Speaker 1: Saturday mornings aren't supposed to feel like this, like a
Speaker 1: series of polite excuses standing in for something warm. This
Speaker 1: one started out hopeful enough for a change. I woke
Speaker 1: before my alarm, sunlight folding through the curtains with that
Speaker 1: lazy gold tilt. You only get three months a year
Speaker 1: in this city in theory, an ideal Saturday. In practice,
Speaker 1: I already sensed a hollow. A market ritual is a
Speaker 1: small thing, but it's the one fixed star in a
Speaker 1: week that spins too fast. It started when we first
Speaker 1: moved in together, the giddy early stage, when you romanticize errands,
Speaker 1: the weekly combination of fresh sowdow, tiny batch cheeses, and
Speaker 1: whoever happened to be busking on the avenue. We'd make
Speaker 1: a whole thing out of it. Coffee pastries, swapping opinions
Speaker 1: about the latest artisanal trend, planning meals we'd probably never
Speaker 1: get around to cooking. Silly but real it was ours. You,
Speaker 1: usually finishing a shift at six or seven a m.
Speaker 1: Sometimes later. I used to love the way he'd step in,
Speaker 1: smelling of bourbon and bitters, energizing the room even with
Speaker 1: exhaustion in his bones. This morning, I lined up two
Speaker 1: mugs next to the press set our canvas bags, washed
Speaker 1: the strawberries as quietly as I could, all these motions habitual, stubborn,
Speaker 1: little faiths. My phone buzzed at six eleven a m
Speaker 1: a text that shouldn't have pricked quite so sharply, Sorry, babe,
Speaker 1: supplier wants to do an early tasting. Love you. The
Speaker 1: words themselves are bland, it was the tone, not cruel,
Speaker 1: not dismissive, but so operational. Supplier once not, I'll be late,
Speaker 1: but I'll try to hurry or rain check on the
Speaker 1: quassas he added love you as a formality. I lingered
Speaker 1: on the message for a full minute, thumb hovering over
Speaker 1: the screen, like maybe I could draw something more caring
Speaker 1: out of it if I blinked harder. I replied, okay,
Speaker 1: good luck, with a little smiley emoji that didn't match
Speaker 1: my face at all. I kept the message light, like
Speaker 1: we always do. Our private joke earned after years of
Speaker 1: seeing couple's spiral into melodrama over trivial moods. We'd always
Speaker 1: prided ourselves on our ability to brush things off, to
Speaker 1: hold the larger story together. And yet standing there pouring
Speaker 1: his coffee into a therm as he wouldn't claim. I
Speaker 1: felt a specific disappointment I couldn't quite name. Not anger,
Speaker 1: not suspicion, yet, just a sensation that my mourning had
Speaker 1: been gently appropriated, someone else's priority inserted between us. We'd
Speaker 1: missed market before dozens of times, over real conflicts, hangovers,
Speaker 1: last minute calls, but this felt like a script change.
Speaker 1: Only he'd been handed. At eight thirty seven, Thinking of
Speaker 1: sticking my nose out for the paper, I noticed the
Speaker 1: half open closet door and the empty hook meant for
Speaker 1: his navy scarf. Not a lightweight, decorative thing, but his
Speaker 1: favorite thick marino faded along the ends, always draped on
Speaker 1: his coat during cold months. But it was April, the
Speaker 1: chill barely enough to raise goose bumps, and he hadn't
Speaker 1: worn it for at least three weeks. He's particular about
Speaker 1: these things, always has been. I grabbed it off the
Speaker 1: hook in my mind, then realized there was nothing to grab.
Speaker 1: Staring at that empty corner, I asked myself, since when
Speaker 1: does supplier mean weak ends? And who dresses up for it?
Speaker 1: Bundles up when you barely need a jacket? A microscopic
Speaker 1: shiver across my skin a warning, or just ordinary nerves
Speaker 1: amplified by lack of sleep, I scolded myself. Surely I
Speaker 1: was being paranoid. He's always run on bar world hours,
Speaker 1: and I understand that the industry's rhythms aren't designed to
Speaker 1: align with normal couple rituals. I tried to remember if
Speaker 1: he'd taken that scarf for a reason. Maybe he'd needed
Speaker 1: to run out for a cigarette after his shift. Maybe
Speaker 1: he'd left it at the bar. Maybe he was just
Speaker 1: covering a hickey, for all I knew. I snorted at
Speaker 1: that dark humor, No suspicion intended, but my laugh sounded
Speaker 1: thin in the echoing quiet of our apartment. I made
Speaker 1: my own coffee, sipped it by the open window. The
Speaker 1: morning was cool, crisp, just audible with city life. I
Speaker 1: told myself to wait, to trust, to honor the easer
Speaker 1: going us we'd always insisted on being, But I couldn't
Speaker 1: quite shake the feeling that the morning that was supposed
Speaker 1: to be mine ours was now mysteriously not. The thing
Speaker 1: about trust is how it grows deep, invisible ropes between lives.
Speaker 1: You tug, you test, and if you're lucky, it holds.
Speaker 1: Six years, we'd built something strong enough to balance on.
Speaker 1: The first time I met him, the city was still
Speaker 1: new to both of us. It was my second product launch,
Speaker 1: a pop up gallery, half my salary, gamboled on rented
Speaker 1: lights and white walls. He was slinging cocktails behind a
Speaker 1: makeshift bar, laughs, echoing up to the rafters, making jokes
Speaker 1: with a confidence that bordered on mischief. My friend Lana,
Speaker 1: who'd curated the show, dragged me over, whispered, you need
Speaker 1: to meet this one. Trust me. He poured something citrusy,
Speaker 1: grinned that off beat, unstudded grin, and said, you look
Speaker 1: like someone with too many ideas and not enough time.
Speaker 1: We were hooked within days. The life we built was
Speaker 1: compressed and busy, stitched together from mutual friends, work obsessions,
Speaker 1: two loud dinners, and pause button passion. Our apartment, a
Speaker 1: third floor walk up above a hair salon, was close
Speaker 1: enough to the night life strip that we'd sometimes drift
Speaker 1: to sleep to the sound of crowds, or wake at
Speaker 1: two a m. To a new playlist thumping from the
Speaker 1: bar he managed. He reveled in the chaos, bartending first,
Speaker 1: then stepping up to bar manager last winter. With the
Speaker 1: new responsibilities came erratic hours and a sudden crop of
Speaker 1: supplier meetings and manager checkins, odd but understandable. I believed
Speaker 1: him easily. I wanted to. My work is a different beast.
Speaker 1: Design runs on deadlines, client drama, creative droughts that threatened
Speaker 1: to empty the bank account. I built my studio fast,
Speaker 1: stacked with hope, but it's always been precarious. I've envied
Speaker 1: his steadiness, even when the bar world is wild with
Speaker 1: stories and flings, He's always come home, always bragged about
Speaker 1: resisting temptations of the scene. I liked being the exception.
Speaker 1: Week Days were separate planets. He'd roll in for breakfast
Speaker 1: while I'd already be on my second coffee laptop glowing.
Speaker 1: But on week nds, unless the universe intervened, we belonged
Speaker 1: to each other, market coffee, pastry, easy conversation, dinner parties
Speaker 1: followed by impromptu park walks. Sometimes he'd sneak into my meetings,
Speaker 1: bringing coffee and making all my stressed clients like him
Speaker 1: better than they liked me. We joked that he was
Speaker 1: the charmer and I was the engineer. This past year,
Speaker 1: though the air between us thickened. His promotion came as
Speaker 1: the city stumbled through a weird, tense winter bar politics.
Speaker 1: He called it rolling his eyes at every mension. More
Speaker 1: money theoretically, but extra hours swallowed most of it. I
Speaker 1: kept telling him I was proud. I meant it still
Speaker 1: Doe in a way. He's always been magnetic. Women and
Speaker 1: men linger at the edge of his stories. He loves
Speaker 1: the energy, the spotlight, the randomness of strangers who become
Speaker 1: drinking buddies or temporary confidants. It used to amuse me,
Speaker 1: this parade of brief infatuations that never really threatened anything.
Speaker 1: I liked his easy warmth, his lack of jealousy over
Speaker 1: my own late nights, and affectionate coworker hugs. Neither of
Speaker 1: us is a clinger, or so we said. Lately, though
Speaker 1: I'd felt exposed. Business had been down since New year S,
Speaker 1: and the possibility of missing peril for my tiny teams
Speaker 1: shadowed most mornings. He was my ballast, a recurring comfort
Speaker 1: to lean on, to distract myself with. Sometimes, after a
Speaker 1: brutal week, I'd crawl on to the couch and lie
Speaker 1: across his lap, letting him read the news aloud. Both
Speaker 1: of us say, in that small slice of piece, maybe
Speaker 1: that's what hurts, the quiet assumption that the other person
Speaker 1: is your keeper, only for that feeling to be replaced
Speaker 1: without warning by a cold vacancy you're not sure how
Speaker 1: to fill. He missed another market two weeks after the
Speaker 1: scarf morning. This time he didn't call, didn't text, just
Speaker 1: arrived at nearly noon as I was folding up by
Speaker 1: the window, half way through a pot of French press
Speaker 1: and a new design brief. Hey, sorry, inventory ran late,
Speaker 1: he said, as he kicked off his boots, mud caked
Speaker 1: though it hadn't rained. I crashed at Gabe's. Didn't want
Speaker 1: to wake you up at four. He avoided my gaze
Speaker 1: while dumping his jacket and backpack beside the door. I
Speaker 1: watched him from the table, weighing my options for how
Speaker 1: to greet him. He moved fast, shoes off, jacket, unzipped,
Speaker 1: straight for the shower, saying, need to get the bar
Speaker 1: off me. Gross. His voice was a beat quicker than usual.
Speaker 1: Rough ight. I called after him, No answer, just running water.
Speaker 1: The scarf, his favorite, was bawled up at the bottom
Speaker 1: of his bag, wet at one end. I picked it up,
Speaker 1: turned it over in my hands, noting a faint perfume.
Speaker 1: I didn't quite recognize. Not mine, not any one's. I
Speaker 1: could name musky, almost spicy, with something bright underneath. When
Speaker 1: he emerged, towel around his waist, he moved past me
Speaker 1: to the bedroom to dress. Normally he'd plant a kiss
Speaker 1: on my head, ask about my plans, offer comic observations
Speaker 1: about the previous night. Not this time, I tried. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe I should meet these mysterious suppliers. Could use another
Speaker 1: coffee wreck, he half laughed. Trust me, you'd be bored
Speaker 1: to tears. Bunch of old guys with spreadsheets and gin samples. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you'd hate the warehouse warehouse. I still watched him. He
Speaker 1: stared at his phone instead of me. Yeah, sometimes we'd
Speaker 1: double up inventory with tastings. Keeps everyone happy. I nodded,
Speaker 1: as if that made sense. He changed his cologne. He's
Speaker 1: the sort who doesn't often bother, but to day he
Speaker 1: wore a crisp woodsy scent with a hint of citrus,
Speaker 1: something new and expensive, nothing like the standard bottle gathering
Speaker 1: dust on his dresser. You switch it up, I asked,
Speaker 1: as lightly as I could haul your cologne. Nice oh
Speaker 1: swag from the supplier, trying to make us all wear
Speaker 1: their brand profel gimmick right. He slipped a shirt on
Speaker 1: without looking at me directly. I smiled, filed it away,
Speaker 1: and forced myself to believe the explanation. That afternoon, we
Speaker 1: drifted along as if the morning hadn't happened. He made eggs,
Speaker 1: told half a story about a rude patron, then retreated
Speaker 1: into foam scrolling. I tried to dismiss the sense of disconnect,
Speaker 1: arguing with myself. He's loyal, always has been. I reminded
Speaker 1: myself how many times we traded stories about jealous couples,
Speaker 1: how we'd sworn to never let our trust rust into suspicion.
Speaker 1: That night, when he finally fell asleep, I watched him
Speaker 1: for a while, muscles slackened by fatigue, breath soft, I
Speaker 1: lay awake, untethered by a restless, repetitive dream. He was
Speaker 1: laughing among strangers at a party. His back turned to me,
Speaker 1: every word swept away by the crowd. I reached for him,
Speaker 1: but found only air. I woke already missing him, even
Speaker 1: though his arm was draped over my waist and the
Speaker 1: first ray of light was still hours away. Let's do
Speaker 1: dinner to morrow. You're pick I'll clock out early. I'd
Speaker 1: texted him on Wednesday, after a particularly long client draining day.
Speaker 1: I sent it half out of hope, half as a test.
Speaker 1: He responded three hours later, rain check staff meeting at
Speaker 1: nine might go late next week for shore A staff
Speaker 1: meeting the sort that six months ago warranted a martini
Speaker 1: at home and a complaining session over Ramen at two
Speaker 1: in the morning. Now it had become code for don't
Speaker 1: wait up. I comforted myself with dinner from the deli,
Speaker 1: a glass of cold Chardonnay, and a nose dive into
Speaker 1: old emails. I told myself not to catastrophize. He'd gotten
Speaker 1: more active on Instagram again, first just his usual stories
Speaker 1: about local events, then popping up in photos tagged by
Speaker 1: his co workers industry people I only recognized from our
Speaker 1: holiday party. I scrolled a little too intently, freezing when
Speaker 1: I saw his arm around a woman with spiky blue
Speaker 1: hair captioned the New Dream Team. Her posts cropped up
Speaker 1: everywhere in his circle over the next week. Her name
Speaker 1: was Jamie, a bartender like him by the look of
Speaker 1: her well used hands and a half sleeve of tattoos.
Speaker 1: On his photos. Her comments were breezy inside jokes about
Speaker 1: drink names off hand tags about chaos, shifts, emojis I
Speaker 1: didn't recognize. They teased each other publicly a little too easily.
Speaker 1: Jealousy is an odd taste, like something metallic in your mouth,
Speaker 1: impossible to swallow completely. I wasn't the jealous type, or
Speaker 1: so I'd always insisted. But the threads tangled. I noticed
Speaker 1: that when I mentioned her a casual hay Is Jamie
Speaker 1: new he demurred, called her a good ad to the crew,
Speaker 1: shrugged off my questions by focusing on her drink skills.
Speaker 1: She can free poor triple speed. You be hypnotized? Was
Speaker 1: it affection? Boredom? Did I want it to be something else?
Speaker 1: I was adrift, hoping for a simple, rational answer. A
Speaker 1: few days later, I grabbed coffee with Meyer, one of
Speaker 1: our oldest mutual friends and a graphic designer in my
Speaker 1: coworking space. She'd known us both since we were that
Speaker 1: hot couple making out at Lana's karaoke birthday. After small
Speaker 1: talk about projects in our landlord's latest rent hike, she asked,
Speaker 1: so you survive Saturday? I frowned, Yeah, he had some
Speaker 1: supplier tasting thing. Again. I ended up reorganizing my digital
Speaker 1: files wild times. Meyer's brow pinched just for a second,
Speaker 1: then she grinned. Wish I'd gotten that memo. We hit
Speaker 1: up your bar after the opening. He was in rare form,
Speaker 1: pouring shots for the new fam I think he called it.
Speaker 1: Gabe said, Jamie's winning every one over too. That was Saturday,
Speaker 1: yea like after ten why? I shrugged, trying to keep
Speaker 1: my tone airy. Thought he had an all day thing.
Speaker 1: She looked uncertain. Maybe he did. He showed up around
Speaker 1: ten thirty. I think my skin prickled. Not enough information,
Speaker 1: but enough to lodge a splinter of doubt. It didn't
Speaker 1: fit supplier event, then bar shift, then after hours drinks.
Speaker 1: I told myself there were plenty of ways the schedule
Speaker 1: could overlap. Maybe the tasting ran late. He swung by
Speaker 1: for a quick checkin, then left. Maybe Meyer had her
Speaker 1: nights mixed up. Still, when I walked home that afternoon,
Speaker 1: her comment echoed in my head. That week, I tried
Speaker 1: something new, a casual visit to his bar, unannounced, with
Speaker 1: the excuse of bringing him a sample from a client,
Speaker 1: a logo concept mocked up on a cocktail napkin for
Speaker 1: his review. I waited outside for a minute, stealing myself inside.
Speaker 1: The energy was as manic as ever. His coworkers smiled,
Speaker 1: but there was a wariness there, a carefulness in how
Speaker 1: they greeted me. Hey, you heard your killing it with
Speaker 1: that new space, Jamie announced from behind the bar, voice
Speaker 1: high and bright. She poured a small taste of something
Speaker 1: bright pink into a shot glass, slid it across the counter.
Speaker 1: How special for the boss is better half? I laughed,
Speaker 1: a little forced as she winked at someone across the bar.
Speaker 1: Are you liking it here? I asked? Love it better
Speaker 1: than my old spot by Myles? Honestly, this crew makes
Speaker 1: it easy. My partner emerged from the storeroom after a while,
Speaker 1: so prized genuinely it seemed to see me. Hey, you
Speaker 1: didn't text. Wanted to see you in your natural habitat,
Speaker 1: I joked, nudging the napkin. He glanced at the design,
Speaker 1: but didn't linger, instead moving behind the bar to pour
Speaker 1: two beers. Eyes darting between Jamie and the till busy week,
Speaker 1: I asked, trying to keep the tone easy. He gave
Speaker 1: me a practiced smile. Nothing I can't handle. You want food?
Speaker 1: Burghers are good to day? When I demurred, he busied
Speaker 1: himself with closing orders, occasionally leaning in to speed whisper
Speaker 1: some update to Jamie or Gabe. I watched as Jamie
Speaker 1: swiped her phone, showing him something He grinned, the kind
Speaker 1: of grin that used to be reserved just for me.
Speaker 1: I left after half an hour, feeling less reassured than before,
Speaker 1: half certain that every glance I had witnessed had been
Speaker 1: coded meant for some one else. That night, staring at
Speaker 1: our shared financial spreadsheet, I noticed three consecutive weekends with
Speaker 1: hefty charges to a cozy wine bar miles across the city.
Speaker 1: Not his regular haunt, not a dive, but the kind
Speaker 1: of place you bring someone you want to impress. Each
Speaker 1: tab was for two, sometimes multiples of two, late night
Speaker 1: time stamps, always Fridays or Saturdays. He d told me
Speaker 1: he was at inventory checks or supplier events during those slots.
Speaker 1: I sat with it for an hour, cross checking receipts,
Speaker 1: searching for a plausible rationale, tasting with staff. Sure, but
Speaker 1: on week nds at a wine bar consistently. The next morning,
Speaker 1: over cereal, I tried to bring up a trip we'd
Speaker 1: planned last November to a food festival in another state,
Speaker 1: something he'd been excited about for months. Should I start
Speaker 1: looking at flights for spring or is your bar schedule impossible?
Speaker 1: He blinked, scrambling for the right script. Let's hold off
Speaker 1: a bit. Still don't know what's up with spring hours.
Speaker 1: Something in his voice was thinner more. I let it drop,
Speaker 1: and the rest of the day he was mostly adrift, pacing,
Speaker 1: scrolling his phone, declining my suggestions for an after lunch walk.
Speaker 1: That evening, when I wrapped an arm around his waist
Speaker 1: pressing clothes, he tensed, then patted my hand, just tired, babe, Stress,
Speaker 1: I'll be back to normal soon. It was meant to reassure,
Speaker 1: but all it did was mark the change between us
Speaker 1: more sharply. The weeks stretched in front of me, a
Speaker 1: patchwork of miss cues and unanswered questions. At a Monday
Speaker 1: night art opening, I collided literally into Jamie by the
Speaker 1: pop up bar. Woa, you're quick, she declared, catching my
Speaker 1: elbow as I steadied myself. Sorry, didn't see you there,
Speaker 1: I said. She was easy, bright eyed, radiating that just
Speaker 1: beneath the surface, mainly a people in night life seemed
Speaker 1: to cultivate. We fell into small talk, half shouting over music.
Speaker 1: She asked about my studio move mentioned a client i'd
Speaker 1: lost the week before. I blinked, how did she know
Speaker 1: about that? Your guy told me? He said, you were
Speaker 1: running around like a headless chicken, trying to chase down payments.
Speaker 1: I said, that's designer life, right. She meant it as
Speaker 1: a joke, maybe, but it left me with the uncomfortable
Speaker 1: realization that she knew things I hadn't told my own
Speaker 1: partner yet. Or maybe I had and he'd shared it
Speaker 1: with her. I wasn't sure which scenario strung more. Later,
Speaker 1: clutching my phone for warmth outside, I found myself screen
Speaker 1: capping Jamie's Instagram stories her at some late night booth,
Speaker 1: him laughing in the background, a half drunk bottle of
Speaker 1: the same cologne he'd started using, artfully positioned next to
Speaker 1: a glass of what looked suspiciously like our Saturday Special.
Speaker 1: I saved a few receipts, too, tabbing them into a
Speaker 1: folder I labeled MISK. I wasn't proud of the covert
Speaker 1: where I was starting to hoard evidence, but I felt
Speaker 1: like a puzzle piece in some one else's game, a
Speaker 1: locked out of the image that my actual life was
Speaker 1: supposed to construct. Was this paranoia or a delayed awareness.
Speaker 1: Finally noticing what had always been hidden in plain sight.
Speaker 1: I traced the line between reasonable and paranoid until it blurred.
Speaker 1: The next week was a study in contrasts silence, then
Speaker 1: sudden performativity. At peak tension, he came home with flowers
Speaker 1: for the first time in a year, tulips all yellow,
Speaker 1: my favorite. The card was simple, Sorry, I've been an asshole,
Speaker 1: works eating me alive, love you more than this bar life.
Speaker 1: He held me a little too tightly that night, apologizing
Speaker 1: for his distance, telling me about bar drama, about a
Speaker 1: staff member who'd quit midshift, about suppliers who were impossible
Speaker 1: to pin down for more than five minutes. Each story
Speaker 1: was laced with fatigue, but also the underlying thread, I
Speaker 1: want to be here with you. I'm just overwhelmed. He
Speaker 1: was attentive the rest of the week, suggested we go
Speaker 1: together to the Saturday market, offered to cook dinner after
Speaker 1: For a day or two, I let myself believe in
Speaker 1: the reset. At the market, he made a production of
Speaker 1: greeting the bakery vendor, tried every cheese, bought my favorite
Speaker 1: almond Quassa, joked with the flour cellar about making up
Speaker 1: for lost time. We walked home with our hall sun
Speaker 1: on our backs, and for a fleeting moment, my world
Speaker 1: tilted back into the familiar shape. He wrapped his arm
Speaker 1: around me as we giggled over the uneven sidewalk bricks,
Speaker 1: promised weekend trips. We'll take a train up the coast.
Speaker 1: Get out of this cycle. I want us to really
Speaker 1: disconnect for once. That night, at home, I reached for
Speaker 1: his phone to set a reminder for groceries while he showered.
Speaker 1: Nothing nefarious. A message banner flashed on the lock screen,
Speaker 1: big and unsparing, can't wait for next time. Last night
Speaker 1: was amazing X. The name attached Jamie. My vision contracted.
Speaker 1: I set the phone back, resisting the urge to scroll deeper.
Speaker 1: Nothing was truly new, yet the finality was different this time.
Speaker 1: For a week, I'd convinced myself we were on the
Speaker 1: brink of recovering what we'd lost, when really I've been
Speaker 1: handed another slick cover story. I felt the weight of
Speaker 1: each small, reinterpreted moment, the early market scenes, the missing scarf,
Speaker 1: the carefully rationed affection, all crashing in at once. I
Speaker 1: froze through dinner, replying in single syllables. My thoughts running
Speaker 1: wild That night, I barely slept, the blue glow of
Speaker 1: my phone, a tiny beacon in the dark. Had all
Speaker 1: that progress, the tiny resurgencies of intimacy, been nothing but
Speaker 1: another layer of deception. My mind looped back, searching for
Speaker 1: the pattern. I must have missed, the moments he'd deflected,
Speaker 1: the times he'd managed to cloak distance as care. In
Speaker 1: the pre dawn hush, I got up, wrapped myself in
Speaker 1: his old hoodie, and sat on the balcony, shivering. Every
Speaker 1: memory pressed in with new, sharper edges. I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: if I was mourning something lost or something that had
Speaker 1: never actually been there at all, but one thing felt certain.
Speaker 1: The surface was just that, a gloss hiding something far
Speaker 1: messier underneath, and beneath all the pain, something else grew
Speaker 1: slowly resolve. Not revenge, not even anger, just a tight,
Speaker 1: crystallizing certainty that I had to keep moving forward toward
Speaker 1: the truth, whatever it turned out to be. The sunrise
Speaker 1: finally turned the city steel blue, blurring my focus. Traffic
Speaker 1: hummed below ordinary, immune to my turmil I watched the
Speaker 1: world assemble itself, A neighbor with a daxen, someone hauling bread,
Speaker 1: crates to the brunch place on the corner, the three
Speaker 1: delivery trucks that always seemed to double park, no matter
Speaker 1: the hour. Their routines continued frictionless, while mine split into two,
Speaker 1: the outer shell that carried on and the inner secret observer,
Speaker 1: cataloging every possible misdirection. At six thirty, I brewed more coffee,
Speaker 1: my hands shaking as I remembered the message banner on
Speaker 1: his phone, the words wouldn't let me be? Last night
Speaker 1: was amazing? Had he come back from that staff meeting
Speaker 1: to climb into bed beside me? Had he kissed me
Speaker 1: before falling asleep? My skin crawled at the thought. But
Speaker 1: I made breakfast anyway, automatic, determined to control at least
Speaker 1: this food, the table, the small work of living. He
Speaker 1: came out of the bedroom, looking groggy, hair wild. He
Speaker 1: moved to Rinse's face in the kitchen sink, then pressed
Speaker 1: a kiss to my cheek, too casual. I willed myself
Speaker 1: not to flinch. How'd you sleep, he mumbled, fine, I said,
Speaker 1: a lie for a lie. He scrolled through his phone
Speaker 1: for a few seconds, thumb moving in little nervous jerks.
Speaker 1: I tried to catch a glimpse of his expression any tell,
Speaker 1: but he was impervious, focused, eyebrows drawn, you working to
Speaker 1: day or he trailed off. His tone was too careful.
Speaker 1: Client call at ten, then meeting Meyer for lunch, and
Speaker 1: you same old counting cases, staff checkins, need to write
Speaker 1: the new cocktail menu, or Jamiel kill me, he smiled,
Speaker 1: hoping for an easy banter over the mention of her name,
Speaker 1: as if it was a regular work place gripe. I nodded,
Speaker 1: saying nothing. My heart thudded. He waited a beat, then
Speaker 1: retreated to the shower, humming off key. I sat staring
Speaker 1: at the stripe of sun crawling up the kitchen wall,
Speaker 1: inventorying every stray detail, the bite pattern on his toast,
Speaker 1: the order of his tasks, the sound of the water
Speaker 1: hitting the tile. They d once been familiar, all part
Speaker 1: of how I'd measured my days. Now each one was
Speaker 1: potential evidence of a life I didn't know. Round eleven,
Speaker 1: after my call, I moved through his side of the
Speaker 1: closet with deliberate curiosity, not sure whether I was checking
Speaker 1: for lipstick stains or just fooling myself. His hoodie still
Speaker 1: like his old deodorant, the one he'd used for years,
Speaker 1: comforting but fading. The pockets were empty except for a
Speaker 1: folded grocery receipt and a wrapper from a protein bar debris,
Speaker 1: nothing damning. My resolve faltered. Was I really going to
Speaker 1: tear up my life? On? A text notification and some
Speaker 1: off vibes? But what else was left? I fished the
Speaker 1: wine bar receipts out from the bottom of the laundry
Speaker 1: basket where I'd hidden them. The time stamps twelve thirty seven,
Speaker 1: a M, one eleven a M, two glasses, and a
Speaker 1: cheese board. Then a second round a third. I found
Speaker 1: Jamie's Instagram again, checking for overlap. A Cheers story went
Speaker 1: up at one twenty two a M with a fot
Speaker 1: of a hand. I recognized his knobby work, callous knuckles,
Speaker 1: their matching silver tone rings. I screenshoted that the act
Speaker 1: made me feel both powerful and a little sick. When
Speaker 1: I met Meyer for lunch, I tried out a draft
Speaker 1: version of my worries. Do you think people change if
Speaker 1: things get hard at work? I kept my gaze on
Speaker 1: my sandwich as she answered, she wiped her archer off
Speaker 1: her knuckle. Thoughtful, Sure people get crabby or distracted? Why
Speaker 1: no reason, It's just he's been different, distant. I didn't
Speaker 1: add the rest. She frowned, pushing her salad around. He's
Speaker 1: always busy this time of year, but yeah, he seemed
Speaker 1: tired the other night. She hesitated, picking her words. You know,
Speaker 1: Jamie's a lot like in your face, but nothing weird
Speaker 1: as far as I saw. I almost told her about
Speaker 1: the text, decided against it. Meyer's loyalty was complicated. She
Speaker 1: loved us together, loved our stories, but she also straddled
Speaker 1: both circles. I didn't want her to start watching him
Speaker 1: the way I did not yet. I spent the rest
Speaker 1: of the day distracted, falling behind on my own deadlines
Speaker 1: as I replayed every exchange from the past month, scouring
Speaker 1: for coded truths. I messaged a former colleague asked about
Speaker 1: a designer sh she knew who'd recently gone through a
Speaker 1: break up. How did you know, I typed, She replied,
Speaker 1: you sort of. Don't you just stop wanting to know
Speaker 1: the truth then it finds you anyway. At home that night,
Speaker 1: I cooked a simple past dish, my default comfort meal.
Speaker 1: He arrived after ten, face flushed and eyes bright with
Speaker 1: the afterglow of a good shift, or maybe something else.
Speaker 1: He dropped his bag, sniffed the air and called, you
Speaker 1: made food. I'm starving. I watched him pile noodles on
Speaker 1: his plate. You ever go to that wine bar across town,
Speaker 1: the one with the string lights. He didn't pause a
Speaker 1: couple times for work tasting stuff. Why I saw a
Speaker 1: post looked nice, he shrugged. It's fine, overpriced. He wolfed
Speaker 1: down his dinner, glanced at his phone. Jamie's blowing up
Speaker 1: the group chat people are obsessed with. In a groany rift,
Speaker 1: she did, you'd like her if you spent more time
Speaker 1: with the bar crowd. She's harmless, didn't say she was.
Speaker 1: The words hung between us sharper than I'd intended. He
Speaker 1: lifted his fork, then set it down. You o kay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: too fast. He stared at me for a long moment,
Speaker 1: like he was deciding whether to push further, then let
Speaker 1: it drop. Later, as he washed up, I checked his
Speaker 1: phone while he put away dishes. My pulse pounded a guilty,
Speaker 1: unreliable narrator in my chest. Nothing was left unlocked. He
Speaker 1: begun archiving his chats, locked his camera roll, set up
Speaker 1: an extra passcode on banking apps. The increased privacy itself
Speaker 1: was a kind of confession. But it could as easily
Speaker 1: be a response to my own growing distance. I had
Speaker 1: become a stranger in my own apartment, tiptoeing through the
Speaker 1: remains of routine. On Thursday, an email landed in our
Speaker 1: shared account, a travel deal for two sent from the
Speaker 1: food festival sight we'd looked at months earlier. I almost
Speaker 1: deleted it, but on impulse, forwarded it to his work
Speaker 1: email anyway, adding just in case your spring hours lighten up.
Speaker 1: No reply. Friday night I tried pure candor want to
Speaker 1: walk to the river after your shift? Just us? He
Speaker 1: looked sheepish closing to night. I'll be exhausted to morrow.
Speaker 1: But the next day he left early with a vague
Speaker 1: meeting a rep for quick supplier notes. I'd taken to
Speaker 1: checking the coat rack for his scarf, an odd, superstitious ritual.
Speaker 1: It was missing. Again. I drifted around the city, circling
Speaker 1: the wine bar twice, feeling foolish. What was I hoping
Speaker 1: to see? Him and Jamie heads bent close, hands touching
Speaker 1: lightly over a candle at table. The reality was probably
Speaker 1: less cinematic, boring, repetitive, ambiguous. What shook me was how
Speaker 1: quickly my own world shrank. I occupied myself by alphabetizing
Speaker 1: my color swatches, updating invoices, writing emails i'd never send.
Speaker 1: I replied to a friend's party invitation and immediately regretted it.
Speaker 1: I declined an offer to go dancing, unsure whether I
Speaker 1: was monitoring him or just avoiding the sharp questions I
Speaker 1: couldn't answer myself. The world pressed in over the week end,
Speaker 1: small things gnawing at my sense of order. Our whole
Speaker 1: light flickered. I spent ten minutes fixing it, feeling disproportionately triumphant.
Speaker 1: He texted late home by two, don't wait up, no excuses,
Speaker 1: just the command. It never used to be an order,
Speaker 1: and now it was. I lay in bed, awake long
Speaker 1: past three, inventing both wild scenarios and totally rational ones. Work,
Speaker 1: friendships bleed into more. Sometimes stress makes people act secretive,
Speaker 1: bar people have strange rhythms, odd intimacy. Maybe this was
Speaker 1: all just the story I built from scraps of loneliness
Speaker 1: and the vacuum left by his absence. Did I want
Speaker 1: to discover betrayal or just some reason that explains the
Speaker 1: space between us? By Sunday, I decided on acttion over worry.
Speaker 1: I asked Gabe, his best friend, to meet me for coffee.
Speaker 1: He showed up, sleepy eyed, with his usual baseball cap
Speaker 1: pulled low. I know you're busy, I said, quick question.
Speaker 1: Did he crash at your place last weekend? After inventory?
Speaker 1: Gabe's mouth dropped into a slant. Ah, Yeah, he and
Speaker 1: Jamie both long shift. We just ate takeout and crashed.
Speaker 1: Jamie was there, He looked uncomfortable. Yeah, she's on weekends now.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we all just hang out after close. His tone
Speaker 1: was neutral, but he was carefully curating details, and I
Speaker 1: could tell was it just the three of you? Couple
Speaker 1: others came and went nothing wild. I promise he just
Speaker 1: needed a break. Work es been stressful. I pretended to
Speaker 1: accept this, but left feeling hollowed out. I walked home
Speaker 1: through the park, autumn sun false and brilliant, the city
Speaker 1: brilliant as a duel, but twice cold. All the while
Speaker 1: my mind sharpened, pattern seeking, assembling, not proof but possibility. Monday,
Speaker 1: Jamie's posts grew more personal. An in joke about too
Speaker 1: many almond quassas, a photo of a stack of napkins
Speaker 1: scrawled with drink names, one bearing my design logo in
Speaker 1: the corner, an inside reference to my studio folded into
Speaker 1: her nighttime world. I tapped Meyer's contact, finally ready for
Speaker 1: her side. When we met at the rooftop cafe, I
Speaker 1: told her outright, something s going on between him and Jamie.
Speaker 1: I saw the texts. It's not just work. Her face
Speaker 1: folded into worry. Are you sure? I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: had weird vibes, but it's a tight crew. Sometimes boundaries blur.
Speaker 1: I saw a message not for me last night. Was amazing,
Speaker 1: that kind of message, she exhaled slowly. Shit. I'd hoped
Speaker 1: it was just an industry flirt. He's been off with everyone,
Speaker 1: not just you. I didn't want to say anything, so
Speaker 1: you noticed it too, she poked at her glass of water.
Speaker 1: He avoids talking about you, Jamie. She she brags sometimes
Speaker 1: about how close they are. Every one's kind of noticed.
Speaker 1: I just didn't want to be the friend who makes
Speaker 1: things worse. That's not your job, I said, But something
Speaker 1: in my gut twisted anyway. I'd always assumed the people
Speaker 1: close to us would be my witnesses, my defenders. Instead,
Speaker 1: every one was sticking to their own rolls, protecting their
Speaker 1: own images of the story. On the way home, I
Speaker 1: walked slower, trying to absorb the rawness of the day.
Speaker 1: Across the street, I spotted them, Jamie in her blue
Speaker 1: painted leather jacket, walking out of a coffee shop, him
Speaker 1: half a step behind, head bent toward her, easy and
Speaker 1: gentle in a way I hadn't seen directed at me
Speaker 1: for weeks, pure accident or fate, or the city's cruel transparency.
Speaker 1: For a second, I couldn't breathe. I ducked into a
Speaker 1: book store, hands shaking, and stared blindly at a wall
Speaker 1: of paperbacks. Behind my ribs. Something icy and sharp formed loss, humiliation,
Speaker 1: or simply the certainty that everything I was afraid of
Speaker 1: was real and happening right in front of me. By
Speaker 1: the time I got home, I needed answers more than
Speaker 1: I needed plausible deniability. He was at work for another
Speaker 1: four hours, so I made tea paste, then gave in
Speaker 1: opened his laptop, hoping for answers. He was too clever
Speaker 1: or too cautious. Nothing stood out in his work, Emil,
Speaker 1: just order forms and back and forth about shift coverage.
Speaker 1: I scrolled further, feeling like an amateur in my own espionage.
Speaker 1: In the trash folder, a string of calendar invites caught
Speaker 1: my eye, recurring supplier tasting Jamie g The locations changed,
Speaker 1: sometimes the same wine bar, sometimes other restaurants, always after hours.
Speaker 1: A handful of Eyuber receipts from Jamie's phone number cross
Speaker 1: charged to his account. I felt a hot rush of
Speaker 1: shame at him, at myself, at this sifting for toxins
Speaker 1: in the bones of my life. I checked the group
Speaker 1: chat on my own phone, the one with all the
Speaker 1: bar regulars. Some one had been going on about the
Speaker 1: duo and managers in crime, but nothing overt everything safe
Speaker 1: for public consumption. I started saving what I could, a
Speaker 1: string of Jamie's videos, his archived receipts, everything that made
Speaker 1: the private world overlap with mine. This time, when he
Speaker 1: got home much later than he'd told me, he leaned
Speaker 1: against the door frame and gave me a look half
Speaker 1: way between exhaustion and anticipation. You still up. I needed
Speaker 1: to finish edits. I couldn't meet his gaze. He dropped
Speaker 1: his bag, draped his jacket over a chair. Want tea
Speaker 1: I can do, Cammermile, you look wiped. That mundane offer
Speaker 1: felt like a performance. I wanted to scream to Demy
Speaker 1: the truth right here with the city below and every
Speaker 1: memory echoing back from the walls. Instead, I moved to
Speaker 1: the kitchen, my own hands clumsy on mugs. I watched
Speaker 1: him out of the corner of my eye. He grabbed
Speaker 1: a glass, reached for the whisky. I noticed for the
Speaker 1: first time that he poured two fingers, then added a
Speaker 1: splash for color, just the way Jamie had posted in
Speaker 1: a video. He raised the glass, caught me staring what
Speaker 1: he asked, ruff smiling nothing, I replied, gathering the dishes,
Speaker 1: moving like someone playing at normalcy. He turned away, and
Speaker 1: in his retreat I saw the back of his neck tents,
Speaker 1: an involuntary flash of guilt maybe, or just a ghost
Speaker 1: of the old us. I thought of all the tiny,
Speaker 1: unrecorded betrayals that must happen between people every day, secrets
Speaker 1: left unburied because the cost of digging is too great.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure yet whether I was digging for a
Speaker 1: clean end or simply confirmation that nothing could be made
Speaker 1: whole again. A few evenings later, Jamie tagged me in
Speaker 1: a comment public cheerful about how I should come demo
Speaker 1: a cocktail with us next Friday. I couldn't tell if
Speaker 1: it was a taunt, an invitation, or a careless act
Speaker 1: from some one unaware of the fault lines she'd wandered into.
Speaker 1: That night, I finally broke the surface of my own composure.
Speaker 1: I texted Meyer, wrote one line, how do you tell
Speaker 1: someone you know not just suspicion but fact? She replied,
Speaker 1: You ask for the truth, then you decide whether you
Speaker 1: want to hear it. It was past midnight, the city
Speaker 1: quieted just enough that I could hear my own breathing
Speaker 1: the sound of his shower running, the thump of a
Speaker 1: bottle against the tiles. When he returned, he lay next
Speaker 1: to me, careful not to spoon too close, the remains
Speaker 1: of his cologne and a faint trace of unfamiliar perfume
Speaker 1: still clinging to his neck. I thought about reaching for him.
Speaker 1: I didn't. The next morning, his phone vibrated with one
Speaker 1: sharp buzz, a message previewed Jamie's name. I kept my
Speaker 1: eyes on my laptop screen, typing nothing, deleting whole sections
Speaker 1: of my latest project. He kissed the top of my head,
Speaker 1: said back late, big starf night. I replied, O K,
Speaker 1: I hope it goes well. I didn't look up as
Speaker 1: he left the apartment, filled with a quiet that rang
Speaker 1: I gathered my evidence, not just receipts and screen shots
Speaker 1: and text fragments, but every small seismic shift in my
Speaker 1: own memory of us. What was said, what was left unsaid,
Speaker 1: what was excused, what was finally, painfully undeniable. Eventually I
Speaker 1: realized surviving wasn't about being right or wrong, paranoid or prescient.
Speaker 1: It was about facing down the void between what I
Speaker 1: loved and what had become a fiction. The gap had
Speaker 1: grown too wide, and soon it would have to be crossed,
Speaker 1: one way or another. I sat in and that awful
Speaker 1: quiet for what felt like a year, lit only by
Speaker 1: the city bleeding gold and blew through the windows. I
Speaker 1: wondered how long I'd stay paralyzed at the table, Jamie's
Speaker 1: name still burning at the back of my vision, Wishing
Speaker 1: for a script I could say out loud, but there's
Speaker 1: only so long you can hold your own life suspended
Speaker 1: before the practical world tugs you forward. By mid morning,
Speaker 1: I was up and moving, washing mugs, clearing crumbs. Neither
Speaker 1: of us had made the inertia of Habit felt like
Speaker 1: the last thing tethering me to sanity. He texted from
Speaker 1: work at ten, long shift, shooting for normal hours to night,
Speaker 1: love you. I stared at the empty sentiment. I didn't
Speaker 1: answer my hands, moved on autopilot all day, typing client invoices,
Speaker 1: reviewing drafts, taking feedback about boldness from people who still
Speaker 1: asked if I could make it pop. I tried to
Speaker 1: let ordinary tasks swallow me, but I kept hearing that
Speaker 1: stupid message can't wait for next time. Last night was amazing.
Speaker 1: I nearly laughed every time it echoed. Every mundane thing
Speaker 1: felt rigged, as if everything reassuring in my routine was
Speaker 1: only there to keep me from looking further. In the
Speaker 1: early afternoon, Meya texted you okay. She must have felt
Speaker 1: the gravitational pull from my silence. I replied with a
Speaker 1: thumbs up, then a second later, no, but working on it.
Speaker 1: She sent back a little pink heart and no advice,
Speaker 1: a gift in its own way. I started making a
Speaker 1: list of all the things I needed to check bank's statements,
Speaker 1: social accounts, his staff roster, the calendar invites, but added
Speaker 1: nothing the actual evidence already burned in my gut. He
Speaker 1: came home at five thirty, tired and automatic, dropping his keys,
Speaker 1: dirty converse, scraping tile shoes, always just shy of the rack.
Speaker 1: He looked at me like he was gaging the weather
Speaker 1: of the room. That minuscule paused before speaking. Saw your
Speaker 1: email about the food fest. You thinking about a getaway?
Speaker 1: Voice a little too high, cheerfulness slightly forced. He hung
Speaker 1: his scarf, Jamie's cologne clinging to the faded wool. I shrugged.
Speaker 1: Just seemed like something to look forward to. The gap
Speaker 1: between us curled, silent and poisonous around the table. He
Speaker 1: started to unpack take out without asking what I had
Speaker 1: already made. We ate standing. He nursed his bier thumb,
Speaker 1: worried his phone. Jamie's notification banner didn't appear, but his
Speaker 1: eyes flickered to the screen every sixty seconds. I almost
Speaker 1: expected to catch something, guilt, fear, But he was a
Speaker 1: master at the bland choreography of casual nights in He
Speaker 1: asked about my client, complimented my resilience, described a new
Speaker 1: barrel aged gin he'd sampled. None of it touched ground. Later,
Speaker 1: when he vanished to shower, I scrolled through the pictures
Speaker 1: Jamie had posted. There. We were a tag on a
Speaker 1: group's shot at the bar. Her grin unapologetically broad, his
Speaker 1: hand hovering at her lower back contact so casual it
Speaker 1: was almost invisible. I noticed, for the first time the
Speaker 1: same scarf around his neck, the glint of my old
Speaker 1: design pinned to his lapel. She captioned it, surviving the
Speaker 1: chaos with the only squad that matters. I let the
Speaker 1: image sit. I found myself touching my throat as if
Speaker 1: a necklace was missing. That night, in bed, he rolled
Speaker 1: toward me and wrapped an arm around my waist, like
Speaker 1: it was an afterthought. I braced, unsure whether to edge
Speaker 1: away or let the gesture happen. He exhaled, already half asleep,
Speaker 1: breathing shallow as a child. I stared at the wall
Speaker 1: instead of the ceiling. The apartment's dark was ironically peaceful,
Speaker 1: but his presence next to me was not comfort It
Speaker 1: felt like sharing a pillow with a stranger. Sleep adjusted
Speaker 1: the sharpness, but not the weight. The next morning, I
Speaker 1: let him leave ahead of me, ignoring the light brush
Speaker 1: of his lips. I watched him descend the stairs from
Speaker 1: the peep hole, waiting for him to fully disappear before
Speaker 1: getting dressed. Maybe it was petty, but I didn't want
Speaker 1: to share the same exits, not while my life was
Speaker 1: in pieces. He still insisted were whole. I spent the
Speaker 1: rest of the morning inventorying what I knew, writing it
Speaker 1: all down, and then deleting it again. Jamie's just a
Speaker 1: friend read too hollow now to be plausible. Yet every
Speaker 1: explanation I rehearsed in my mind made me sound like
Speaker 1: an interrogator in a police drama. I called Gabe. The
Speaker 1: phone rang six times before he picked up, voice roar
Speaker 1: with sleep. Hey, it's me. Hey, A pause, everything okay,
Speaker 1: I just need to ask you something. I tried to
Speaker 1: keep my voice steady, but the words caught. He closed
Speaker 1: his lips around a sigh. I figured you might look
Speaker 1: he's it's not my business to say, but you should
Speaker 1: talk to him seriously. I closed my eyes, realizing he
Speaker 1: was confirming what I already felt in my nerves. So,
Speaker 1: you know, just don't let it go any longer. You
Speaker 1: deserve answers a little too quiet. We ended the call quickly,
Speaker 1: with a loaded silence on both sides. The urge to
Speaker 1: search for simple explanations faded, replaced by the certainty of
Speaker 1: what I needed to do. But first I tried to
Speaker 1: see myself in some remembered mirror, a designer, a partner,
Speaker 1: someone who until recently had been the quieter half of
Speaker 1: an unbreakable team. Now I was a collection of desperate questions,
Speaker 1: and none of them would be returned to sender. By
Speaker 1: mid afternoon, my in box was filled with new client correspondents.
Speaker 1: I could barely read the city outside pulsed with indifference.
Speaker 1: Every door slam from the hallway sounded like the story shifting.
Speaker 1: I ran my hands along the table, remembering the warmth
Speaker 1: of our Saturday pastries, the laughing, the market smells of
Speaker 1: spring peaches and rosemary plants. I thought of the future
Speaker 1: we used to sketch so freely, and wondered why I
Speaker 1: trusted the lines would stay unbroken. Evening descended. I spent
Speaker 1: an hour making a list of everything that would change
Speaker 1: if I blew this all open. You would get? Which friends?
Speaker 1: Would I have to give up my regular spot at
Speaker 1: the bakery, Would Lena still invite me to her gallery openings?
Speaker 1: Or would I turn into someone needing protection, apology or
Speaker 1: worse pity. There was no neat answer, and the stakes
Speaker 1: pressed in lonelier than ever. He texted during service, running
Speaker 1: behind back by midnight, don't wait up, I put my
Speaker 1: phone in another room. The urge either to call him
Speaker 1: or to track him. Had never been so strong, but
Speaker 1: I forced myself to sit with the mess until it
Speaker 1: grew duller from repetition. The hours between eight and midnight
Speaker 1: were relentless ghosts pacing the corners. I watched an old
Speaker 1: movie with the sound low, folded laundry, ignored ten pings
Speaker 1: from group chats. I even tried to write, hoping to
Speaker 1: lose myself in color palettes and revision notes, but my
Speaker 1: thoughts skipped back to the confrontation I knew was coming.
Speaker 1: I kept imagining possible scenes, his denial, my accusations, the
Speaker 1: slow collapse of every story we'd built together. At twelve
Speaker 1: seventeen a m. The key rattled in the lock. He
Speaker 1: took longer than usual, fumbling with the door like he'd
Speaker 1: forgotten how the tumblers worked. When he finally stepped in,
Speaker 1: his hair was damp, shorn into submission by a white towel.
Speaker 1: He smelled both of alcohol and her Jamie's perfume, a
Speaker 1: note I'd come to recognize part jasmine, part sharpness on
Speaker 1: the air. He looked at me, registering for the first
Speaker 1: time that I was sitting up in the dim glow
Speaker 1: awake and waiting. He crossed to the kitchen, pouring a water,
Speaker 1: then lingered by the sink. You're still up, yeah, I said, quietly,
Speaker 1: not moving from my seat. He didn't speak. It was
Speaker 1: a scene cut from open heart surgery, a pause before
Speaker 1: the scalpel. Blood bright but not messy yet. I need
Speaker 1: to talk, I said, voice surprisingly calm, even as my
Speaker 1: heart threatened a coup. He braced shoulders tight. O K.
Speaker 1: I slid the phone across the table, the lock screen
Speaker 1: still showing Jamie's text preview from two nights ago. I
Speaker 1: saw this, He swallowed the moments, stretched, his eyes flickering
Speaker 1: over the screen, careful, as if buying time. What about it?
Speaker 1: Don't please? My voice almost broke. I know the receipts,
Speaker 1: the pictures, the schedules that never match, the scarf, the
Speaker 1: new cologne, all of it. He pressed a palm to
Speaker 1: the counter. I could see the string of excuses running
Speaker 1: through his mind, the scripts rehearsed over so many silent hours. Instead,
Speaker 1: he settled on a smaller truth. Jamie's just a friend.
Speaker 1: We've gotten close, sure, but it's not what you think.
Speaker 1: I stood. This wasn't rehearsed any more. It was falling
Speaker 1: you said you spent last Saturday at gabe S after
Speaker 1: an inventory run. Maya told me you were working the bar.
Speaker 1: You've been to that wine bar with her every week
Speaker 1: end for a month. The messages aren't just friends. I've
Speaker 1: seen the way she talks about you, about me, about
Speaker 1: both of us. He glanced away. When he replied, his
Speaker 1: voice was nearly a whisper. O, kay I, we've gotten close,
Speaker 1: too close. It started as work stuff, late hours. I
Speaker 1: didn't mean to hide it, but I knew it would
Speaker 1: look bad. I convinced myself it was nothing. Did you
Speaker 1: sleep with her? The flatness in my voice shocked even me.
Speaker 1: He hesitated, then nodded, yes, not every night. A couple
Speaker 1: of times. It wasn't supposed to happen. I gripped the
Speaker 1: edge of the table. How long four months since winter?
Speaker 1: It it got out of control. He covered his face
Speaker 1: with both hands, not crying, but unraveling. I was lonely.
Speaker 1: You were working so much. I felt small, like I
Speaker 1: didn't matter. Don't put that on me. I wanted him
Speaker 1: to own it, to say he did this out of selfishness,
Speaker 1: not my ambition. He sat defeated. Now it's not on you.
Speaker 1: I was stupid. I should have told you. But God,
Speaker 1: when you got that award this spring, I was proud.
Speaker 1: I was, but suddenly every one was looking at you,
Speaker 1: and I felt left. Jamie. She made me feel seen,
Speaker 1: like I wasn't just a bartender or your boyfriend or
Speaker 1: any one's side kick. I could hear the same old
Speaker 1: stories in his voice, his desire to be special, needed, important.
Speaker 1: I shook my head, the fight going out as heartbreak
Speaker 1: replaced anger. Did you love her? No? The answer was fast, desperate.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I feel for her. It
Speaker 1: wasn't about that. It was about feeling alive, I guess.
Speaker 1: I covered my face. How was any of this fair
Speaker 1: to me? He started to reach out, then stopped himself.
Speaker 1: It was There's nothing else I can say. We sat
Speaker 1: for a minute, the city below pulsing through the window,
Speaker 1: my hands in fists on my knees. I thought of
Speaker 1: the markets, the jokes, the plans. Were you ever going
Speaker 1: to stop? He shook his head faintly, shame in every
Speaker 1: corner of his expression. I kept telling myself I would.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to hurt you, But every day I
Speaker 1: waited it got harder. I'm I'm sorry. Every apology sounded
Speaker 1: cheap every breath, another reminder of how far gone we were.
Speaker 1: I tried to look at him, to see the man
Speaker 1: I loved, and instead saw a stranger who could rearrange
Speaker 1: the truth out of cowardice. Or need you need to leave?
Speaker 1: I managed voice ruugh. He nodded, not arguing I'll go
Speaker 1: stay at Gabes, however long you need. He moved slowly,
Speaker 1: gathering things in silence, not packing for good, just enough
Speaker 1: for exel. The door closed behind him with a sigh.
Speaker 1: The apartment was finally brutally silent, but the noise inside
Speaker 1: me was just getting started. I stood in the center
Speaker 1: of the kitchen, the pale halo of light washing over nothing,
Speaker 1: and felt myself settle into a bone deep exhaustion. There
Speaker 1: was no relief in certainty, just a numbness at having
Speaker 1: been right all along. In the hours that followed, I
Speaker 1: moved his favorite glass to the back of the cupboard,
Speaker 1: deleting old text threads counseling shared calendar events with clinical detachment.
Speaker 1: I set our still fresh tulips in the garbage bin,
Speaker 1: too bright for a room emptied of future plans. When
Speaker 1: my mother called, I let it ring, composing a brisk text. Instead,
Speaker 1: we're taking some time apart. I'm okay. I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: yet if the language was a shield or just the
Speaker 1: only way to refuse more lies. Early the next morning,
Speaker 1: MYA texted, I'm here if you need to hide or
Speaker 1: scream or burn things. I replied, maybe coffee later. Even
Speaker 1: though I didn't crave company, only movement, any momentum at all.
Speaker 1: He tried to call just once in the afternoon, his
Speaker 1: name blinking. I sent a single message, don't come back
Speaker 1: to night. It felt like a line drawn in the sound,
Speaker 1: and lonely, but needed. That night, I stacked four pillows
Speaker 1: across our bed, hitching the covers up high on my side,
Speaker 1: as if mass could replace what was missing. The apartment
Speaker 1: became enormous, the echo of his footsteps gone, Every old
Speaker 1: song or inside joke banished by the simple order of survival.
Speaker 1: I left his scarf on the empty hook, a hollowed
Speaker 1: out proof that absence has its own anatomy. By dusk
Speaker 1: the next day, I wandered the rooms, touching objects that
Speaker 1: belonged neither to my new solitude nor to our history.
Speaker 1: I deleted the last of our shared photos from social
Speaker 1: media and tagging myself from group shots where I stood
Speaker 1: smiling beside the person. I thought I knew the city's
Speaker 1: pulse beat only faintly through the glass. I listened to
Speaker 1: neighbors dragna their chairs, to taxis screech past ti laughter.
Speaker 1: I'd once been inside. I was outside it now, but
Speaker 1: I was still standing. I spent Sunday in the studio,
Speaker 1: arriving earlier than any one, letting work clear a straight
Speaker 1: path through my head. For the first time in weeks,
Speaker 1: I lost hours in designed decisions, fonts, lines, color, spaces
Speaker 1: that obeyed me. It was a cold relief. In the
Speaker 1: days that followed, three maybe four, I lost track. I
Speaker 1: grew used to empty space, to watching the city through
Speaker 1: a glass that no longer reflected the shape of our
Speaker 1: life together. I changed passwords, started a new folder for work,
Speaker 1: canceled all dinners, and sent single line apologies to our
Speaker 1: overlapping friends. One evening, after a late client meeting, I
Speaker 1: let myself into the apartment, our apartment, the words starting
Speaker 1: to fracture in my mind. The hallway stretched foreign and silent.
Speaker 1: I opened the balcony door to the velvet dusk city
Speaker 1: humming under sodium lamps, and the last loose glimmer of
Speaker 1: spring heat. I took a deep breath, letting the night
Speaker 1: air dry, the last salt sting under my eyes. I
Speaker 1: did not reach for my phone this time, though it
Speaker 1: buzzed on the table with some unknown notification. This moment
Speaker 1: belonged only to me. To morrow, I knew I would
Speaker 1: go to the market alone, and for the first time,
Speaker 1: the uncertainty that had haunted me shifted not toward fear,
Speaker 1: but towards something empty and bright, a space just big
Speaker 1: enough to fill with real possibility. And it hit me
Speaker 1: in that hushed, electric darkness. I still craved answers, but
Speaker 1: it no longer felt like answers would change anything. I'd
Speaker 1: already lost him, whether the loss showed in public or
Speaker 1: staid quiet and private in these rooms. It was the truth, yes,
Speaker 1: but I felt exposed and stubbornly alive at the same time,
Speaker 1: no longer apologizing to myself in every silent gap. At first,
Speaker 1: it was only practical waking up. Moving on, I poured
Speaker 1: a measured half cup of coffee, careful not to brew
Speaker 1: too much, not to imagine I'd be splitting it with
Speaker 1: any one. The apartment no longer vibrated with the double
Speaker 1: rhythm of two mismatched lives. Still it kept revealing its
Speaker 1: little absences, his scarf by the door, the bit of
Speaker 1: soap in the shower, even the battered deck of playing
Speaker 1: cards under the TV. I found myself collecting these things
Speaker 1: in a growing pile on the bottom shelf of the
Speaker 1: hall closet, items that had belonged to both of us
Speaker 1: and now to neither. But as each hour passed, the
Speaker 1: world outside kept making demands. I couldn't stop working, couldn't
Speaker 1: stop meeting with new clients, answering insistent emails, reviewing proofs.
Speaker 1: If anything, the pressure pressed down harder, like the universe
Speaker 1: insisted on regularity where chaos wanted to run riot. The
Speaker 1: old market, with its tangled lines and sweet breads, sat
Speaker 1: waiting just ten blocks away, still reliable, even when nothing
Speaker 1: else was. I saw its awnings from my studio window
Speaker 1: as I worked late into the night, wanting both to
Speaker 1: avoid and to rediscover it as my own space. His
Speaker 1: name kept appearing, like a small, unwonted insect, on group
Speaker 1: texts for birthday drinks, on invoices from the caterer for
Speaker 1: a mutual friend's wedding, Even in the mouth of my
Speaker 1: uber driver who called out, isn't your husband the guy
Speaker 1: at Bellwether? The old answers stuck in my throat. I
Speaker 1: learned to brush questions off, to redirect, to smile in
Speaker 1: a way that didn't crease too high or too low.
Speaker 1: He tried to get through once more before I blocked
Speaker 1: his number. No call this time, just a message that
Speaker 1: said want to talk for real, as if we could
Speaker 1: talk our way past what he'd already set on fire.
Speaker 1: I left it unseen in my inbox, deleting it only
Speaker 1: when I realized I'd been rereading it for hours without
Speaker 1: meaning to. By the end of the week, our friend
Speaker 1: lay a message to say that Jamie was bartending the
Speaker 1: launch of a new pop up. I could have ignored it,
Speaker 1: but it was the same bar where I'd first met him.
Speaker 1: My heart clenched, angry, but still tethered to the past.
Speaker 1: It felt like the whole sea he had organized itself
Speaker 1: into a parade of reminders. The ache inside started to
Speaker 1: feel less like loss more like impatience, impatience for the
Speaker 1: air to clear, for the story to finally land where
Speaker 1: it was meant to. One afternoon, Maya swung by the
Speaker 1: studio coffee in hand. She hovered in the entr away, hesitating.
Speaker 1: I know you said you wanted space, she said, but
Speaker 1: I just needed to make sure you weren't disappearing. Her
Speaker 1: voice faltered. She wasn't going to force platitudes. That's why
Speaker 1: she was the closest thing I had to family in
Speaker 1: this city. I nearly caved, then nearly dissolved into her careful,
Speaker 1: sidelong hug. Instead, I found myself saying, he wanted some
Speaker 1: one to look at him like he was the only one.
Speaker 1: I was busy looking at the future. The truth surprised
Speaker 1: me with its flatness. She closed her eyes, nodding. She
Speaker 1: didn't offer advice, just squeezed my arm before heading out. Later,
Speaker 1: I realized how unique a gift that was, compassion without interfereherance.
Speaker 1: I survived the next few days by becoming my own audience,
Speaker 1: observing memories as though they belonged on someone else's highlight reel.
Speaker 1: I cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed dust from corners, shuffled my
Speaker 1: books into new orders. It was domestic triage, an attempt
Speaker 1: to prove to myself that things could be put in order,
Speaker 1: even if meaning couldn't. But life doesn't sit in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: The world grew sharper beyond the glass. My work picked
Speaker 1: up a new client's approval, bringing an unexpected little thrill
Speaker 1: of relief. But I also started bumping into people, mutual
Speaker 1: friends who avoided eye contact, soft invitations that included Jamie's
Speaker 1: name on the guest list, lane A's cautious elliptical texts.
Speaker 1: None of it was truly avoidable. The real escalation came
Speaker 1: inevitably Friday. It was supposed to be unremarkable, a reschedule
Speaker 1: for a meeting with an old client in the cafe
Speaker 1: under our building. I was sitting with my second coffee,
Speaker 1: scrolling through project drafts when I heard Jamie's unmistakable laugh
Speaker 1: drifting through the windows, too loud, rising above the general murmur.
Speaker 1: She walked in, trailing a small group of staff from
Speaker 1: the bar, including Gabe and two other new faces I
Speaker 1: didn't know well. There were a sudden riot of color
Speaker 1: at the far table. Jamie's laugh was quick and contagious.
Speaker 1: Their ease made the cafe shrink around her presence. She
Speaker 1: didn't notice me until Gabe's gaze caught mine. For a
Speaker 1: split second. Something passed in his eyes, a flinch compassion, regret.
Speaker 1: Jamie must have seen the direction of his glance, because
Speaker 1: a second later she followed it, her face shifting quickly
Speaker 1: from loud, animated confidence to that taut, measured friendliness I'd
Speaker 1: seen at the art opening. For a second, neither of
Speaker 1: us looked away, Unspoken calculations bloomed between us. Jamie set
Speaker 1: down her cup, walked over as if pulled by a tide.
Speaker 1: Hey didn't expect to see you here, she said, voice
Speaker 1: as breezy and diplomatic as morning news. Her cheeks were
Speaker 1: a little flushed, and there was a faint scratch along
Speaker 1: her wrist, half hidden by bracelets. She looked tired, or
Speaker 1: maybe just worn thin by attention. I work here, I said,
Speaker 1: dry right, I keep forgetting you're a regular, She hesitated.
Speaker 1: The impulse to fill silence was strong in her, the
Speaker 1: urge to overshare, to apologize, to explain, but she didn't.
Speaker 1: She wasn't stupid. How's he doing? The words came out
Speaker 1: before I could stop them. I hated myself for asking.
Speaker 1: She looked at Gabe, then back at me. He's around
Speaker 1: tough right now, you know. She fiddled with her sleeve.
Speaker 1: None of us wanted to see things turn out like
Speaker 1: this for what it's worth. He really cares, He's just
Speaker 1: a mess. There was no triumph in her face, just fatigue.
Speaker 1: The conversation drifted into a short circuit, each of us
Speaker 1: unwilling to open old injuries in public. Finally, she offered
Speaker 1: a brittle smile and returned to her group, shoulders hunched,
Speaker 1: laughter quieter. Now, Gabe caught my eye and nodded a
Speaker 1: gesture of apology or relief, or maybe just exhaustion from
Speaker 1: carrying other people's secrets. I thought the encounter would leave
Speaker 1: me furious, but it only left me emptier, more clarified.
Speaker 1: I watched as Jamie ducked her head between two new bartenders,
Speaker 1: gingerly steering clear of too much happiness, even triumph, it seemed,
Speaker 1: had its weight. That evening, alone, again in the apartment,
Speaker 1: I looked around at the possessions we'd gathered in six years,
Speaker 1: so many of them shaped by his taste or by
Speaker 1: the compromises of our cohabitation. Most of it was useful, neutral,
Speaker 1: but a few things stood out now with a glow.
Speaker 1: I couldn't scrub away our market bags, the chipped mug
Speaker 1: he'd rescued from a flea market, his battered copy of
Speaker 1: a Murer Carmi novel. I boxed them, quietly, taping the
Speaker 1: cardboards shut with the kind of deliberate care you give
Speaker 1: to the last acts of mourning. Later, I received one
Speaker 1: last message, unsigned from a number I didn't recognize at first.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that was all. It could have been from him,
Speaker 1: or Jamie or even Meyer, trying to force closure. I
Speaker 1: deleted it before I could consider a reply. Saturday came finally,
Speaker 1: swirling with the last hint of spring. The old aches
Speaker 1: still rested somewhere beneath the colubon, but I got dressed,
Speaker 1: cinched my jacket tight, and walked alone toward the market,
Speaker 1: pacing each block as if requenting myself with possession of
Speaker 1: my own time. The city felt new, even as I
Speaker 1: fell into old patterns, selecting sourdough, weighing peaches. Standing a
Speaker 1: little outside the clump of week end regulars, the vendors
Speaker 1: recognized me, but adjusted their greetings, wary perhaps of the
Speaker 1: shift in company. I found myself smiling genuinely as I
Speaker 1: tasted cherry jam As I listened to a man tuning
Speaker 1: a battered acoustic half way down the avenue, the air
Speaker 1: was alive with its own business, the orchestration of a
Speaker 1: city that neither blamed nor remembered, only spun onward. As
Speaker 1: I moved through each stall, the edges of anxiety softened.
Speaker 1: There was no sudden transformation, no heart leaping relief or
Speaker 1: wild new clarity. Instead, each choice I made, every conversation,
Speaker 1: every exchange of cash for produce, felt like a small
Speaker 1: stitch toward wholeness. Again, no one asked after him, not directly.
Speaker 1: I bought myself the almond quassa, the one he'd always
Speaker 1: bought for me, and ate it on a bench without ceremony.
Speaker 1: I existed still in the gap between loss and renewal,
Speaker 1: a space where the city's swirl pressed forward, and I
Speaker 1: walked at my own pace, boots steady on the wet
Speaker 1: concrete back in the apartment, now undoubtedly my own, I
Speaker 1: opened the window and let the city air rush in.
Speaker 1: His scarf hung where I'd left it, but its gravity
Speaker 1: had fallen away. I leaned on the window sill and
Speaker 1: realized I was filling the silence not with his absence,
Speaker 1: but with the slow, insistent return of my own voice.
Speaker 1: The world was still indifferent, but I was here to
Speaker 1: meet it. Future unwritten, unclaimed. For the first time, I
Speaker 1: didn't my not knowing what would come next. To morrow,
Speaker 1: I thought I'd wake empty but undecided. I wasn't healed,
Speaker 1: I wasn't finished. I was only free enough at last
Speaker 1: to choose myself first. And that is the end. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening, and I will see you in the
Speaker 1: next one.