sat with this
Speaker 1: realization like it was a stone I had to hold.
Speaker 1: When the door finally opened, I heard Sophie's wist off, tied,
Speaker 1: as if she too had reheard something she wasn't sure
Speaker 1: she could say. She kicked her shoes off, coat sliding
Speaker 1: into its usual place. She caught me at the table,
Speaker 1: gaze flicking from my empty tee to the mess of
Speaker 1: blank pages I'd scattered around just to give my hands
Speaker 1: something to do. She gave me a wand smile, and
Speaker 1: crossed to the sink, running water, letting it run too long.
Speaker 1: I knew she felt me. Watching The age in the
Speaker 1: air was different, now, attention so thick, it felt like
Speaker 1: walking through falk. I'm home, she said, quieter than usual.
Speaker 1: Here I managed he were late. She blinked, wiped her
Speaker 1: hands on a towel and hovered at the threshold of
Speaker 1: the kitchen. I couldn't stop myself now, even if I
Speaker 1: had wanted to. Where were you? She glanced away, just
Speaker 1: working late at the space. Her voice was carefully, painfully casual,
Speaker 1: with calmmed. She stilled, then put her weed on one hip, defensive.
Speaker 1: Yeah and Mara, the usual people. Why I didn't answer.
Speaker 1: I waited until she looked at me, really looked, and
Speaker 1: I asked what I'd been swallowing for weeks? Are you
Speaker 1: seeing him? A silence. She didn't blink, Elias, don't, are you?
Speaker 1: Her eyes dropped. I saw her jaw set, the muscles
Speaker 1: bunching along her neck. For a heartbeat. I thought she
Speaker 1: might at right lie or say it was all nothing,
Speaker 1: But then she just deflated, as if air was leaking
Speaker 1: up from somewhere deep inside. I didn't want. She trailed off,
Speaker 1: then tried again. I tried to keep it crace ely.
Speaker 1: I never meant for this to happen. All I felt
Speaker 1: was a strange sort of come. I pulled the pint
Speaker 1: blatter of receipt from the bar, set it on the
Speaker 1: table between us. I know about canopy, about all of
Speaker 1: it the drinks, the stories, the private rooms, the fact
Speaker 1: that Mara had to keep track of your schedule better
Speaker 1: than I do. Did YE think I wouldn't notice? She
Speaker 1: worked at her face? I know, I jest. I wanted
Speaker 1: a place in the world that wasn't about us. They
Speaker 1: felt like I couldn't breathe in hear it sometimes and
Speaker 1: com he just got it. He gets what I am
Speaker 1: trying to make right now. I'm not proud of any
Speaker 1: of this. I shook my head. It wasn't just work,
Speaker 1: was it? She frown, lips quivering at first, No, but
Speaker 1: then it got blurred. It was everything at once, the work,
Speaker 1: the energy that she stopped biting her lip. I love
Speaker 1: being needed for myself, not just as your other half.
Speaker 1: Her voice broke. I didn't want to hurt you alive God.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe if I could just make my own space,
Speaker 1: I could come back and we could reset, and I'd
Speaker 1: know what I was doing again. I felt the floor
Speaker 1: fall away beneath me, all pretense gone. So was it
Speaker 1: just emotional or my voice surprised me? Flat drained, she hesitated.
Speaker 1: It was everything physical too. It happened before I meant it.
Speaker 1: I tried to I don't know end it, or at
Speaker 1: least not bring it home. But then I I put
Speaker 1: up a hand, please don't. We sat in silence, neither
Speaker 1: of us knowing what was supposed to come next. In
Speaker 1: that moment, all I wanted was to go backward in time,
Speaker 1: ask for the sort of truth I could save us.
Speaker 1: But there was only the reality before me, Sophie's standing,
Speaker 1: smaller and more afraid than I had ever seen. She
Speaker 1: reached for me, but I pulled away just it's enough
Speaker 1: to make the message clear. She let her hands drop
Speaker 1: and wrapped her arms around herself instead. For a long time,
Speaker 1: I stared at my hands, willing myself to feel something angrier,
Speaker 1: or louder, anything other than this deep, ragged disappointment. When
Speaker 1: I looked up again, she was crying quietly, shoulders shaking
Speaker 1: as she pressed the heel of her hand to one eye.
Speaker 1: I tried to ask the only thing that still mattered,
Speaker 1: why didn't you just tell me? She wiped her nose,
Speaker 1: tried to edge her voice away from assault. I was
Speaker 1: ashamed and scared because I knew what I was doing,
Speaker 1: But I also felt like maybe it was all your
Speaker 1: fault too, that you'd gotten so used to us being
Speaker 1: a unit that YE stopped seeing me cam made me
Speaker 1: feel She caught herself, then sighed, sorry, that isn't fair.
Speaker 1: I didn't argue. I didn't have the energy. All I
Speaker 1: could think was I had watched it happen, inch by inch,
Speaker 1: every little boundary stretch then broken, all while I tried
Speaker 1: not to see. The Next day, reality moved him with
Speaker 1: heavy boots. We circled each other in the apartment, both
Speaker 1: of us sleepless, near the able to meet the other's
Speaker 1: ice full on. Sophie murmured apologies on repeat, but they
Speaker 1: just hand in the air, pulling under for it. I
Speaker 1: texted Marra. The message was simple, something I could live with.
Speaker 1: It's over. Her reply took ours, just a stundown. Sorry,
Speaker 1: anything I can do, But there was nothing any one
Speaker 1: else I could do. Now. I sat in the studio,
Speaker 1: surrounded by piles of both our work, deciding which half
Speaker 1: I still recognized as mine. That afternoon, Sophie finally spoke up.
Speaker 1: Should we do? You want me to leave? No, I said,
Speaker 1: surprising both of us. I'll go. You need whatever this is.
Speaker 1: I can't stay here pretending we can fix it. She
Speaker 1: nodded her relief, marble with grief. I made arrangements that afternoon,
Speaker 1: reached out to Jamie, who offered his spare room, no
Speaker 1: questions asked, packed a bag, pulled my hard drives, left
Speaker 1: a collaborative sketchbook stacked on the kitchen table. Clients called.
Speaker 1: I told them flatly that work would change. Sophie and
Speaker 1: I were no longer a teen our favorite. Clients sounded
Speaker 1: almost as heart broken as I was. You two will happened?
Speaker 1: Tea asked you made magic? I couldn't answer. As I
Speaker 1: packed Sophie Hubbard, she moved objects from one surface to another,
Speaker 1: try to offer me coffee, mid apologies, and a hamster
Speaker 1: wheel of gilt. Eventually she stopped trying and just sat
Speaker 1: on the edge of the couch, all her energy pressed
Speaker 1: into keeping yourself upright. Right before I zipped my bag,
Speaker 1: she stood and blocked the door. Do you hate me,
Speaker 1: she asked, searching my eyes, hoping for punishment, maybe or absolution.
Speaker 1: I shook my head, no, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: I know you any more. She slumped and I stepped
Speaker 1: around her, pausing in the door frame for a second.
Speaker 1: I wondered if I should explain how we'd got in here.
Speaker 1: Lay it all out in clean lines, but I didn't
Speaker 1: have any kind of map for this. I left the
Speaker 1: cold air outside hit sharper than I expected, but it
Speaker 1: was at least honest inside. As I stood on the
Speaker 1: edge of the block, I realized I was breathing steadier
Speaker 1: than I had in months. I let myself into Jamie's
Speaker 1: spare room hours later, still carrying the sketch book I
Speaker 1: didn't remember packing, along with a bundle of worn pencils.
Speaker 1: The space was smaller, smell of old coffee heaped into
Speaker 1: the walls. I didn't have the energy for more than
Speaker 1: a message to my parents. Safe, needed some space. Don't
Speaker 1: call yet. Jamie poked his head and only once saw
Speaker 1: my face and retreated wordlessly merciful. That night, dreams flickered
Speaker 1: with color paints, blurs, hands that weren't my, moving through
Speaker 1: familiar patterns. I woke before dawn. Image is already fading.
Speaker 1: This shop is leaving only the urge to move to
Speaker 1: do something anything, accepts it with the pain. I sent
Speaker 1: a single necessary email to our collaborative clientless, making it official,
Speaker 1: all new projects solo basis, only my in books filled
Speaker 1: with a turn of confusion and condolences back in the
Speaker 1: apartment maristop by for Sophie, I would later whispered check
Speaker 1: in mutual friends rallying around Sophie to some loyal to both,
Speaker 1: some quietly choosing sides. The web of our lives entied
Speaker 1: quickly in the split, less dramatic, the night of guest
Speaker 1: equal Pot's business and heartbreak. A few hours after sunrise,
Speaker 1: Sophie messaged, I'll give you space to gay your things.
Speaker 1: I never wanted this, ely, I'm sorry. I didn't write back.
Speaker 1: There was nothing clean to say. I spent the day
Speaker 1: restlessly organizing what little was nearmine, the outlines of a
Speaker 1: new shape forming from all the emptiness. The walls of
Speaker 1: Jervy's place were bare, not sketch or prind among them.
Speaker 1: I found myself staring at the one window, like creepic
Speaker 1: or stained white paint, and contemplated opening the sketch, but
Speaker 1: just to see what would come. When my hand didn't shake,
Speaker 1: I opened it. The first page was blank, clean, soft white,
Speaker 1: waiting for something to start. I could almost hear Sophie's voice,
Speaker 1: years ago, coaxing me the pages forgiving make a mark,
Speaker 1: any mark, and you've started this time. Her absence was profound.
Speaker 1: It was just me, just my hand, just the possibility
Speaker 1: of beginning alone. The page was forgiving. I made a mark,
Speaker 1: just one diagonal and sharp, splitting the whiteness, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't anything, not at first, But I kept going, letting
Speaker 1: line sprawl in double back, forming angles that meant nothing
Speaker 1: but at least possess shape. I pressed the graphite harder,
Speaker 1: noise from Jamie's kitchen, filtered through pots, crying, and his
Speaker 1: sneaker trades on tile, grounding me to some feint ordinary,
Speaker 1: my new well trink, to the modeled light, to SAand
Speaker 1: to the waigh, my joy from grinding my teeth half
Speaker 1: the night. By the time the first sketch took form,
Speaker 1: a crude, abstract chaos, something I'd never have let Sophie see,
Speaker 1: I felt an angry satisfaction blew me in my chest.
Speaker 1: Even if everything else had splintered, at least I could
Speaker 1: move my hand and make something again. Once I would
Speaker 1: have thought to show her every rough idea. Now it
Speaker 1: closed the book and set it aside, the page of
Speaker 1: private monument, It's meaning known only to me. A notification
Speaker 1: Sophie's name pulsed on my phone. I'd left her and read,
Speaker 1: but this one was different. I boxed your books in
Speaker 1: the back of rives. Let me know when you'll come.
Speaker 1: Don't want to be here if it's too hard. Her
Speaker 1: words were tightly spaced, cadence, formal. I read the message
Speaker 1: and nurged your reply and say something final, some closure,
Speaker 1: but I found I couldn't. I turned over the phone instead,
Speaker 1: not ready. Later that morning, Jamie Howward wirrily making simple
Speaker 1: conversation about takeout places, about a couch that wobbled and
Speaker 1: needed fixing. It was normal talk, and oddly I was
Speaker 1: grateful for the small gaps at fill the way it
Speaker 1: let me be irrelevant for five minutes at a time.
Speaker 1: He didn't ask about Sophie. When I sat quiet too long,
Speaker 1: he just nod, like an arrangement had been ay between us.
Speaker 1: Not to pry. Not yet. In those hours of moving things,
Speaker 1: housing my interface, grabbing cables, sorting reference books, I felt
Speaker 1: the shape of my absence from what used to be
Speaker 1: Sophie's world. A dozen emails from mutual Ferns poured in,
Speaker 1: some carefully neutral, some lopsided in their sympathies, some marveling
Speaker 1: at how fast word traveled In the power couple circles
Speaker 1: we once led. Mara texted again, of hand. Sophie's hurting too,
Speaker 1: But please tell me if Cam ever tries to loop
Speaker 1: you in, I'll block him everywhere. A half smiled, struck
Speaker 1: by the double edged loyalty. By noon, I packed her
Speaker 1: sunflowers in a trush bag. Couldn't look at them that
Speaker 1: I've feeling the notes shadow. I left them outside Sophie's store,
Speaker 1: a wordless surrender. Inside my things were cost to boxes
Speaker 1: by the coat rack, a stack of envelopes with my
Speaker 1: name and her knee looping script. She hadn't cleared out
Speaker 1: every trace of me, not yet, but I saw the beginning.
Speaker 1: Photos moved from walls, our joint mugs turned towards the
Speaker 1: back's blush. Sophie herself was gone, as promised. On the table,
Speaker 1: she left a folded page, my handwriting and old grocery
Speaker 1: lists we drafted together, meant under line twice in her ink.
Speaker 1: My hand hovered just over it. Nostalgia, cold and sweet.
Speaker 1: But I left it there. Packing went fast, too fast.
Speaker 1: Maybe every time I stopped to breathe, the space felt smaller.
Speaker 1: The absence of her voice roaring in the corners arness chords, markers,
Speaker 1: sticky notes now look like debris, not an ecosystem. I
Speaker 1: filled the last bag and locked the apartment behind me,
Speaker 1: stepping into a world that seemed aggressively put a sley spring.
Speaker 1: Like the first night on Jamie's couch, I got a
Speaker 1: call from an old agency contact. Heard your flying solo now,
Speaker 1: want to put a pitch together for an event? I hesitated,
Speaker 1: then said yes, realizing I needed something in anything structured
Speaker 1: to concrete mine alone. Meanwhile, my phone kept lighten up
Speaker 1: with names from the old days, everything reminding me my
Speaker 1: life no longer belonged to any one's version of us.
Speaker 1: I didn't peer too closely at those who reached out
Speaker 1: just a gossip. I ignored the more insistent messages, Jamie
Speaker 1: reading one over my shoulder at breakfast. Dude, people are
Speaker 1: saying Sophie's already a canopy again with cam. Is that real?
Speaker 1: I shrugged, not giving him the satisfaction of outrage, just
Speaker 1: muted to group chap in haze of these days. The
Speaker 1: consequence is settled. Our biggest client, the one who'd always
Speaker 1: praised a santandum, called to check in. I was painfully formal,
Speaker 1: It's just me now, please, direct new contracts my way
Speaker 1: or to Sophie, but not both. The client hesitated colleagues's
Speaker 1: murmuring behind the speakerphone. Sorry, Elias, that'll take a minute
Speaker 1: to recalibrate. You two were our magic. The line went
Speaker 1: dead after awkward goodbyes. Splitting up the digital remnants of
Speaker 1: a shared business was less dramatic but more brutal than
Speaker 1: I'd imagined accounts. To separate payments to Roureau, I deleted
Speaker 1: share drafts, old templates, sketches we'd marked for Sunday, I
Speaker 1: let the emails from Sophie pill up practical, never emotional,
Speaker 1: oorcitation of things, old bill's due, a reference letter should
Speaker 1: need to finish a non profit grant. One night, after
Speaker 1: too many hours of failed sketches, I replied, send me
Speaker 1: or rates. Nobody needs to do any one favors. The
Speaker 1: loss between the lines was ugly but necessary. Meanwhile, word
Speaker 1: circled around town. People picks eides or claim to stay
Speaker 1: out of it, but you could feel the chill at
Speaker 1: every event. One night, Morrow, Brave for Reckless invited both
Speaker 1: me and Sophie to a gallery opening. I arrived early,
Speaker 1: left before dessert. I saw through the high windows Sophie's darquare,
Speaker 1: barbing through the crowd, came by her side, the two
Speaker 1: of them hovering at the epicenter. Their laughter oddly subdued
Speaker 1: my chest lock, but I kept walking. Even old acquaintances
Speaker 1: treated me like a cracked face, interesting and only so
Speaker 1: far as I didn't chatter in their hands. One even
Speaker 1: tried to commiserate, insisting that these things happen in creative pairs.
Speaker 1: Burned outs inevitable, as if there were a manual for
Speaker 1: how to be the one left behind one awkwardly. Sunny afternoon,
Speaker 1: Mara called me out for coffee. She picked the park
Speaker 1: where people still wondered, oblivious dogs, unfaced by heartbreak. She
Speaker 1: slid me in a milk latte, watching my face. I
Speaker 1: know you probably don't want to talk, but if you
Speaker 1: ever want to come back to the space, your welcome
Speaker 1: count doesn't own it. Sophie doesn't either, Ye have a way.
Speaker 1: I shook my head. Thanks, but that's not for me
Speaker 1: any more. She hesitated. For what it's worth, she's amiss too,
Speaker 1: not that it helps. I shrugged. It doesn't really. Mara nodded,
Speaker 1: and for a minute we just sipped coffee in silence.
Speaker 1: The sun improbably bright. I thought of Sophie's voice, the
Speaker 1: overlapping way she used to say my name, teasing TA,
Speaker 1: terrified of being ordinary. Now all that was gone, subsumed
Speaker 1: into this after life, of what had once been asked. Fact.
Speaker 1: That evening at Jane, I caught a notification an instagram's
Speaker 1: story from the co working space public. This time Sophie
Speaker 1: stood on a ladder, painting camp beneath her, steadying the canvas.
Speaker 1: They were laughing, her were street with color, the camera
Speaker 1: pan away, catching her in profile, a new calm and
Speaker 1: new confidence, and new context in which I simply didn't exist.
Speaker 1: That image caught at something raw. My thumb hovered to
Speaker 1: block her feet follow it anyway, send a message demanding
Speaker 1: an answer nobody could give. Instead, I powered off my
Speaker 1: phone and poured myself a glass of wine, letting the
Speaker 1: noise of possibility disipate. The next morning, I packed up
Speaker 1: the last of my boxes from Jamie's living room, paper pencils, cables.
Speaker 1: I found a one note from the old days, Sophie's
Speaker 1: block lighted instructions for making the perfect cappuccino jokijodles at
Speaker 1: the bottom. For a minute, I considered saving it, then
Speaker 1: tucked it between the pages of my new sketch book,
Speaker 1: a sliver of remembrance, not a chain. There was nothing
Speaker 1: official left to do, no lines needed drawing, no inventory
Speaker 1: needed dividing. The shape of our lives was now two parts.
Speaker 1: The center, whatever color we used to be hollowed out.
Speaker 1: For the first time, it struck me that the end
Speaker 1: wasn't screaming or fighting, or some grand betrayal every one
Speaker 1: would talk about for years. It was this a bare apartment,
Speaker 1: the smallest motions of independence, her voice echoing faintly in
Speaker 1: rooms neither of us would fully claim again. I lingered
Speaker 1: once more in Jamie's kitchen, watching the late morning sunpull
Speaker 1: of a chipfulinoleum. The silence felt tentative, but no longer empty.
Speaker 1: When I finally opened the new sketch, but no ghostly
Speaker 1: or signatures, no shared inheritance. I tore out a blunt
Speaker 1: page with careful hands. I laid it on the table,
Speaker 1: drew a single line. It was no masterpiece, no answer,
Speaker 1: just proof that I'd started again, however, shakly, in a
Speaker 1: life with one less color but space enough for something new.
Speaker 1: It was no masterpiece, no answer, just proof that I'd
Speaker 1: started again. However, shakily, and a life with one less color,
Speaker 1: but space enough for something new. I spent that afternoon
Speaker 1: trying to stay in motion. Coles came trickling in Marrow
Speaker 1: one more time, voice loaden with a guilt she hardly
Speaker 1: tried to hide. If you need someone to cuss up
Speaker 1: Camp or help with the last move box, just say
Speaker 1: the word, she offered. I told her I was fine.
Speaker 1: She let that hang between us without argument, and we
Speaker 1: both knew it was just something to fill the space
Speaker 1: vacated by all the things neither of us could fix.
Speaker 1: Every object apat every step from one room to another,
Speaker 1: sorted the borders of a life that had always been
Speaker 1: to name side by side, even the Mosemondane decision shoppened,
Speaker 1: who kept the back up charger, who got the good
Speaker 1: tape measure which batted lump would finally retire. At the
Speaker 1: bottom of a supply drawer, I found a fat envelope
Speaker 1: of Polaris from our Elia's collaborations, Surfy mucking at her
Speaker 1: first gallery meet, grinning shy behind a paint splatted hand,
Speaker 1: memories pressed flat, no life in them, but what I brought.
Speaker 1: I slid the envelope into a box I marked simply personal,
Speaker 1: then tapped it shut. A week passed before I saw
Speaker 1: Sophy again. By necessity not choice, we co signed a
Speaker 1: final invice for a grant project at an accountant's Glass
Speaker 1: World office. Their meeting all dry signatures and avoided eye contact.
Speaker 1: Her hair was tied back new dew weiglinting at her
Speaker 1: wrists a familiar copper and silver gleam. Her smile held
Speaker 1: barely through the practicalities. I watched her write her name
Speaker 1: with care, a face fixed in some private drama. There
Speaker 1: were things neither of us aft, howishes sleeping? Was the
Speaker 1: affair over? Did she plan to stay with camp or
Speaker 1: mouve cities? None of its surfaced. After the last page
Speaker 1: was initialed, she thanked me in a tired formal voice.
Speaker 1: I appreciate just thanks for making it clean, ULLI. I nodded,
Speaker 1: words sticking fast somewhere behind my teeth. Outside I got
Speaker 1: a text from Marrow just as I was tucking the
Speaker 1: lost of the paper work into my bag. Heard she's
Speaker 1: moving out of the co working space, says she needs
Speaker 1: somewhere quieter. I read it twice, an automatic, involuntary hope,
Speaker 1: will and foolish, immediate and helpful. I type back, that's
Speaker 1: her call, then put my phone in my pocket and
Speaker 1: let the whole city pass by his background noise. What
Speaker 1: followed was a kind of season, a stretch of days,
Speaker 1: practical things to handle, loose ends, emails about contracts dissolved
Speaker 1: or reassigned, Our apartment emptied, new tenants suckled. A few
Speaker 1: mutual friends offered acudal of branches, but mostly just faded
Speaker 1: to neutral in the city, smaller designed, while I became
Speaker 1: mostly a cautionary tale spoken of in the past, tense
Speaker 1: but with enough professional regard that nobody gossip to my face.
Speaker 1: Work distracted me sometimes other times it felt like a
Speaker 1: stubborn animal. I had to drag, resistant and ungainly from
Speaker 1: hour to hour. The loss sharpened and dull by turns
Speaker 1: predictable as sunset, but never entirely absent. There were moments
Speaker 1: I wanted to reach for her out of routine, to
Speaker 1: ask the question she'd once answered with a smirk or
Speaker 1: an I roll, What do you think of this? Is
Speaker 1: it too much? Does it still feel like us? Now
Speaker 1: it was only ever about me? What kind of us
Speaker 1: could ever grow back out of nothing? Mara, true to
Speaker 1: her words, stayed an occasional touch. She dropped by Jamie's
Speaker 1: with coffee and about at sketchbook brand new. You need
Speaker 1: a fresh one, she said, not the old ghosts. I
Speaker 1: didn't argue. It stayed in the wrapper for a week,
Speaker 1: then too, before I finally peeled it open, sharper for
Speaker 1: the absence of Sophie's fingerprint, free in a way that
Speaker 1: was both liberating and terrible. The first in claimed that
Speaker 1: the city my life might move on came in the
Speaker 1: form of a gallery announcement. Sophie and cam joined exhibition,
Speaker 1: their names pared out the color choices a mistakenly bold
Speaker 1: and strange ennue. The invitation was accidentally forwarded to my
Speaker 1: inbooks from an old mailing list. I deleted it, umred,
Speaker 1: some part of me refusing to, as I had even
Speaker 1: one more piece to the archive of small humiliations. And
Speaker 1: yet among all these daily scrapes, the final necessary line
Speaker 1: pressed in. I saw Sophie once more, by chance, outside
Speaker 1: a boat gone market. She looked tired, face thinner, but
Speaker 1: her eyes sharp as ever. She smiled genuinely. If shy,
Speaker 1: hi Elias, she said, and I found I could smile back.
Speaker 1: She nodded, take care of yourself, Fouquet, I managed you too.
Speaker 1: She lingered a second, then crossed the street, not looking back.
Speaker 1: It was in nothing, a small, ordinary mercy, but even
Speaker 1: that felt like an ending. I could let stand. Back
Speaker 1: in Jamie's apartment, the city's restles hush just beyond the window,
Speaker 1: I sat with my new sketchbook and clean muk. I
Speaker 1: drew not with confidence, but with the assurance that my
Speaker 1: hand was still mine, each line now only answerable to me.
Speaker 1: The apartment quiet again empty at this time, but there
Speaker 1: was still lighter way forward, uncluttered by any one else's collar.
Speaker 1: I pressed my pencil to the page, knowing whatever shape
Speaker 1: came next would be mine alone,