Speaker 1: The sunlight was already pushing in at the edges of
Speaker 1: our bedroom curtains. When I flipped over and realized Alex
Speaker 1: was up, his side of the bed was cool. I
Speaker 1: saw him standing beside the dresser, meticulous as ever, folding
Speaker 1: down the collar of his shirt and frowning at his
Speaker 1: phone the way he did when he was already somewhere
Speaker 1: else in his head. I raised myself on to one
Speaker 1: elbow and studied him, hoping he turned say good morning,
Speaker 1: the way he used to, with his coffee voice and
Speaker 1: the sleepy, accidental dimples that living together had made me
Speaker 1: the category of. He caught my eye, then forced a
Speaker 1: crooked smirk, the routine when he dusted off when he
Speaker 1: thought I needed reassurance. Don't let the rogue side Wakarta
Speaker 1: snatch you up on your walk. Yeah. He jobwed a
Speaker 1: finger at my pajama shirt, miming some old joke about
Speaker 1: my questionable fashion taste that for year as made me
Speaker 1: snort laugh before I finished my first cup this morning.
Speaker 1: I tried to play along, but my laugh tangled in
Speaker 1: my throat. The joke landed flat. He didn't seem to notice. Instead,
Speaker 1: he leaned over to kiss my forehead, missing my lips
Speaker 1: by a few inches, then snatched up his keys. As
Speaker 1: he did, he passed right by my favorite scarf, the
Speaker 1: orange and blue hand dyed one from that autumn fair
Speaker 1: in Provence, Dan, the one he used to hand to
Speaker 1: me with ceremony on chilly days, as if it might
Speaker 1: be outalisman against the world's indifference. The day he didn't
Speaker 1: even glance at it. Coffee at the rousse right. My
Speaker 1: voice sounded casual, but my stomach flooded. I'd only asked
Speaker 1: the same question last week and the week before. He hesitated,
Speaker 1: sipping his jacket halfway. Yeah, or actually maybe maple cafe.
Speaker 1: See how crowded it gets. His eyes flicked somewhere around
Speaker 1: the vicinity of my left shoulder. I'll text of plans change.
Speaker 1: I forced myself to nod like it was no big deal.
Speaker 1: Tell him, I said, hey, am Maya, and the words
Speaker 1: trailed off. I wasn't sure who else was supposed to
Speaker 1: be there any more. He flashed a distracted smile, then
Speaker 1: shut the door behind him. His footsteps down the stairs
Speaker 1: faded fast. I waited a moment and sure if I'd
Speaker 1: forgotten something important, and then pushed myself up height, the
Speaker 1: bed creaking under me. It was early, still city, noised,
Speaker 1: just building on our block. Outside, the artist who aimed
Speaker 1: a stretch of pavement with canvasses and bold sum addresses
Speaker 1: were already setting up their little street gallery. I liked
Speaker 1: being able to peek down from our living room's wide
Speaker 1: window and see bursts of color. Our neighborhood had always
Speaker 1: felt alive, bright with possibility. That was part of why
Speaker 1: we moved here, part of what glued Alex and me
Speaker 1: together when people asked why we were so sure, why
Speaker 1: we needed each other's rhythm. But lately something felt just
Speaker 1: out of reach, like a favorite real and obusted projector.
Speaker 1: I filled the kettle, holding the seramic candle a bit
Speaker 1: too tight, and stared at our fridge door. The magnets
Speaker 1: held up faded photos strips mostly of Alex and me,
Speaker 1: our arms flung around each other, the ages bent from
Speaker 1: being taken down and put back up after a dozen
Speaker 1: Unless we organized bursts this laughing and cafays us painting
Speaker 1: in some brick Waltz studio. I loosened my grip, found
Speaker 1: my phone, and scrolled back through the photos from past
Speaker 1: Saturday coffee group meet ups. Our level gang smiling mugs
Speaker 1: nearly overflowing to making some ridiculous ruckus in the back
Speaker 1: ground while my pretended to shush him. Alex always had
Speaker 1: his arms slung comfortably across my shoulders. I started to
Speaker 1: type a message into the group chatch you guys at
Speaker 1: Roostero mabele to day, but deleted it halfway. No one
Speaker 1: had said anything to me about changing the regular spot,
Speaker 1: and it felt weird to force my way in when
Speaker 1: Alex had already said it was just the guys. I
Speaker 1: thumbed for a couple more pictures, studying Alex's face from
Speaker 1: last fall. He used to look so relaxed around me,
Speaker 1: crinkling his nose when I cast something funny. I tried
Speaker 1: to summon that feeling now, but the energy in the
Speaker 1: apartment was different, staler still. I shrugged it off. This
Speaker 1: was just stess, I told myself. His new freelance gy
Speaker 1: hit him up until midnight twice this week, and I
Speaker 1: had been spinning my own wheels in the studio or two.
Speaker 1: We were both exhausted. Shift happens, it would all saddle
Speaker 1: or it wouldn't, and we'd talk it through the way
Speaker 1: we always had. At least that was the story I repeated.
Speaker 1: I found an old jooney mitel elpie, placed it gently
Speaker 1: and let the music fill the apartment. It helped a little,
Speaker 1: but as the first guitar notes echoed, I noticed how
Speaker 1: empty the place fell, to echoes bouncing off the hard
Speaker 1: the faintest trace of Alex's cologne clinging to his pillow,
Speaker 1: even the way the sunlight settled, and the gray streaks
Speaker 1: atop our bookshelves. I wrapped the Province Dan scarf around
Speaker 1: my shoulders anyway, stubborn, and I to map out my
Speaker 1: morning walk. It was Saturday. Artists would smile at me,
Speaker 1: maybe someone would wave, maybe something would click back into place. Instead,
Speaker 1: I found myself scrolling all texts, hunting for proof that
Speaker 1: it wasn't always like this. Couldn't find it, not exactly.
Speaker 1: I took a deep breath, determined not to let my
Speaker 1: anxious brain hijack a morning that wasn't even half of her.
Speaker 1: A little while later, I found myself in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: hands trembling a bit as I sipped coffee and watched
Speaker 1: a neighbor trying to wrestle as tripe to attention. I
Speaker 1: still didn't have a plan for the day, aside from
Speaker 1: half heartily sketching ideas for new text stiles I'd been
Speaker 1: avoiding for weeks. Funny how routines shape you. Ours had
Speaker 1: always been sacred to gallery nights, Saturday coffee with the crew, dumber,
Speaker 1: running jokes in the bathroom mirror. It was hard to
Speaker 1: believe that these last few weekends, I'd been waking up alone,
Speaker 1: unpacking a kind of loneliness that didn't feel familiar. The
Speaker 1: old warmth between us was shifting, like dust, colt and
Speaker 1: slow sunbeams. I tried to convince myself it would pass,
Speaker 1: that a couple of rough patches and miss punch lines
Speaker 1: didn't erase years of shared laughter and messy joeful knights
Speaker 1: making outside by some. But as I looked out the
Speaker 1: window at the pop up gallery, at Stranger's bowlbrush strokes
Speaker 1: claiming the city's surface, I couldn't help feeling like something
Speaker 1: underneath had shifted to After my walk, I lingered by
Speaker 1: our living room window, watching as artists and neighbors drifted past,
Speaker 1: caught in their un little worlds. I tested the phrase
Speaker 1: out loud, He's just tired, and it sounded plausible enough, familiar.
Speaker 1: When had that become the line? I pressed my palm
Speaker 1: flat against the cold glass that the city's puls moved
Speaker 1: through me, and tried not to wonder where exactly Alex
Speaker 1: was at that moment, and with him. It still feels
Speaker 1: strange to put a finger on exactly when I started
Speaker 1: leaning more un memory than the present. Alex and I
Speaker 1: met eight years ago on the kind of October afternoon
Speaker 1: that makes you dramatic about fate. We were both assigned
Speaker 1: to the same worn down artist co op out in
Speaker 1: the books as him with his sketch book, me with
Speaker 1: a battered canvas, tow full of yarns and half finished
Speaker 1: embroidery samplers. There were seven of us that session, but
Speaker 1: only one whose love cut through the hum of space
Speaker 1: heaters and stale coffee. I didn't think romance when we
Speaker 1: first met. I was still bristling with the kind of
Speaker 1: ambition that makes you overshare about influences and sleep and
Speaker 1: borrowed hoodies. Alex moved with the careless precision of someone
Speaker 1: who knew how to hold a brush but didn't need
Speaker 1: anyone to notice. He made space for me at a
Speaker 1: batter picnic table and mostly let me rant, sometime tod
Speaker 1: catch and watching as I pulled for its tough linen
Speaker 1: eyes narrown in mock horror if his WARTERI lulliate or not.
Speaker 1: We spent at four playing dumb games where we tried
Speaker 1: to spot each other's creative at tick sided catching, squinting
Speaker 1: at light through windows. He pointed out how m sketches
Speaker 1: feed off course whenever I ate too many soar candies.
Speaker 1: Things blurred by December, long nights in his room, shoulder
Speaker 1: to shoulder sketching each other in a yellow lamplet devotion
Speaker 1: snuck up sideways. When the residency ended, he moved back
Speaker 1: to the city, and a few months later, if all out,
Speaker 1: both of us hunting for studios in the same part
Speaker 1: of town. People asked what made us work, why it
Speaker 1: wasn't competitive or exhausting. I always said it was about energy.
Speaker 1: Ours was the kind that built on itself without boning out.
Speaker 1: Ellery nights where we watched each other's faces instead of
Speaker 1: the art. Late mornings tangled up in bed making new
Speaker 1: jokes out of all missteps. We made a home for
Speaker 1: routines Sunday at the farmers Market, Thursday night Pete's at
Speaker 1: Saturday coffee with Tim and Myern. Whoever else would hop
Speaker 1: on our little creative carousel. I'm a textile artist, living
Speaker 1: half my life with my hands in wool and silk
Speaker 1: dies under my finger nails were there almost impossible to remove.
Speaker 1: My studio is the dusty, spare bedroom shelves buckling under fabric, notes,
Speaker 1: gribbled in the margins of library books, and a manequin
Speaker 1: that somehow always in my way. Alex is a graphic designer,
Speaker 1: working mostly from home these days, his screens glowing deep
Speaker 1: into the evening to clients everywhere, from Brooklyn's startups to
Speaker 1: long lost high school friends trying to launch a podcast.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we'd collaborate, to me sketching abstract forms, him bringing
Speaker 1: them to life digitally, our art bleeding together until it
Speaker 1: was impossible to say when mine ended and has begun.
Speaker 1: I always loved that abel Us. Even when we argued,
Speaker 1: it felt productive, each of us pushing the other to invent,
Speaker 1: to admit when something wasn't working. We could be honest
Speaker 1: about failure, proud when things clicked. Sometimes, after a big
Speaker 1: win ashore a new client, he tore me around the
Speaker 1: living room, laughing until we collapsed, breathless limbs everywhere our friends,
Speaker 1: him with his endless coffee, snobbery, my sly Wi, the
Speaker 1: gallery and poets who floated through our lives held it
Speaker 1: all together. We'd hoast elaborate dinners for no reason, blow
Speaker 1: half a patriockon tickets to a new show, or just
Speaker 1: sit on the fire escape of Canbia, hecking each other
Speaker 1: as the sunset of a roof ups. But lately I'd
Speaker 1: been feeling stuck. My art had dried up, my hands
Speaker 1: moving through the same patterns over and over, nothing surprising
Speaker 1: or electric. I blamed it on the weather, on months
Speaker 1: of chasing commissions that didn't connect. Sometimes I call Alex
Speaker 1: blancing at my unfinished work. Is expression difficult to read?
Speaker 1: He'd say, you'll break through, you always do, but it
Speaker 1: landed softer than it used to. He, in contrast, seemed
Speaker 1: re energized these past few months. New clients, more meetings,
Speaker 1: back to back syncolls that left him having little melodies
Speaker 1: in the kitchen as he washed up. I admired it,
Speaker 1: envied it a little felt boyd by his confidence at first,
Speaker 1: But something about how he handled it, how his laughter
Speaker 1: didn't quite reach me on the days he was busiest,
Speaker 1: started to open a tiny, jagged space between us. We'd
Speaker 1: always take hi pride in respecting each other's independence. Even
Speaker 1: after all these years, When my anxiety flared up, when
Speaker 1: a project bombed or a friend counseled last minute, Tallic
Speaker 1: steadied me with calm reassurances, or just a hand in
Speaker 1: mine an anchor. His affection was routine, safe, like the
Speaker 1: careful scaffolding of a new piece of work. I needed that,
Speaker 1: maybe more than I admitted, So I told myself old
Speaker 1: a new weakness was part of a rough patch. It
Speaker 1: would pass. That's what I wanted to believe. But each
Speaker 1: time Alex left for coffee, each time he ducked and
Speaker 1: inside Jerko miss a detail only the two of us
Speaker 1: really shared. It felt less like the friction of growthim
Speaker 1: or like something else, something I didn't want to name.
Speaker 1: The sixth Saturday rolled around, and this time I asked
Speaker 1: if I could tag along. I tried for Breezy, standing
Speaker 1: in the doorway while he thumb for Old. Hext at
Speaker 1: the kitchen counter, hair still a little damp from his shower.
Speaker 1: He didn't look up. It's just the guys this time,
Speaker 1: bit of a catch up. You know. He was grinning,
Speaker 1: but his shoulders were dense. That's not really how it's
Speaker 1: been though, I said, searching his face for a clue.
Speaker 1: Usually Maya and I. I trailed off, realizing I sounded
Speaker 1: like I was lobbing for an invitation. He shrugged, eyes
Speaker 1: fixed on his phone, then sat it down with deliberate care.
Speaker 1: Everyone just needs to vend a little, he said. I
Speaker 1: promise we'll do the whole group next time. The way
Speaker 1: he smiled after, quick and apologetic, made me feel like
Speaker 1: a child asking to stay up pass by time, I
Speaker 1: found myself nodding without conviction. That night, at dinner, over
Speaker 1: seted mushrooms and spinach. Because I tried to make something
Speaker 1: that felt celebratory, I asked him about the meet up.
Speaker 1: How'd it go? Tim, still nursing his existential crisis over
Speaker 1: espresso quality, Alex stifled a laugh, then paused, fiddling with
Speaker 1: a spoon. Here, Tim was running late, ordered enough pastries
Speaker 1: for a football team. By the time he finally showed.
Speaker 1: Something prickled at the back of my mind. I had
Speaker 1: seen Tim's Instagram earlier the day. There had been a
Speaker 1: selfie in the airport. I remembered him posting a short
Speaker 1: video Palm trees whipping in a tropical storm made it
Speaker 1: barely superimposed in type. He was out of town to
Speaker 1: date for sure. I didn't say anything, bit into a
Speaker 1: slice of bread and let Alex keep talking. I found
Speaker 1: myself searching for an innocent reason for the slip up.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was mixed up. Maybe to coffee group was
Speaker 1: a group in theory at this point, maybe I'd forgotten
Speaker 1: what a normal adult relationship looked like. Stop spiraling, I
Speaker 1: told myself. I decided I would not tonight, not again.
Speaker 1: When the dishes were put away, I texted Maya, suggesting
Speaker 1: we meet up for the gallery show of finch House
Speaker 1: next week. Her reply was short, almost curt can't make it,
Speaker 1: tons of grating sorry, rain check a non characteristic wall.
Speaker 1: But I convinced myself it was nothing. This was what
Speaker 1: independence an adult to looked like, right, friends with their
Speaker 1: own shit, a partner wanting a few hours each week
Speaker 1: for himself. I told myself that I respected our boundaries.
Speaker 1: I liked my space as much as he did. Still,
Speaker 1: I went to sleep with a thin line of unknees
Speaker 1: humming under my ribs. The next week, I paid closer attention.
Speaker 1: It started with the little things. Alex kept his phone
Speaker 1: near him at all times, faced an even during dinner. Once,
Speaker 1: while we're heating left overs, I saw him glance sideways
Speaker 1: at a message let s, twitching at something he read,
Speaker 1: before tucking the phone quickly into his pocket. There were
Speaker 1: more skip routines too. A friend, Sarah stopped me during
Speaker 1: a Thursday gallery opening, giving me a quick hog comment.
Speaker 1: We missed you too a bunch Saturday. Howe Bolex is
Speaker 1: back to eating solid food after that mystery lasagna. I blink, confusion,
Speaker 1: halting my breath. Brunch. I thought we were meant to
Speaker 1: be at Air's opening last Saturday, but Alex said he
Speaker 1: only dropped by for a minute. Sarah laughed, shaking her head.
Speaker 1: He was, therefore, what forty five minutes? He and Beck
Speaker 1: stuck a run until the bitter end. Ye sure you
Speaker 1: are not confusing weekends. She was already drifting toward another group,
Speaker 1: not seeing that, she dropped a rock into my tranquil surface, Vica.
Speaker 1: The name registered but didn't stick. At first, all I
Speaker 1: could think was another of my partner small incomprehensible mysteries.
Speaker 1: I tried to shake it off as I wandered through
Speaker 1: the monochrome paintings, but the common trailed me back home.
Speaker 1: Over the next few days, the details stopped a line
Speaker 1: in the times he got home from emergency. Client calls
Speaker 1: got later. But when I checked his culu into something
Speaker 1: I almost never dated, though, were curious gaffs, entire days
Speaker 1: seemingly wiped away. I noticed receipts that didn't match what
Speaker 1: he told me, stories that seemed thomas if taken on
Speaker 1: their own, but together built a creeping colotte of emission.
Speaker 1: One night, I stood at the studio door eavesdrop. I
Speaker 1: knew it was wrong, childish, but the urge to no
Speaker 1: one out. Alex's voice was muted, but the laughter it
Speaker 1: was warmer, free of version. I hadn't heard him use
Speaker 1: with me in months. He caught me in the hall,
Speaker 1: cheeks flushed, fallen, still in hand. It just to him,
Speaker 1: he mumbled, suddenly awkward, and I made myself not like
Speaker 1: that answer satisfied me. I tempted to push for normalcy,
Speaker 1: suggesting one of our old to date nights. Alex seemed
Speaker 1: to brighton, But now before we were supposed to go,
Speaker 1: he suddenly had a work emergency, something about a file
Speaker 1: lost and drop boos and a needy client. He left
Speaker 1: with his laptop on no one, arms squeezing my shoulder
Speaker 1: on the way out, his attentiveness somehow all the more
Speaker 1: jarring for how calculated it felt. He returned late, as
Speaker 1: glazed with excuses, and I wound up eating takeout in silence,
Speaker 1: staring at the chip blue pottery bowl we bought on
Speaker 1: a road trip years ago. When I reached out to
Speaker 1: Myra again, she dodged me with practice of baseness, crazy week,
Speaker 1: tense parents are visiting, and my bosses being a nightmare missy,
Speaker 1: though even her emojis seemed subdued. It was at the
Speaker 1: odd Supply store a few days later that I found
Speaker 1: a receipt Alex had left on the table alone with
Speaker 1: a half done to do list. It was for the
Speaker 1: kind of indek fay I'd never heard him mention, a
Speaker 1: place called Clover and Vine, written in delicate script, two
Speaker 1: large cuffees, two pastries, Saturday morning time stamped. While he
Speaker 1: should have been with the group at Roost, the total
Speaker 1: was too high for one, too casual for something business related.
Speaker 1: I typed the address into my phone and saw it
Speaker 1: was clear across town, nowhere near the rous or Maple
Speaker 1: or Sara's show for that matter. That night, I resolved
Speaker 1: to bring it up. I waited, letting Alex finish a call,
Speaker 1: then sidled up to him on the couch. I stated, simply,
Speaker 1: I feel like we have a really connected Lately, Saturdays
Speaker 1: are different than they used to be. There's something up.
Speaker 1: He grinned with almost desperate warmth, sliding an arm around
Speaker 1: me and peppering my temple with kisses. We both need
Speaker 1: a break sometimes, Nick. He promised we'd spend next weekend
Speaker 1: together her, just as a proper date night, no distractions.
Speaker 1: I wanted to believe him. I let my body melt
Speaker 1: against his, but his touch felt performative, heavy handed. Instead
Speaker 1: of seating, I tried to sleep that night, where collecting
Speaker 1: near my collar bone, unable to shape the circular worry?
Speaker 1: Was it my fault? Was my my creative rub bleeding
Speaker 1: into our relationship? Maybe he just needed me to be
Speaker 1: less needy. When I next picked up his full and
Speaker 1: a shameful habit that left me feeling birth and powered
Speaker 1: and totsic, I found nothing. At ward, his texts were
Speaker 1: tim and the coffee group were brief. Mundane sprinkled with
Speaker 1: the usual means. His calendar, though at Gaping Hole's appointments
Speaker 1: marked and then deleted regular reminders that no longer meant anything.
Speaker 1: I caught myself searching so hard for proof, I wondered
Speaker 1: if I was just inventing patterns and white noise. I
Speaker 1: started losing sleep, waking to mental scrap books of mist details.
Speaker 1: My own art became impossible. Everything I wore felt taught
Speaker 1: and joyless. My friends meanwhile, seemed to shrink away. My
Speaker 1: barely responded to my check in tim answer texts with
Speaker 1: vague after the fat humor, I'd never felt so peripheral
Speaker 1: to my own life. I decided, against my own better
Speaker 1: judgment to focus on trusting Alex. He couldn't hide something
Speaker 1: serious from me. Not after all we'd built all the
Speaker 1: years of messy, infuriating honesty. Not after nights tangled up
Speaker 1: confessing fears and flooding each other with laughter. I wanted
Speaker 1: things to snap back into place, the way broken thread
Speaker 1: sometimes too, when stretched tight enough. Alex must have sensed
Speaker 1: my shift, because a few days later he surprised me.
Speaker 1: We take out on a bottle of the cheap Greek
Speaker 1: wine we discovered in college. Setting the table with wild
Speaker 1: fowes from a bodegain and a new sketch become wrapped
Speaker 1: the way I liked it best. He suggested an old
Speaker 1: thus routine, trading ideas for new projects, calling possible show titles.
Speaker 1: In the margins, I felt an unwinding, a fragile normalcy,
Speaker 1: as we laughed about the messes we'd made over the years.
Speaker 1: At one point I admitted in the smallest voice that
Speaker 1: I had been worried lately, that I was sorry for
Speaker 1: being anxious, for making things heavier when he was working
Speaker 1: so hard. His face shuddered. Then thought, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to make things worse when you're already stressed, he said.
Speaker 1: I figured if I gave you some room, maybe it
Speaker 1: would help. He gripped my hand hard as glistening. I
Speaker 1: hate thinking I could be adding to your pressure. Nick,
Speaker 1: I'm here, I love you. My chest hurt from guilt.
Speaker 1: I've resolved then, and that to give him must the
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt. It was my rut, my fears
Speaker 1: bleeding across our happiness. I needed to focus, create, let
Speaker 1: things breathe. The next day, tidying up after dinner, I
Speaker 1: reached for an air and fork unto the sovera, and
Speaker 1: my fingers caught something sharpen metlec. I drew it out,
Speaker 1: startled a single earring, heavy silver, studded with pale blue
Speaker 1: stun set in a swirling shape. It look handmade, striking, familiar.
Speaker 1: I'd seen it before on a woman who made the
Speaker 1: rounds at Gallery Knights. Her style unmistakable, chunky black boots, hair,
Speaker 1: cropt clothes, not a clothes friend, but enough part of
Speaker 1: our scene that the sight of that earring in our
Speaker 1: home has bowled me. I told myself there could be
Speaker 1: a hundred innocent explanations, maybe I'd have fallen out at
Speaker 1: a party. But the dread persisted, pulled in my chest.
Speaker 1: As I made tea and stared at the earring under
Speaker 1: the overhead lights, turning it over in my palm. I
Speaker 1: began to search for patents. Details I hadn't considered significant.
Speaker 1: Alex had long conversations late at night, sometimes whispering in
Speaker 1: the whole way under the pretense of moving a deadline.
Speaker 1: When I scrolled three months of old group photos on
Speaker 1: my phone, openings dinners short after shot, Becca was there,
Speaker 1: usually somewhere near Alex. In most pictures. She looked past
Speaker 1: the camera, smiling at someone nearby. I started noticing other things.
Speaker 1: To Instagram photos of Becca. The same new cafe had
Speaker 1: found on Alex's roots, posted on the same Saturdays, Alex
Speaker 1: said he was at roost with the guise or running
Speaker 1: so low errands. Alex's likes and comments on her posts
Speaker 1: were few, but punctuated with private jokes that seemed too
Speaker 1: detailed to be cattle. Tim's replies grew even more cautious
Speaker 1: when I wrote, so, who's still doing Saturdays? Should we
Speaker 1: try to rebeat brunch soon? His response, Yeah, a bunch
Speaker 1: of shifting plans lately, everyone's pulled in ten directions. Let's
Speaker 1: get together sometime soon. Non committal, the shade of normal
Speaker 1: adult business. Yet I felt myself sliding across some invisible boundary,
Speaker 1: from reasonable doubt to gnawing certainty. I hunted for more.
Speaker 1: After Alex fell asleep. I tried not to make noise
Speaker 1: as I sat in the blue light of my laptop,
Speaker 1: scrolling through Tiger with photos of gallery events. In one
Speaker 1: I found Alex and Beck's side by side, both laughing
Speaker 1: at something beyond the frame. Her elbow nudged into his ribs,
Speaker 1: his hand lingered at her back. I started laying traps
Speaker 1: for the truth the crowded gallery opening. I wove through
Speaker 1: the crowd until I found beccaneer the back, surrounded by
Speaker 1: a circle of minor art scene celebrities. She was talking
Speaker 1: to Alex using a tone I had heard before when
Speaker 1: people flirted the conversation, picking up and dropping strands of
Speaker 1: half finished stories. I watched his expression open, relaxed, that
Speaker 1: laughter again. He reached out and brushed an imaginary crumb
Speaker 1: from her sleeve, thumb lingering over her elbow. I felt
Speaker 1: a cold flush, the room pressing in. Later, I tried
Speaker 1: to bring up Becca. She is showing a new installation
Speaker 1: this month. Right. I sounded too casual, listening for any tremor.
Speaker 1: Alex shrugged, eyes sliding away here. I saw something about that.
Speaker 1: She's just a friend from the scene. Everyone knows everyone.
Speaker 1: Conversation ended period. He changed the subject asked if I'd
Speaker 1: ordered more die for my next piece that night. Sifting
Speaker 1: quietly through the mountain of receipts on his desk, I
Speaker 1: found more meals for two at beasters we'd never visited.
Speaker 1: Small gift shop charges with ambiguous notes, A train ticket
Speaker 1: on a Saturday he'd claimed to be working. The date
Speaker 1: match to Photoebeca posted from a sculpture park just outside
Speaker 1: the city. Another artist tied but nothing else to give context.
Speaker 1: The evidence was there, but always just out of focus.
Speaker 1: As all this played out, I felt myself oscillating between
Speaker 1: worry and umness. Some days I had resolved to ask
Speaker 1: Alex directly to lay it all on the table, But
Speaker 1: each time the moment came, I lost my nerve, his warmth,
Speaker 1: just convincing enough to buy another day of half belief.
Speaker 1: One evening, as I was putting away dishes, my phone
Speaker 1: pinged a message from an unknown number, just one line.
Speaker 1: You deserve better ask Alex about Becker. For a second,
Speaker 1: the message didn't even seem real. I stirred, frozen at
Speaker 1: the sink, water still running from the faucet, staring at
Speaker 1: those words like they might rearrange themselves if I looked
Speaker 1: long enough. The number wasn't saved. The city code was familiar,
Speaker 1: but that meant nothing here half our friends changed phones
Speaker 1: every contract cycle. I turned the screen off and back on,
Speaker 1: checking if it had disappeared to some fever trick of
Speaker 1: my own making. But there it was, sitting bold a
Speaker 1: loaded there. I cycled for explanations, a wrong number, a prank,
Speaker 1: someone stirring drama, maybe even Becker herself. Though I couldn't
Speaker 1: imagine to what end The thought made my neck prickle.
Speaker 1: Alex was in the next room, headphones on, lost in
Speaker 1: some design project. I felt the boundary of the kitchen
Speaker 1: grow sharper, an island from which I could see almost
Speaker 1: everything except my own next move. I dried my hands,
Speaker 1: placed the phone face down on the countertop, and forced
Speaker 1: myself not to react. For the next hour, I drifted
Speaker 1: from task to task, checking the first for dinner options,
Speaker 1: folding a pile of stubbornly mismatched socks, waiting for some
Speaker 1: surge of impulse to propel me. When Alex finally emerged, stretching,
Speaker 1: he peeked into the kitchen, you okay want to order in?
Speaker 1: I think I've used up all my creative juice for
Speaker 1: the afternoon. It would have been so easy to mention
Speaker 1: the message. I could picture countless versions of that moment,
Speaker 1: some braver nicole announcing her suspicions, brandishing the phone, demanding
Speaker 1: simple and ambiguous truth. But that nicole existed only in
Speaker 1: future tents. The present one found herself shaking her head,
Speaker 1: pasting on a tired smile. YEA just hungry, I think Tai,
Speaker 1: he grinned, pushing his hair out of his eyes in
Speaker 1: the old cheepish way I had once loved for how
Speaker 1: and studied it was perfect. I'll pull out the menu
Speaker 1: later that night, while Alex scrolled for Netflix, I texted
Speaker 1: the number back, who is this? No response? Not that night,
Speaker 1: not the next morning. I deleted the message, retype it,
Speaker 1: deleted again, corp to infear and the kind of frantic
Speaker 1: COPI only allow yourself in private. I stared at Alex's silhouette,
Speaker 1: the blank cove of his shoulders as he dozed on
Speaker 1: the sofa, his phone face down on the coffee table.
Speaker 1: Did he know? Was he waiting for me to explode?
Speaker 1: Or was it possible, in some fragment of reality still
Speaker 1: available to me, that I was on the wrong side
Speaker 1: of all this scrabbling up the walls of my own imagination.
Speaker 1: Sunday came and went quietly, and I resented the quiet.
Speaker 1: Alex made us onlets messer than usual, humming out in
Speaker 1: this melody as he worked. I watched him move through
Speaker 1: the kitchen, taking note of every detail. His distracted half smiled,
Speaker 1: the compulsive check of his phone before he shoved it
Speaker 1: in his back pocket. Every action felt like a performance
Speaker 1: for an audience of one me, always just out of
Speaker 1: the frame. At brunch, I kept looking for cracks. If
Speaker 1: he grew bored when I talked about my stalled commission,
Speaker 1: or if his stories about work friends came too easily,
Speaker 1: it would mean something. But he seemed maddeningly normal, unwilling
Speaker 1: or unable to let anything slip. His phone vibrated once
Speaker 1: he glanced at it, thumbed the yellow away, and went
Speaker 1: on with his story about a client's fail for branding pitch,
Speaker 1: as if nothing in the world had changed. I picked
Speaker 1: up my toasts, forcing myself to laugh at the right moments.
Speaker 1: By afternoon, I was exhausted, a double tire because pretending
Speaker 1: nothing was wrong as its own full time job. I
Speaker 1: retreated into my studio and tried to lose myself in
Speaker 1: yon and patten, but my hands refused to obey. I
Speaker 1: am on half finished peace, only to not the thread
Speaker 1: so tightly a snapped. In a rare fit of anger,
Speaker 1: I swept the mess aside and left it heaped on
Speaker 1: the work bench. Through the half shut door, I could
Speaker 1: just see Alex on a call. His voice was low, warm,
Speaker 1: the kind of cadence he used mostly for close friends
Speaker 1: or my mind supplied unhelpfully for lovers. I steeled myself
Speaker 1: for days, walking a careful line between investigation and denial.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be the person who trolled through
Speaker 1: some one's life for proof of betrayal, but I also
Speaker 1: couldn't stop myself from replaying each detail. Each moment took
Speaker 1: on new weight, the shirt smiles, the misaligned schedules, every
Speaker 1: laugh that didn't include me. By midweek, I felt myself unraveling.
Speaker 1: My finally answered my texts, agreeing to a quick lunch.
Speaker 1: When we met a crowded dumpling place, I blurted out,
Speaker 1: are we o kay? Have I been off lately? Question?
Speaker 1: Surprise even me? Her fogs dilled for a fraction of
Speaker 1: a second. She looked stricken. What No, Nick works just
Speaker 1: destroying me and Tim's all over the place lately with
Speaker 1: family coming and going. She smiled too. Why why did
Speaker 1: something happen? I wanted to say, as Alex said anything,
Speaker 1: did the group fall apart because of us? Instead? I nodded,
Speaker 1: feeling heat rise in my cheeks. We talked about art
Speaker 1: her teaching gig safe tobacks, but at the end, when
Speaker 1: she hugged me, My held on longer than usual, something
Speaker 1: like regret traced in her grip, and the walk home
Speaker 1: clouds rolled in threatening rain. I told myself again that
Speaker 1: I was making problems, whither were none? You inventing a mystery.
Speaker 1: Beck is just a friend. The coffee group is just busy.
Speaker 1: I chanted the lions in my head like a mantra
Speaker 1: that something kept knowing at me, a pressure that grew
Speaker 1: until it found another outlet. That night, after Alex fell asleep,
Speaker 1: I opened my laptop and pulled up our bank account,
Speaker 1: careful not to wake him. The numbers were as familiar
Speaker 1: as my own breath. A ren groceries, utility autopays, but
Speaker 1: buried between the mundane wears, charges that stood out weekend
Speaker 1: after weekend. Payments to coffee shops. I had never heard
Speaker 1: of gift shops that appeared only on Saturdays. A ticket
Speaker 1: stop for a gallery event decker headlined one I hadn't attended.
Speaker 1: I bit my lips so hard A tasted metal, toggling
Speaker 1: to Alex's social feeds. He'd always been a light poster
Speaker 1: shots of all concert tickets, the cat that visited the
Speaker 1: window sill, half finished sketches. There weren't many tags, but
Speaker 1: the ones that did exist, told the same story in
Speaker 1: crowded rooms. He was often in Becker's field, sometimes at
Speaker 1: her side, sometimes just out of shop, but always present
Speaker 1: or recurring extra in her digital life. I cycled through
Speaker 1: common threads. Most were innocuous, the stuff or share jokes
Speaker 1: and jokes. But if you stuck with me, you're always
Speaker 1: in the best places at the best times, He'd written
Speaker 1: on a photo of hers. Couldn't have done it without
Speaker 1: my secret co conspirator, She'd replied. My heart hammits so
Speaker 1: loudly it drowned out everything. I copied a handful of screenshots,
Speaker 1: then immediately felt sick, like I had stepped over some
Speaker 1: deeply personal boundary. I closed the laptop and lay in
Speaker 1: the dark, listening to Alex breathe, measuring the space between
Speaker 1: us by the sound of each ex elation. The next day,
Speaker 1: I watched him with a cute precision, how he lingered
Speaker 1: over his coffee, the way he answered when I asked,
Speaker 1: are you working late to night? He said, no, I'll
Speaker 1: be home early. Let's order Peter, too cheerful, as if
Speaker 1: he'd rehearsed the answer, But the sound of his phone
Speaker 1: vibrating later in the evening pull in to the bedroom
Speaker 1: for a private call. When he came back out, he
Speaker 1: was flushed, hair touseled, and acted as though nothing ought
Speaker 1: had passed. Friday afternoon, fresh rain on the pavement, Alex
Speaker 1: stucked into my studio, bringing a mug of JINGITEA take
Speaker 1: a break, he said, massaging my shoulders the way he
Speaker 1: used to after I had been culled over my work
Speaker 1: too long. His touch was gentle, practiced. I risked a test.
Speaker 1: You talked to Becka much she posted about that crazy
Speaker 1: installation with the suspended glass looks like a nightma to Rake.
Speaker 1: He didn't pause, but something in his expression flickered. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw she had a new show. We were talking
Speaker 1: about that at Sarah's last weekend. Actually, she's just everywhere
Speaker 1: these days. He bent to kiss my hair, just quickly
Speaker 1: before retreating back to his work. I sat blinking at
Speaker 1: the mark, unsure if I'd gotten an answer or a deflection. Again.
Speaker 1: I tried to piece together calendar. Where had he been
Speaker 1: exactly last Saturday? Why did every conversation seem to collapse
Speaker 1: when I pressed for detail? That evening, Tim messaged the
Speaker 1: group chat. One of his usual memed something about a
Speaker 1: I ruining the designed world, I responded, we overdue for
Speaker 1: a group night. No one else answered. It was just
Speaker 1: me and Tim passing links back and forth, the familiar
Speaker 1: crew silent. Not even Alex channed in, though I kept
Speaker 1: seeing him glance at his phone all night. I put
Speaker 1: it away in frustration, forcing myself to focus on fredding,
Speaker 1: a new color, blended thing I hadn't done in weeks.
Speaker 1: A dozen times that week I were host ways to
Speaker 1: corner the truth. I practiced questions, imagine scenarios, but each
Speaker 1: possibility broke down under the weight of my own uncertainty.
Speaker 1: What proof did I really have? A text? An nearing
Speaker 1: gaps and stories too much and never enough. Saturday morning
Speaker 1: came in with week sunlight and a chorus of city birds.
Speaker 1: I worked to the noise of Alex shuffing around the kitchen,
Speaker 1: already dressed, hess still damp from a hasty shower, meeting
Speaker 1: Tim at roost. He called as I shuffled into the hall,
Speaker 1: don't wait up for lunch, might be late. I caught
Speaker 1: my head. Tim had messaged about being out of town
Speaker 1: for a conference. I said nothing, just nodded, letting the
Speaker 1: moment hang loose. Ten minutes later, locked in the bathroom
Speaker 1: with my phone. I'd text this error you up for
Speaker 1: coffee to day. We'd love to catch up. Her reply,
Speaker 1: pink back, can't studio's chaos, but see you at Becca's thing.
Speaker 1: Alex said you'd be there. I sat, staring cold all over.
Speaker 1: Alex said I'd be there where. I pulled up Beck's page.
Speaker 1: A pop up installation at a new space, Clover and
Speaker 1: vine c fay and gallery running all weakened, a live
Speaker 1: dem of starting in an hour, already tagged by half
Speaker 1: our friends. A photo from last night, Alex in the background.
Speaker 1: Our mangled closely to Beccas, the light glancing off something
Speaker 1: silver in her ear. The match was unmistakable. My breath
Speaker 1: came shallow, panic sharp in my chest. She was wearing
Speaker 1: the earring, the mate to the one I'd found in
Speaker 1: our sofa. Still I didn't move. I scrolled further, hunting
Speaker 1: digital footprints, stories, captions, faces and crowds, Franz tagged together, laughter,
Speaker 1: frozen in pixels, every one apparently knowing something I did not.
Speaker 1: My pulse pounded so hard I wondered to defer my faint,
Speaker 1: but no break down came. Instead, a strange icy clarity
Speaker 1: set in I got dressed and pushed myself out the door,
Speaker 1: heading straight for the cafe where the demo was happening.
Speaker 1: The city felt unusually loud. Every crossing, every honk, every
Speaker 1: line at the pastry counter felt like some new opportunity
Speaker 1: for revelation or disaster. I walked in just in time
Speaker 1: to see Becker standing on a makeshift stage explaining her installation.
Speaker 1: Nets of colored glass shape suspended overhead like frozen birds.
Speaker 1: In the crowd, Alex stood toward the front, a little apart,
Speaker 1: watching her with a soft focus I hadn't seen directed
Speaker 1: at me in months. His mouth corked at the jokes
Speaker 1: she made, his shoulders crowding in as she moved near.
Speaker 1: He didn't see me at first. When he finally caught
Speaker 1: my eye, the shock and his face was swept quickly modulated.
Speaker 1: He raised a hand smile, but there was an awkwardness
Speaker 1: in his way that confirmed what I already suspected. Becker
Speaker 1: turned clock me and nodded coolly. I joined Sarah at
Speaker 1: the back of the room, trying to blend in, wishing
Speaker 1: for invisible Afterwards, Alex sought me out, voice light. I
Speaker 1: didn't know you were coming, Nick, this is cool. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, watching the two of them funny timing. Loved
Speaker 1: her earrings, by the way they match a lot of
Speaker 1: her stuff. He glanced at Becket, then back at me. Yre.
Speaker 1: She makes all her own jewelry. It's a thing. Is
Speaker 1: that how you pick up stray earrings? I almost asked.
Speaker 1: Instead I nodded, lit, pressed tight, and watched it as
Speaker 1: he made a show of chatting with Sarah, keeping me
Speaker 1: at his side for appearances, sick, but drifting away every second.
Speaker 1: The crowd swallowed us. Evening came and we slipped home
Speaker 1: step with Alex with some useless excuse, Beck's creones help
Speaker 1: bloating equipment, and me with a bottle of wine I
Speaker 1: barely touched alone. I lined up all my evidence, the earring,
Speaker 1: the texts, the receipts that had photos. I wrote a
Speaker 1: list of every date, every vagueness, every maybe he'd handed
Speaker 1: me over the last month. In the quiet, I realized
Speaker 1: there was barely anything I didn't already know. When Alex returned,
Speaker 1: he pretended normalcy, chatting about nothing, but his stories were
Speaker 1: thinly cloaked already im reveling. I let him talk, committing
Speaker 1: each light to memory until I felt stripped down to
Speaker 1: the nove. The city's noise faded as I lay in bed,
Speaker 1: listening to his breathing distan. This time, I clutched my phone,
Speaker 1: mine spinning with half formed plans and the sore, hollow
Speaker 1: certainty that the only thing still missing was the final,
Speaker 1: disastrous truth. But I already knew what I would do.
Speaker 1: I would wait one more day, let him offer me
Speaker 1: another story, and then I would lay at Albert. The
Speaker 1: evidence lined up, brittle and sharp, waiting for confession. The gallery,
Speaker 1: our friends, the home we'd built in claud descopit. Memory
Speaker 1: was already receding. The only thing left was for one
Speaker 1: of us to speak what the other had been too
Speaker 1: afraid to name before I slept. I sculled back to
Speaker 1: the unsaved number in my phone. My thumb hovered over it,
Speaker 1: but I didn't reply the silence. Sad enough, I turned
Speaker 1: off the lamp and lay back, letting the distant sound
Speaker 1: of the city bleed into the dark, rehearsing what I'd
Speaker 1: say when word could no longer be avoided, and in
Speaker 1: the space between heartbeats, I finally let myself admit. The
Speaker 1: version of us I had been mourning was already over.
Speaker 1: All that was left was the reckoning. When I woke
Speaker 1: the next morning, sunlight warmed its way around the curtains,
Speaker 1: soft and too forgiving. The globe beside mine was already
Speaker 1: called Alex, gone about whatever secret errand his mind had
Speaker 1: wound for him. The scattered tension from yesterday sat heavy
Speaker 1: in my chest, but under it something else, from the
Speaker 1: closest thing to come eight thousand weeks. Not comforts, just resolved,
Speaker 1: simple and angular, like the froze cut into fabric that
Speaker 1: can't be uncut. I stayed in bed for a while, unmoving,
Speaker 1: rehearsing lines in my head. When I finally got up,
Speaker 1: my body felt locked and fragile. Every movement measured so
Speaker 1: I wouldn't knock into some invisible tripoi. The earring lay
Speaker 1: on the dresser where I had left it, the tiny,
Speaker 1: gleaming accusation. I closed my hand around it, the metal
Speaker 1: cool and reel. I make coffee as softly as I
Speaker 1: could manage, retracing a morning routine at until recently, had
Speaker 1: never felt so performative. I cleaned the counter by wrote,
Speaker 1: I washed the cup. My reflection in the microwaved door
Speaker 1: didn't look back at me at all. Alex returned late
Speaker 1: in the morning, keys jangling against the door for him.
Speaker 1: He kicked his shoes off too loudly and tossed his
Speaker 1: jacket on our battered coat rack, a quick, careless dump
Speaker 1: of blomin When he came into the kitchen, his eyes
Speaker 1: darted to my face for us, but second before sliding away, Hey,
Speaker 1: he said, too neutral, you already eat? I shrugged, barely
Speaker 1: glancing at him, not hungry yet. The silence held between us,
Speaker 1: taut and expectant. He picked a bruise peach from the
Speaker 1: fruit bowl, peeling the skin in a thin, trembling spiral.
Speaker 1: For a while, neither of us spoke. My heart banged
Speaker 1: like a trat frist. Alex retreated his computer, headphones on,
Speaker 1: but I watched him from the doorway. Every so often
Speaker 1: he would glance sideways, eyes flicking to the hole, as
Speaker 1: if bracing for something. I didn't know if he expected
Speaker 1: a confrontation or was simply counting the errors into something else,
Speaker 1: some exit rout some way out. Afternoon, I walked into
Speaker 1: my studio and tried to focus on an old tapestry project.
Speaker 1: The motions were familiar, setting the loom, counting thread's spacing,
Speaker 1: the warp but the memory of yesterday's gallery, of Becky's
Speaker 1: voice being too loud in a small space where Alex's
Speaker 1: smile not meant for me, scattered any hope of focus.
Speaker 1: The earring burned in my pocket, a talisman or a wound.
Speaker 1: Afternoon fell heavy. I found myself scrolling past beck his
Speaker 1: social feeds, searching again for clues. There was nothing explsis
Speaker 1: that everything was hid and obvious only in hindsight. Therefore,
Speaker 1: any one who was a met ignore The line between
Speaker 1: my imagination and what I knew had been crossed and
Speaker 1: recrossed so many times I couldn't find my way back Alex.
Speaker 1: His phone buzzed round five. He left the room to
Speaker 1: answer it, shut in the door to our bedroom behind him.
Speaker 1: His voice was cautious, low, muffled, half loss, punctuated with silence.
Speaker 1: I listened from the hole as long as I could
Speaker 1: hold myself, still willing stronger, meaner version of me to
Speaker 1: just push the door open and this, But I didn't move.
Speaker 1: When he came out, he didn't meet my eye. He
Speaker 1: washed his hands twice, checked the time, then drifted back
Speaker 1: to his desk, pretending at work. An uneaten salad wilted
Speaker 1: on the kitchen table. I watched the city begin to darken,
Speaker 1: light sinking below roofs, and realized this stretch of quiet
Speaker 1: had become unbearable. I could not live another evening turning
Speaker 1: over evidence in secret, pointing it clues only I could see.
Speaker 1: So I set the ear ring in the center of
Speaker 1: the dining table, then texted Alex, we need to talk now.
Speaker 1: He hesitated in the hall, hands in his pockets. When
Speaker 1: he walked in. He saw the ear ring before he
Speaker 1: saw me, his body slack, almost imperceptibly. An old trick
Speaker 1: failing to play. A hush fell thick enough to drown us.
Speaker 1: The table between us, the ear ring, a silent line
Speaker 1: now couldn't be crossed back over. I started, simply, whose
Speaker 1: is this? He blinked slow and blank as a drowning man,
Speaker 1: but the mass didn't hold. I don't. Then he stopped.
Speaker 1: I met his eyes and let the silence do the work.
Speaker 1: He were a clover and vine. Yesterday Becca was wearing these.
Speaker 1: He looked away. That's not I cut him off. I've
Speaker 1: seen the receipts, the train tickets, the coffee places here
Speaker 1: deleted appointments. He didn't go to roost Tim wasn't even
Speaker 1: in the city. Sarah didn't see you for brunch. She
Speaker 1: saw you at Becky's show. Why are you lying to me?
Speaker 1: His jaw flexed as he sat, hands palm down on
Speaker 1: the table, as if bracing for impact. Nicholl, let's just talk. Okay,
Speaker 1: this isn't it talk, I repeated, voice sharp, then talk
Speaker 1: because I'm untracing the gaps. I found this. I pointed
Speaker 1: to the earring, then paused. I want the truth. He
Speaker 1: tried to gather himself, then failed. Denial flickered there, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't muster it fully. It's not what you think,
Speaker 1: he said softly. Ey's redder than I'd ever seen them. O. K,
Speaker 1: I've been it's been complicated. Becca. She's just some one
Speaker 1: who gets it. I needed to talk to some one
Speaker 1: who wasn't inside all of this, who gets what, Alex,
Speaker 1: My work hasn't been right in you er. He looked
Speaker 1: up this pleaded raw. You've been so locked in your
Speaker 1: own head lately. I knew you were struggling, and every
Speaker 1: time I brought it up it felt like I was
Speaker 1: just adding more wite. Becca was just she listens. She
Speaker 1: doesn't judge me. I scoffed, not bothering to hide the
Speaker 1: bitterness she listens. Is that why she's in our apartment,
Speaker 1: losing jewel in the couch, sharing those jokes with Ye
Speaker 1: that even I can't follow any more. What about all
Speaker 1: of the times you lied, the Saturday mornings you weren't
Speaker 1: at roost, the meals, the gifts. What do I have
Speaker 1: to do to get a single honest answer? He swallowed, Hans,
Speaker 1: bawling to fists. It was supposed to be nothing. I
Speaker 1: met her at the cafe one weekend, and it was easy,
Speaker 1: and then I, I don't know, Nick, I just didn't want
Speaker 1: to drag you into it. I thought if I pulled
Speaker 1: away a little, you thought my voice trembled. He thought
Speaker 1: denying me in our own house was better than the truth.
Speaker 1: Ye denied me every Saturday for a month. It wasn't
Speaker 1: about denying you, He sounded desperate, then defensive. I just
Speaker 1: everything kept getting heavier between us. The more I tried
Speaker 1: to make you feel better, the more helpless I felt.
Speaker 1: Beck paid attention. Okay, she made me feel like I
Speaker 1: could actually talk without being judged for not having it altogether.
Speaker 1: She didn't see me the way you did. A caretaker,
Speaker 1: a prop. I let the words hang, humming with anger.
Speaker 1: And when did it stop being just talking? He covered
Speaker 1: his eyes. The past few weeks, that said, just to
Speaker 1: just since the group's order fell apart. I swear, don't
Speaker 1: you dare wadder down what you did? I saw you together,
Speaker 1: I watched you with her. If it was nothing, why
Speaker 1: did you run every part of your life for a
Speaker 1: sip to hide it? My voice rose and broke. I
Speaker 1: never meant for it to go there, he whispered. I
Speaker 1: didn't even realize it was happening until it was too late.
Speaker 1: The first time was after the demo at her studio.
Speaker 1: She invited me to help with the install. We grabbed coffee.
Speaker 1: That just kept happening. I should have stopped. I kept
Speaker 1: telling myself it was a phase. But then he stopped.
Speaker 1: Breath hitching and your friends? I pressed, Did Tim and
Speaker 1: miya know? Did every one no accept me? He shook
Speaker 1: his head too fast. No, maybe my suspects something. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Tim barely talks to beca. It wasn't some
Speaker 1: big plot, But the coffee group just faded because I
Speaker 1: made it fade. I kept making excuses to see her instead.
Speaker 1: That demo was that your first time, Alex Flinch, the
Speaker 1: truth written in the set of his jaw. No, I
Speaker 1: kissed her the week end before once. Then if it
Speaker 1: didn't stop, I turned away to hide the sudden well
Speaker 1: of tears. Hut humiliating. It never stops with people like you,
Speaker 1: does it. My voice surprised even myself. You find a
Speaker 1: crack and just keep pushing until everything's in ruins. He shook, lips,
Speaker 1: thin and colorless. Nick, I fucked up. I know that
Speaker 1: I don't expect you to forgive me. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the hell I was thinking. I steadied my breath,
Speaker 1: looking at the small circle of blue studded metal between us,
Speaker 1: as if it could explain something about all these indissecting wounds.
Speaker 1: I picked it up, pressed the sharp edge into my
Speaker 1: pom until I remember myself. Finally, I pushed back from
Speaker 1: the table the chair like scraping. You don't get to
Speaker 1: decide what weighs Moore. You're boardem on my trust. You
Speaker 1: don't get to lie to me in my own house
Speaker 1: and act like it was about protecting me. Outside, the
Speaker 1: late blue dusk was closing in city lights, popping on
Speaker 1: cold neonamross colored bricks, Somewhere in that tangle, our old
Speaker 1: life kept moving, a parade of strangers and friends, quiet,
Speaker 1: dramasm winding. Alex covered his mouth with his hand, shaking
Speaker 1: with silent grief. I watched him for a moment, feeling
Speaker 1: emptied out and a waywards can't patch up. We sat there,
Speaker 1: caught between everything we tried to build and what couldn't
Speaker 1: ever be mended. All the while the airring rested on
Speaker 1: the table. The world suddenly shrunk into this one sharp point.
Speaker 1: I didn't stay. Maybe I should have screamed, or demanded
Speaker 1: more confessions, or thrown something, but all my energy went
Speaker 1: into gathering myself, moving through the apartment to collect just
Speaker 1: what I needed. In our bedroom, I packed a small back,
Speaker 1: clothes for a few days, my toothbrush, the sketch bick
Speaker 1: Alex had brought in the last doomed attempt at comfort,
Speaker 1: a sweater that didn't smell like him. My hand shook,
Speaker 1: but the motions were clean, automatic. In the silence, Alex
Speaker 1: didn't follow, I heard him moving in the kitchen, a
Speaker 1: soft and broken sound, paper towels torn, a heavy muck,
Speaker 1: set down too hard. He made no effort to explain
Speaker 1: himself again. There went more words to defe and what
Speaker 1: he done, and I didn't ask for them. I text
Speaker 1: him Meyern, short choked lions, explaining only that I needed
Speaker 1: her spare bed, that it was urgent, but I was okay.
Speaker 1: She replied, almost instantly, of course, here whenever you need.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry. There was nothing more needed.
Speaker 1: I slung the bag over my shoulder, pausing at the
Speaker 1: living room window for a lost glimpse of the street
Speaker 1: where artists had already packed up. The sidewalk returned to dolkray.
Speaker 1: Bits of color tape marked the spaces where paintings once stood.
Speaker 1: On the way out, I drafted a message to our
Speaker 1: wider friend group, leaving the specificsun touched Alex and I
Speaker 1: are taking some space. Don't ask for details. I need time.
Speaker 1: I hit SIN, then turn my phone off. In the hall,
Speaker 1: the apartment sounded hollow, the memory of shared dinners, jokes
Speaker 1: in the shower, wild laughter at the TV, the scatter
Speaker 1: of his sketches mingled with mine on the wall. I
Speaker 1: felt the lost line everywhere, at once sharp and impossibly real.
Speaker 1: I called my gallery, left a brief message. Stepping back
Speaker 1: from my next shore, I said nothing about why. As
Speaker 1: I went to leave, Alex stopped just short of the door,
Speaker 1: his voice barely above a whisper. I'm so sorry, Nick.
Speaker 1: I know it doesn't help, but I am. I ruined it,
Speaker 1: I ruined everything. Please don't don't shut me out forever.
Speaker 1: I looked at him, standing uneven, hands empty, the smallest
Speaker 1: he'd ever looked. I need air, I said, and you
Speaker 1: need to stop making this about your regret. I can't
Speaker 1: carry it up for you. Before he could answer, I
Speaker 1: stepped past him, my bones vibrating with the strain of
Speaker 1: holding back anything more. I didn't look back until I
Speaker 1: reached the street, only then hearing the faint, lost click
Speaker 1: of the devaults sliding home outside, the early nightcrack with
Speaker 1: city noise, horns, distant music, the fleeting laughter of people
Speaker 1: embothered by the living rooms they'd never see. I took
Speaker 1: the first steps east and certain, but grateful for the
Speaker 1: steadiness of the pavement under foot. The gallery signs cleared
Speaker 1: a few blocks away, but I kept my head down,
Speaker 1: drifting toward my's addressed, the bag heavier than it ought
Speaker 1: to be. Her door was open when I arrived, her,
Speaker 1: her quiet and complete, no questions asked, she'd made up
Speaker 1: the spare bed with miss mashed sheets, a glass of
Speaker 1: water waiting bedside. Alone in the room, I sat on
Speaker 1: the edge of the bed, sketch next to me, still sealed.
Speaker 1: I allowed myself a few minutes to fall apart, just
Speaker 1: enough to hear how hollow the egg could sound. Then
Speaker 1: I inhaled, wiped my eyes on my sleeve, and let
Speaker 1: the nothing a settle in. In the minutes before dawn,
Speaker 1: Restless and sleepless, I reached for the sketch book, my
Speaker 1: hands still trembling. I tore open the wrapper and flipped
Speaker 1: to a clean white page. The pencil hovered. I didn't
Speaker 1: search for meaning, just made jagged marks, tracing the outline
Speaker 1: of the window frame, then the edge of a distant roof,
Speaker 1: then a tangle of lines, meant to capture the empty
Speaker 1: space where my life had split from his. The city
Speaker 1: was rising again, birds in the alley, the hum of traffic,
Speaker 1: another day beginning in a world that had tipped on
Speaker 1: its axis. I didn't know what would come next, or
Speaker 1: how long it would be before I returned to a place
Speaker 1: that felt like home. But in that uncertain quiet penon
Speaker 1: had I realized this silver of truth belonged only to me,
Speaker 1: and for the first time in months, I felt something
Speaker 1: starting that he couldn't do. I didn't sleep, not really,
Speaker 1: just drifted in an ow waves of exhaustion, lapping at
Speaker 1: the brittle shore of what was left the city's mechanical
Speaker 1: dawn seeped through his half drawn blinds. Even with the
Speaker 1: hug of her wolf fur around my shoulders, I hovered
Speaker 1: between alertness and collapse, my body refusing reassurance from any softness.
Speaker 1: I felt myself shrinking and swelling all at once, as
Speaker 1: though the events of the last twenty four hours pressed
Speaker 1: out from under my skin in unpredictable pulses. I drank
Speaker 1: coffee at mys dinged up kitchen table. Her presence diffused
Speaker 1: any other room, gentle and wordless. I read her old
Speaker 1: sticky notes on the fridgid by spinach. Don't let Tim
Speaker 1: meet last doughnut and let their triviality scrape against the
Speaker 1: raus in my chest. My phone buzzed twice in quick succession.
Speaker 1: I turned it face down, but couldn't resist checking after
Speaker 1: a minute, the compulsion pulling me toward one more drop
Speaker 1: of pain. Alex. Of course, the first message was a
Speaker 1: block of texts the preview already enough, Please call. I
Speaker 1: can't believe what I did. I need to explain. I
Speaker 1: deleted it and read, refusing emotional labor. He kept out
Speaker 1: sourcing to me. The next was just a string of apologies, desperate,
Speaker 1: clumsy with self pity, begging for a response. Instead of
Speaker 1: deleting that one, I powered my phone off entirely, craving
Speaker 1: a silence thick enough to let me hear my own pulse.
Speaker 1: I tried to eat, but every bite turned to pace.
Speaker 1: I counted my SIPs of coffee by the slow, methodical
Speaker 1: strokes of my pencil. One line, one swallow, one line.
Speaker 1: I thought I might disintegrate, but my body stayed stubbornly together,
Speaker 1: proof against the dissolution that felt so overdue. Mike came
Speaker 1: in at some point, setting a mug quietly beside mine,
Speaker 1: her glance heavy with sadness. Do you want me to
Speaker 1: work from here to day? She offered, voice unusually tentative.
Speaker 1: I can distract you if you want, I consider testing
Speaker 1: my voice. Thanks, but I think I need to take
Speaker 1: a walk. I don't know. I can't think inside my
Speaker 1: own head right now, she nodded. Standing there a moment
Speaker 1: her presence, a shield, and a stinging reminder that in
Speaker 1: some way she'd known or suspected long before. I love
Speaker 1: myself to see her hand hovered near my shoulder, not
Speaker 1: quite touching. You know you can stay as long as
Speaker 1: you need, she said. I nodded, eyes brimming, but the
Speaker 1: tears didn't fall. When she left for her meeting, I
Speaker 1: pulled on my shoes with numb hands and stepped out
Speaker 1: into the cold, new air. The city's streets felt harsher
Speaker 1: than usual, nearly hostile in their ordinary rhythm. I walked
Speaker 1: for half an hour with no aim, passing the cafe
Speaker 1: with Becka's installation still glimmered behind the windows. I paused
Speaker 1: at the curb opposite, staring through the glass at the
Speaker 1: looping threads of colors suspended overhead, their shapes reminiscent of
Speaker 1: bird wings or torn banners. Inside, a small cluster of
Speaker 1: artists gathered, murmuring about some new commission. I could see
Speaker 1: Becha I had tilted as she gestured at a wall
Speaker 1: display hay shorter than I remembered, a sliver of blue
Speaker 1: wearing peeking through the sight of her, wholly at ease
Speaker 1: in the very world that had gutten me sent a
Speaker 1: fresh wave of nossa through my body. I told myself
Speaker 1: I wouldn't go in. I didn't want to make a sea,
Speaker 1: nor worse, be reduced to some cautionary tail drifting on
Speaker 1: the breeze of other people's gossip. I circled the block,
Speaker 1: circling my own bedness with each step, until the pent
Speaker 1: up rage pushed me back towards the space I least
Speaker 1: wanted to see. I crossed the street and slipped inside.
Speaker 1: The interior felt warman than expected, but I was cold.
Speaker 1: A stone Beca noticed me almost immediately, flicker of surprise
Speaker 1: Matdie guilt in her eyes before she mastered it with
Speaker 1: an all too casual smile. She detached herself from her
Speaker 1: friends and approached arms crossed over her chest, as if
Speaker 1: that might close off the possibility of confrontation. Nicholl Hey.
Speaker 1: Her voice was careful, exercised an artists poischiating every word.
Speaker 1: I met her gaze, my own voice flat saw your
Speaker 1: new piece. Congratulations? Was it cruel? Or had I earned
Speaker 1: the right to be blunt? For a second, I thought
Speaker 1: she might often slip into apology, but instead she mirrored
Speaker 1: my neutrality with infuriating steadiness. Thanks, I'm sorry about ah.
Speaker 1: Her words faltered. Is Alex okay? That more than anything
Speaker 1: stoke my anger? He lied to me? You both did,
Speaker 1: She inhaled, held it. I watched as she weighed her words,
Speaker 1: or maybe just calculated the minimum should need to say
Speaker 1: to defuse a confrontation. I never wanted it to go
Speaker 1: how it did, she finally murmured, glancing over her shoulder
Speaker 1: to make sure we were still out of ear. Shut.
Speaker 1: It wasn't supposed to become a thing. Well they did,
Speaker 1: I whispered back, drym out you left your earing on
Speaker 1: my sofa. It was supposed to be a secret for
Speaker 1: how much longer? Exactly? Her face pinched dispose for a beat.
Speaker 1: He said it was over with you? Or nearly? He
Speaker 1: never said, oh, she stopped short. I'm not excusing anything.
Speaker 1: I just he said he felt alone, and now he
Speaker 1: made it sound like he'd already drifted apart. A bitter
Speaker 1: last slipped up before I could check it. No, we
Speaker 1: weren't over. He was just starting the next story before
Speaker 1: he finished hours. The shame and uncertainty in her eyes
Speaker 1: told me everything. It wasn't just Alex's betrayal. It was
Speaker 1: the way the story had been co authored, explanations tailor
Speaker 1: to whatever would hurt, least truce, tangled up for convenience.
Speaker 1: I gave her no further release, letting the silence mother
Speaker 1: whatever other excuses she tried to muster before I turned
Speaker 1: to leave. My walk back to Mayas was a slow
Speaker 1: aching orbit. I kept thinking about what it meant to lose,
Speaker 1: not just Alex, but the entire architecture of our world,
Speaker 1: the friends, the rituals, the fragile web trest that held
Speaker 1: our scene together. Scandal would ripple through the group, maybe
Speaker 1: not in public, not in art well headlines, but certainly
Speaker 1: in the glances people shared at the next opening, the
Speaker 1: sympathetic texts that would flutter, and from friends who didn't
Speaker 1: know what else to say. By the time I reached
Speaker 1: Maya's stoop, my anger had called into something brutal. Emphasise
Speaker 1: I was dune lighting pain keep me immobile. I would
Speaker 1: not be the one bleeding at the scent of some
Speaker 1: one else's mess. While the world returned to its routine. Inside,
Speaker 1: Maya was at her desk, laptop open, headphones around her neck.
Speaker 1: She muted her meeting and turned to me, do you
Speaker 1: want to talk about it, she asked, jam I shook
Speaker 1: my head. I talked to Becca. She's as lost as
Speaker 1: the rest of us. Maya's expression twisted with sympathy. You
Speaker 1: don't owe anyone forgiveness, she said, her voice sturdy, as
Speaker 1: if she needed to draw a boundary on my behalf.
Speaker 1: I know of, I said, but I need to tell
Speaker 1: Alex to stop contacting me. My voice was steadier than
Speaker 1: I expected. I need space, real space, not just geography.
Speaker 1: She nodded, picking up her mug and offering a quiet
Speaker 1: kind of solidarity. If you want me to be in
Speaker 1: the room when you call him, I will. I must
Speaker 1: at a weak smile. I think I can handle this
Speaker 1: part alone. She squeezed my hand briefly, the kind of
Speaker 1: touch you remember later for its completeness. I went into
Speaker 1: her small bedroom, shoes off, perched at the edge of
Speaker 1: the matdress. I turned my phone back on, watched Alex's
Speaker 1: torrent of miss calls and messages bloom across the lock
Speaker 1: screen like dandelions choking out everything that could grow in
Speaker 1: their shadder. I called him. My hands were steady. The
Speaker 1: nerve's gone flat. He picked up after half a ring. Nicholl,
Speaker 1: Thank god, I was worried. Don't I said, don't make
Speaker 1: this about your feel I'm not coming back to day.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm coming back at all. I
Speaker 1: tried to keep the tremor out of my voice, but
Speaker 1: held it anyway. I need you to stop texting. I
Speaker 1: need you to let me breathe without you watching or
Speaker 1: pleading for forgetness you haven't earned. He started, voice cracking.
Speaker 1: I get it. I'm sorry. I just if we could talk,
Speaker 1: if you could just come home, we could. There is
Speaker 1: no we to talk about right now. You need to
Speaker 1: face what you did, really face it, and not with
Speaker 1: me as your audience. This isn't about patching over broken glass.
Speaker 1: I'm stepping back from the gallery and stepping back from
Speaker 1: everything for a while, and I need you to respect that.
Speaker 1: For a moment's silence, then quietly, I'm sorry, Nick, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. I was stupid. I was selfish. You were,
Speaker 1: But I'm not interested in being the person who makes
Speaker 1: you feel better about that. Not now. I hung up
Speaker 1: before he could say more, surprised at how much light
Speaker 1: I felt for having drawn a line, even if it
Speaker 1: didn't close the wound. Back in the living room, I
Speaker 1: told Meyer it was done that he wouldn't reach out again,
Speaker 1: at least not for a while. My words sounded tired
Speaker 1: but certain. She pressed a mug of tea into my hands,
Speaker 1: and unspoken understanding passing between us. She didn't tell me
Speaker 1: what to do next, didn't prescribe hope, just let the
Speaker 1: moment rest between us until I could breathe again. I
Speaker 1: spent the afternoon of fit since starts try to gnap,
Speaker 1: scolled more jagged lines in the sketch book, made a
Speaker 1: show of eating something bland and safe. The city trundled
Speaker 1: on beyond the window, indifferent and alive. All the sounds
Speaker 1: at once associated with home now felt that a distance
Speaker 1: echoes that couldn't bruise me. I realized that future invitations
Speaker 1: would be different than the people who had once composed
Speaker 1: our circle would have to choose, and that for once
Speaker 1: I wasn't afraid of which their loyalties might shake out.
Speaker 1: Near dusk, as I tidied the spare bed for the
Speaker 1: first time and hours, my phone vibrated. This time it
Speaker 1: was a short message from Tim Nick. I'm so sorry
Speaker 1: I should have checked in sooner. Please let me know
Speaker 1: if you need anything. I miss you. We all do.
Speaker 1: I stared at it for a long second. I considered
Speaker 1: how much of our social orbit had been built on
Speaker 1: gentle avoidance. No one naming what the feared might snap
Speaker 1: the fragile lines holding us together. But it didn't matter now,
Speaker 1: No one would ever know every detail of what passed
Speaker 1: between Alex and me in private. The real it was
Speaker 1: how much of the grief would remain in busy the
Speaker 1: tiny deaths and lofty trust shared habit, the hope for
Speaker 1: a pair that had vanished before I'd even named what
Speaker 1: was broken. The sky beyond my's apartment was streaked with
Speaker 1: umber and bruise, blue footsteps I could in the stairwell
Speaker 1: as some one's evening unfolded with a different kind of urgency.
Speaker 1: I sat on the floor, armskilt round my knees, I
Speaker 1: stinging but dry. I hesitated only a moment, then texted
Speaker 1: him back, Thanks, I need some time. Please tell me
Speaker 1: not to worry about me to night. I'll be okay,
Speaker 1: he replied, with a heart nothing more. Finally, I set
Speaker 1: my phone down still for the first time all day.
Speaker 1: I reached for the sketchbrook one last time, tracing the
Speaker 1: outline of my own hand shaking it solid a proof,
Speaker 1: at least, that I could still draw something real. For
Speaker 1: the first time in weeks, I didn't feel compelled to
Speaker 1: look backwards, to interrogate every memory or excuse. There was
Speaker 1: only the room, the waning light, and the silent adam
Speaker 1: in fact, that this moment belonged entirely to me, and
Speaker 1: that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I
Speaker 1: will see you in the next one. Stret