Speaker 1: Rain always feels different in the city when I'm walking
Speaker 1: home through it. No umbrella, just the wet, blonde sweep
Speaker 1: of hair against my cheeks. I feel wrapped in static,
Speaker 1: a half sealed envelope. On that Friday, water streamed down
Speaker 1: my jacket and filled the gutters with yellow reflections from
Speaker 1: the corner bar's sign. Our apartment buildings entry away gave
Speaker 1: the usual blast of overheated air, mixing sweat and perfume
Speaker 1: with damp cement. I climbed the stairs slower than usual,
Speaker 1: keys pinched between my fingers, already replaying the day's marketing
Speaker 1: stand up in my head, wishing for the simple reset
Speaker 1: of Gregg's voice behind the door. What I got is
Speaker 1: not quite that. I walked into a hush. The lights
Speaker 1: were dim, our living room half glow, the curtains unpulled.
Speaker 1: The balcony door was cracked just enough that the cool,
Speaker 1: wet noise bled in. I heard Gregg's laugh. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the hearty, silly one he use for mean videos, but
Speaker 1: a softer, rumbled chuckle I'd heard at weddings or after
Speaker 1: midnight on good dates, usually right before he leaned in
Speaker 1: to say something private to me. My name came through
Speaker 1: the crack, a breathy, live, intimate, but somehow exposed. Then
Speaker 1: a pause, a quick, abrupt end to whatever conversation was
Speaker 1: happening outside. I towed off my boots by the door
Speaker 1: and called out the silence after. My voice was sharp.
Speaker 1: Maybe just nerves, may be something more. Gregg swung in
Speaker 1: from the balcony, hair towsled, laptop clutched in one hand
Speaker 1: the other, pushing the door shut with slightly excessive carelessness.
Speaker 1: He blinked, grinned too brightly, and tossed out deadline drama.
Speaker 1: Client needed a last minute pep talk. He crossed the
Speaker 1: floor toward me, dimples showing, but the smile was all surface.
Speaker 1: His laptop was pointed away from me. He bent for
Speaker 1: a hug, but even his arms felt staged, a little
Speaker 1: too loose. The room still held a whiff of something
Speaker 1: I couldn't place. Maybe incense, maybe just muggy air. I
Speaker 1: listened to his heart beat through his shirt, but it
Speaker 1: was my own pulse, high and shaky that I heard instead.
Speaker 1: After a moment, he pulled back, started rambling about the
Speaker 1: client s sense of urgency. Some people just don't get that. Freelancers,
Speaker 1: have you know boundaries. His words tumbled out, stilted, practiced.
Speaker 1: I nodded, even smiled, tried to banish the weirdness, but
Speaker 1: it stuck to me all evening, the invisible outline of
Speaker 1: something wrong in our apartments, familiar corners, we ate takeout.
Speaker 1: Cross legged on the floor, Gregg scrolled through his phone,
Speaker 1: eyes quick to dart away. When I met them, I
Speaker 1: made tea, watched the rain, and told myself maybe he
Speaker 1: really does just need space. But as we moved around
Speaker 1: each other, curling up to watch half a show, Mario Kart,
Speaker 1: cleaning up, shutting off lights, I kept feeling like I'd
Speaker 1: wandered into a play where everyone else knew their lines
Speaker 1: except for me. That's how the weekend started. The story
Speaker 1: of us wasn't always strange. In fact, we were a
Speaker 1: good story, a good risk to hear our friends tell it.
Speaker 1: We met seven years ago at an opening for some
Speaker 1: fledgling painter, one of those warehouse galleries on the West Side,
Speaker 1: with concrete floors and string lights painstakingly twisted overhead. I'd
Speaker 1: gone with Naomi, who worked with the gallery, and Greg
Speaker 1: wandered over, sweaty from a wrong way subway ride, but
Speaker 1: grinning at a mural sized cityscape, as if it might
Speaker 1: come alive at any moment. He caught my eye during
Speaker 1: the cheese platter crush, and his opener was do these
Speaker 1: look like real buildings? Or is it all wishful thinking?
Speaker 1: We fell in fast, not reckless, but easy, like we
Speaker 1: just fit the same corners. Our first date was a
Speaker 1: walk through Hudson River Park. Gregg made up stories for
Speaker 1: strangers we passed, and by the time we ended up
Speaker 1: in a noisy wine bar, I knew more about his
Speaker 1: fake history for the guy with the dog than about
Speaker 1: Greg himself. He was witty, kinetic in that quietly thoughtful way,
Speaker 1: some one whose brain is always two clicks ahead. I
Speaker 1: liked his hands when he talked, the way they waved
Speaker 1: unseen shapes into the air. I brought energy planning lists,
Speaker 1: structure that seemed to energize him but never boxed him in.
Speaker 1: We built weekends around city hikes, pop up food markets,
Speaker 1: long mornings, drooling over bad coffee, and sprawling out on
Speaker 1: picnic blankets under construction cranes. We sparked off each other,
Speaker 1: my optimism, his perpetual curiosity, My knack for finding secret bars,
Speaker 1: his for debating which skylines were worth a late night detour.
Speaker 1: Our relationship was an urban adventure sands map. Neither of
Speaker 1: us grew up here. Gregg's parents are in Portland, mine
Speaker 1: in South Carolina. We carved out a family here by necessity.
Speaker 1: A web of friends who started as plus ones at
Speaker 1: mutual happy hours and wound up as nightly group chat
Speaker 1: comedians and emergency moving daylifters. Roof top barbecues in June,
Speaker 1: costume parties in cold, slushy Novembers, game night sh the
Speaker 1: showdowns that once ended with Greg wearing a tiara until sunrise.
Speaker 1: We became Greg and Olivia, paired in email invites and
Speaker 1: brunch tables, people who co ordinated costumes and birthdays, whose
Speaker 1: plus ones were assumed professionally, We stretched ourselves thin. My
Speaker 1: job as a senior marketing manager at an insanely ambitious
Speaker 1: wellness start up meant late night campaign launches and endless
Speaker 1: revision loops. I loved the challenge and the camaraderie, but
Speaker 1: it left me wound tight. Greg, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: was a creative freelancer, first focusing on graphic design for
Speaker 1: start ups, now adding photography in some branding work. I
Speaker 1: envied his flexibility. Sometimes envied how he could wander out
Speaker 1: for coffee at ten a m On a Wednesday, or
Speaker 1: flee the city for inspiration when the mood struck. It
Speaker 1: sometimes meant he held less structure, missed calls, bills paid
Speaker 1: just in time, a nap in the middle of the afternoon.
Speaker 1: But he worked harder than people realized. We argued about
Speaker 1: those gaps now and then, but we'd always find our
Speaker 1: way back, even after small storms. His irritation when I
Speaker 1: critiqued his work discipline, my resentment when I picked up
Speaker 1: the slack. Nothing major enough to breach what we felt that.
Speaker 1: We chose each other's company every chance we had. Our
Speaker 1: rituals propped us up. Sunday mornings were sacred. One of us,
Speaker 1: usually me, would pick up flaky quassas from honey Bee's Bakery,
Speaker 1: and we'd slump in sweats with mugs of coffee, legs
Speaker 1: knotted together like children, playlists bouncing between jazz and trip hop.
Speaker 1: We'd recap the highs and lows from our weeks. Gregg's
Speaker 1: wildest project ideas, my colleague's latest passive aggressive email, the
Speaker 1: budget drama, the Paiella recipe disaster. We hiked in the Palisades,
Speaker 1: even in January. When I lost my job last year
Speaker 1: in a round of layoffs, he was the anchor who
Speaker 1: convinced me it was only a setback, that we'd get
Speaker 1: me through it together. When Gregg's sighed business tanked, one
Speaker 1: of his wilder dreams, an app for cataloging city murals,
Speaker 1: I spent week ends coding a basic sight because neither
Speaker 1: of us wanted to see him give up at the
Speaker 1: first stumble. We survived four apartment moves in three years,
Speaker 1: three snowed in holidays, and a kitchen flood. We laughed
Speaker 1: about how our luck was just stubbornness dressed up for company.
Speaker 1: Yet for all that closeness, when Gregg was stressed, truly overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: or worried about something new, he'd retreat. I always gave
Speaker 1: him space, thinking if I just waited, he'd bounce back.
Speaker 1: Usually he did. I trusted him, not because I never
Speaker 1: saw cracks, but because we always recovered. That's what made
Speaker 1: his strange laughter on the balcony so hard to process.
Speaker 1: It wasn't blame exactly that I felt that night or
Speaker 1: the next, more a prickle of being outside a joke
Speaker 1: for the first time in years, I tried to brush
Speaker 1: it away, to blame it on my own job's stress
Speaker 1: or October's creeping grayness. I let it slide, or told
Speaker 1: myself that I did. Greg was my person. If something
Speaker 1: was off, it would unravel. We'd talk it out like
Speaker 1: we always had. Three weeks later, something shifted again. It
Speaker 1: was a Saturday. Greg and I had our routine, a
Speaker 1: thermos of coffee, hiking shoes stacked in the foyer, the
Speaker 1: mini maps I downloaded on my phone for a new
Speaker 1: trail up State seven forty five, rainy but clearing. I
Speaker 1: was tugging on a mismatched sock when Greg came in,
Speaker 1: hair askew, pale in the hallway's light. I can't go
Speaker 1: to day. It was abrupt, without the usual apology, deadline panic.
Speaker 1: Essel just emailed client call at ten, and I'm behind
Speaker 1: on edits. I felt my irritation and disappointment wore in
Speaker 1: my chest. This was our thing, our tradition, especially in fall,
Speaker 1: when the city felt less like a prison and more
Speaker 1: like a playground. It'll just be a couple hours, I said,
Speaker 1: you can, but he took his head, already retreating. Rain
Speaker 1: check go without me. If I'm lucky, i'll be done
Speaker 1: before noon. We can meet for brunch. The words slipped
Speaker 1: past quickly, as if rehearsed. I tried to catch his eyes,
Speaker 1: but he was already back to his laptop. I tried
Speaker 1: not to sulk. I went alone, but the woods felt
Speaker 1: hollow without Gregg's chatter by the river, the air sharp
Speaker 1: with wet leaves. I scrolled through work emils instead of
Speaker 1: photos for Greg, kicking at stones and planning to pick
Speaker 1: up pastries for him. On the way home, I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: we're allowed to skip a tradition. That's a grown up thing.
Speaker 1: But it felt like dropping a line. I wasn't ready
Speaker 1: to loosen. Back at the apartment, I slowed off muddy
Speaker 1: boots and ducked into the bathroom, first, peeling off wet leggings.
Speaker 1: I caught a smell in the air, perfume, drifting sharp
Speaker 1: and unfamiliar, above the usual soap and mildew, not like
Speaker 1: my rose water or Gregg's after shape. I checked the counter.
Speaker 1: The bottles lined up the same as usual. It was
Speaker 1: so faint I almost doubt i'd noticed. In the small
Speaker 1: trash basket, I found a crumpled tissue and a single
Speaker 1: wrapper from a sample perfume, a brand I didn't recognize.
Speaker 1: There was nothing else, no lipstick, smudge, no stray earring.
Speaker 1: I tossed the rapper back in and stared at myself
Speaker 1: in the mirror. I thought, this is how those stories start,
Speaker 1: A scent in the wrong place. But maybe it was nothing.
Speaker 1: Gregg's mood was off when I found him. He looked
Speaker 1: up from his laptop, dark screensaver flickered foam, face down
Speaker 1: on the coffee table. You okay, he asked, quickly, voice brittle.
Speaker 1: He said he was just slammed too many irons in
Speaker 1: the fire. I offered pastries. He barely glanced up. I
Speaker 1: watched him rub his forehead, thumbs pressed hard into his eyes,
Speaker 1: the way he always did before a migrain. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask about the perfume, the rapper, the laughter on
Speaker 1: the balcony. I didn't. I'm not sure why I didn't,
Speaker 1: not fear exactly, Maybe a protectiveness for something I still
Speaker 1: wanted to believe was fine and private. And hours we
Speaker 1: sat two feet apart, the space between us filled less
Speaker 1: with words and more with tired quiet, each of us
Speaker 1: guarding something, me from the impulse to press him from
Speaker 1: whatever weight he was holding When I lay next to
Speaker 1: him that night, the warmth didn't quite reach me. Loyalty,
Speaker 1: I kept reminding myself. Greg hadn't drifted once in seven years,
Speaker 1: never taken flirting beyond a slow smile, never slipped in
Speaker 1: a lie I could uncover. He never liked drama for
Speaker 1: its own sake. I told myself, I'm probably inventing this.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm hypertuned because work stress is bleeding into everything,
Speaker 1: or maybe just because rainy autumns always make me nostalgic
Speaker 1: and lonely. But the gap didn't fill. I started to
Speaker 1: trace it maybe a week or two after Greg started
Speaker 1: mentioning a new work partner. ESL wants revisions by Monday.
Speaker 1: Essel thinks the mood boards need more spring tones, essel
Speaker 1: blah blah budgets. I realized I'd never heard those initials before.
Speaker 1: I asked once, what's essel stand for? And Gregg shrugged,
Speaker 1: not looking up new client, creative partner. Whatever. I'll send
Speaker 1: you the project link when it launches. He talked more
Speaker 1: and more about the project, new direction, really good energy,
Speaker 1: probably get me a couple referrals if it pans out,
Speaker 1: but the details were vague. Gregg's creative partners came and went,
Speaker 1: but usually he introduced them to me in passing or
Speaker 1: looped me in for a drink after a big pitch.
Speaker 1: Essel never materialized outside his late night anxiety and his
Speaker 1: calendar reminders. A few nights in a row, I caught
Speaker 1: Greg texting at the dinner table, phone under the edge
Speaker 1: so the screen was hidden from my line of sight.
Speaker 1: He started flipping it face down every time he left
Speaker 1: the room, a new habit. Once, when I dropped my
Speaker 1: fork and stooped to scoop it up, his hand darted
Speaker 1: across the tablecloth, sliding his phone into his lap. He smiled,
Speaker 1: apologetically made a joke about workerholicks anonymous, but I felt
Speaker 1: the pressure twitch at my temples. Our friend started commenting.
Speaker 1: At Naomi's wine and Candle's night, I arrived alone, the
Speaker 1: first time in months. Greg couldn't make it. He's usually
Speaker 1: the first to R s v P. Steve grumbled, pouring
Speaker 1: me a finger of bourbon. Naomi asked me privately, everything okay.
Speaker 1: Gregg's missed too in a row. He always loves causing
Speaker 1: trouble with Ali, even Paul, Gregg's friend since college. One
Speaker 1: of those rare friendships built on roasted chicken, indie bands,
Speaker 1: and shared hangover cures. Noticed at Friday dinner, Paul tipped
Speaker 1: his beer toward my hand. Not to be a cliche,
Speaker 1: but have you met the new partner, the Ssel person
Speaker 1: he's excited about. It hit me then. I'd never been invited,
Speaker 1: I'd never even seen a photo. Gregg dismissed it when
Speaker 1: I mentioned it later. It's just heads down work right now.
Speaker 1: When the project raps, I'll bring every one together. But
Speaker 1: the list of excuses began to weld together. He started
Speaker 1: coming home after I'd gone to bed, keys rattling past midnight,
Speaker 1: tiptoeing around like a teenager after curfew. When I asked
Speaker 1: how the pitch went, he'd say good, good, just wiped
Speaker 1: and vanished to the bathroom or to catch up on emails.
Speaker 1: That tiredness became his new armor. Too tired for our
Speaker 1: favorite climbing gym, too tired for brunch, too tired for sex.
Speaker 1: If I pressed, he'd muster a little energy, a compliment
Speaker 1: for my hair, a squeeze of my fingers, and then retreat.
Speaker 1: One night, Gregg showered late, steam filling our tiny bathroom.
Speaker 1: I was heading in to brush my teeth, when his
Speaker 1: phone buzzed on the bedside table. I swear I intended
Speaker 1: only to relocate it before he got it wet, But
Speaker 1: the screen glowed with an incoming call. S not s
Speaker 1: L just S. My mind raised. Before I could act,
Speaker 1: Gregg appeared, hair dripping, towel loose at his hips, and
Speaker 1: froze when he saw my hand on his phone. There
Speaker 1: was a moment half a second where his face went blank, unreadable,
Speaker 1: before sliding into a cartoonish smile. Logistics call, he said,
Speaker 1: swiping it from my hand, essel is a nightmare about
Speaker 1: late deadlines. He was dry eyed, but his voice was
Speaker 1: pitched high over eager, like he was trying to convince
Speaker 1: himself as much as me. After he disappeared into the
Speaker 1: living room, I plucked his jacket from the couch to
Speaker 1: hang it up. Another thing he'd gotten worse about lately.
Speaker 1: His wallet fell out. As I gathered it, a crumpled
Speaker 1: receipt peeped from an inside pocket. Curious, I smoothed it
Speaker 1: out Upscale Restaurant last Thursday. The date matched a night
Speaker 1: he'd claimed to be at a networking mixer, promising he'd
Speaker 1: bring home dessert. He hadn't. I stood there receipt limp
Speaker 1: in my fist, logic crawling through my mind. Networking dinners
Speaker 1: could happen anywhere, but this wasn't one of his goat
Speaker 1: o coworking bars. My fingers trembled, I dropped the paper,
Speaker 1: forced myself to Breathe Was I really going to become
Speaker 1: the kind of part who sniffed receipts and read into
Speaker 1: buzzed calls? Wasn't this all just pressure, Gregg building something
Speaker 1: new with his work, me projecting because I felt left behind.
Speaker 1: The thought chased its tail with every brush off and
Speaker 1: every apology Gregg made that seemed painted on and immediate.
Speaker 1: That Sunday, instead of coffee and quassas together, I found
Speaker 1: him at the computer, deep into an indesigned file, headphones
Speaker 1: clamped across his ears. I wrote him a note, want
Speaker 1: to hike, and left it with a packet of his
Speaker 1: favorite spiced almonds. By noon, the note was still there,
Speaker 1: the almonds were gone, but so was Greg. That evening,
Speaker 1: I lay on our bed, eyes aching, and remembered a
Speaker 1: night years before, wine drunk on a rooftop after a
Speaker 1: particularly bad week at my job. I confessed my terror
Speaker 1: that his career would take him places I couldn't follow
Speaker 1: that he'd leave as soon as things felt stuck. Greg
Speaker 1: had squeezed my hand and said quietly, work will never
Speaker 1: matter more than you if it starts to tell me.
Speaker 1: The memory didn't make me feel better. It made me
Speaker 1: wonder if I'd already missed my chance. I opened my journal,
Speaker 1: wanting to write a single logical list evidence verses insecurity,
Speaker 1: but my pen hovered above the paper, unable to land.
Speaker 1: I thought about calling Naomi. She'd know what to say,
Speaker 1: or at least would let me cry it out before
Speaker 1: circling back to rationality. But the words I think Greg
Speaker 1: is lying to me felt too heavy to utter, like
Speaker 1: they de turned suspicion into an accusation I couldn't take back. Instead,
Speaker 1: I started jotting down Greg's absences, the odd receipts, every
Speaker 1: time he mentioned essel and ducked the subject. I wrote,
Speaker 1: then crossed everything out, then started again. The distance between
Speaker 1: us stretched, but didn't snap. Finally, it was a Wednesday,
Speaker 1: after a long, headache inducing day when I couldn't stand it.
Speaker 1: I poured a glass of wine, turned off my phone,
Speaker 1: and sat across from Greg at the kitchen table as
Speaker 1: he worked on his laptop. Hey, I said quietly, and
Speaker 1: waited until he looked up. He seemed surprised, searching my
Speaker 1: face as if for a hint of land after days
Speaker 1: at sea. I'm worried about you, I offered, gentle, not accusatory.
Speaker 1: You're not really sleeping. I haven't seen you eat a
Speaker 1: real meal in days. Are you O? K? Or? Is
Speaker 1: there something I should know about this project that's eating
Speaker 1: your life? Gregg blinked. It's been rough eSeL's project is
Speaker 1: it's a big deal, live like make or break for
Speaker 1: the whole year, high pressure, tight turnerans. I'll be able
Speaker 1: to breathe again soon, I promise. He met my eyes.
Speaker 1: An apology flickering there, but it didn't linger. I just
Speaker 1: miss you, I whispered, and that was true. I hate
Speaker 1: feeling shut out, he shot me a half smile. You're
Speaker 1: not shut out. I'm just in a tunnel. I want
Speaker 1: to get to the end of it before I show
Speaker 1: you what I've built, I nodded, swallowing disappointment. Is there
Speaker 1: anything I can do? He touched my hand. Not unless
Speaker 1: you want to write pitch decks for s L. Sam Lucas.
Speaker 1: By the way, He's complicated, but important for my freelance stuff.
Speaker 1: Gregg's voice was almost light now, as if saying the
Speaker 1: name made it true. He glanced at his phone. Actually,
Speaker 1: he hesitated, I want you to meet Sam. There's a
Speaker 1: drink's thing after the pitch. Tuesday, you should come. Relief,
Speaker 1: tentative and half borne, fluttered in me. I'd like that.
Speaker 1: Tuesday came and I pressed a new dress, feeling faintly
Speaker 1: ridiculous for prepping for a client event like a first date.
Speaker 1: Gregg was warmer than he'd been in weeks, cracking jokes
Speaker 1: on the subway, holding my hand as he navigated toward
Speaker 1: a bar on Tenth Avenue I vaguely remembered from some
Speaker 1: launch party years before. Inside we found Sam Lucas, a
Speaker 1: sharply dressed, sandy haired guy about Gregg's age. Sam flashed
Speaker 1: a wedding ring as he shook my hand, then talked
Speaker 1: for agent about how Greg's designs saved the launch, and
Speaker 1: flipped effortlessly between tech gossip and game theory. He ribbed
Speaker 1: Greg about his workload. He's always this cheerful when stressed,
Speaker 1: Sam asked me, squeezing his eyes at Greg with exaggerated
Speaker 1: conspiratorial humor. The night was pleasant. Maybe even fun. The
Speaker 1: drinks were good, the banter casual, and I found myself relaxing,
Speaker 1: immersed in talk about sports and music and the subtle
Speaker 1: art of managing flaky freelance clients. Sam excused himself twice
Speaker 1: for phone calls. Both times Greg rolled his eyes the
Speaker 1: curse of the client's CEO. I let go of a
Speaker 1: breath I hadn't meant to hold. Afterward, Greg squeezed my
Speaker 1: hand and said, see, nothing nefarious, just a project and
Speaker 1: a lot riding on it. I felt sheepish. I believe you,
Speaker 1: I told him, and then truly for a few days
Speaker 1: I did. The frost between us melted. Greg spent a
Speaker 1: Saturday with me at the farmer's market, even shared a
Speaker 1: lazy brunch with two of our coupled friends. We made
Speaker 1: love that night. Clumsy, needing to reconnect, I told myself
Speaker 1: it was all just stress. The following Thursday, while sorting
Speaker 1: laundry before bed, I found his tablet on top of
Speaker 1: the sheets. Greg always left screens everywhere, and decided to
Speaker 1: plug it in for him. I tapped it on, half distracted,
Speaker 1: wanting to queue up a playlist for morning. On the
Speaker 1: home screen, a PDF flicked into preview welcome packet, Siena
Speaker 1: l I paused, frowning. This wasn't the Sam Lucas I
Speaker 1: just met. Waking Greg would have been pointless. He was
Speaker 1: out cold in the living room, a blanket thrown over
Speaker 1: his feet, snoring, softly faced, lemon yellow in the lamp light.
Speaker 1: I sat there, listening to the city sirens, the tablet
Speaker 1: heavy in my hands. The initials were the same essel,
Speaker 1: but they belonged to some one else. Sleep didn't come easily.
Speaker 1: By the next afternoon, I was at my desk, calender
Speaker 1: blocked for deep work, searching client names on LinkedIn, on Google,
Speaker 1: in archived email newsletters, buried between branding portfolios and meet
Speaker 1: up recaps, I found her, Siena LaVoi, freelance photographer and
Speaker 1: digital creative. She hadn't worked with Greg before, at least
Speaker 1: not in any public way. Her bio listed half a
Speaker 1: dozen agencies, three magazine projects, two recent exhibitions. On her website,
Speaker 1: under Collaborations was a carousel of work featuring Greg's name
Speaker 1: as the designer. There were behind the scenes shots Siena
Speaker 1: out on a rainy city block, Greg crouched beside her,
Speaker 1: both laughing at something cropped tantalizingly out of frame. I
Speaker 1: clicked through months of posts. The tags trendy bars, restaurants,
Speaker 1: familiar from those receipts, late night pizza, haunts in neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: Greg's swore he hated trekking to the language was easy, intimate,
Speaker 1: lost in edits all night. Thanks at Greg Taler for
Speaker 1: fueling the madness with caffeine and bad jokes. Another post,
Speaker 1: when your partner brings the stormy color palette and all
Speaker 1: you can do is yes. Comments were peppered with emojis, artistic,
Speaker 1: sometimes flirty. Maybe nothing may be everything. I sat with
Speaker 1: my phone in my hand, pulse wild brain as slurry,
Speaker 1: had Greg my Greg written out and entire Sam Lucas
Speaker 1: just to have someone to display to me? Or was
Speaker 1: Siena just one cog in a team with Sam? And
Speaker 1: I was spinning this too far? At dinner, I tested
Speaker 1: the wire. Who's Siena, I asked, dropping her name in
Speaker 1: the middle of a bite. Greg stiffened, then slid into nonchalance.
Speaker 1: Part of the creative team. She's a photographer and coordinator.
Speaker 1: I barely see her projects are mostly remote. It sounded
Speaker 1: smooth but too practiced. I let it ride, eating because
Speaker 1: chewing was easier than talking, but doubt pressed into every syllable.
Speaker 1: That night, Greg stayed up late, sketchbook open, typing and scribbling.
Speaker 1: I watched his face flicker in the lamp light, concentration,
Speaker 1: a half smile, the ghost of something else. The next night, Friday,
Speaker 1: Naomi texted me just after nine saw Greg a Gallery
Speaker 1: forty eight with a stunning redhead. Thought you were out
Speaker 1: of town Roman twenty. The words blurred, then sharpened. Gallery
Speaker 1: forty eight was three blocks from our apartment, and though
Speaker 1: I'd mentioned brunch plans with my old co worker, I'd
Speaker 1: told Greg i'd be home by six. I typed back,
Speaker 1: trying for casual. Who was the redhead? Naomi replied, no clue.
Speaker 1: Looked like a photographer, had one of those artsy cameras
Speaker 1: in the world's longest scarf. Gregg seemed ike, cheerful. Didn't
Speaker 1: see you with him. I didn't answer. My hands shook
Speaker 1: so badly I had to stop and breathe alone in
Speaker 1: the kitchen, I stared into the open fridge and felt
Speaker 1: the edges of reality shift. Greg hadn't mentioned Gallery forty eight,
Speaker 1: He hadn't mentioned any one new when he came home,
Speaker 1: just said he'd been out brainstorming with the team and
Speaker 1: had two many Americano jitters to sleep. He'd asked after
Speaker 1: my brunch, let me talk about a joke my friend made,
Speaker 1: but kept his face turned away, shoulders hunched like someone
Speaker 1: mid audition. I slept restlessly, waking at every traffic noise outside.
Speaker 1: By morning, I made coffee and opened Instagram, scrolling Sienna's posts.
Speaker 1: No mention of Greg that night, but a story, a
Speaker 1: black and white gallery wall, a flash of his jacket's sleeve,
Speaker 1: the reflection of his profile in a framed photo. For
Speaker 1: a moment, I became someone else, a person who investigates,
Speaker 1: who schemes. I thought about how ridiculous it sounded over
Speaker 1: cup of coffee, posing as a client setting up a meeting.
Speaker 1: But when logic was done spinning and my nerves went silent,
Speaker 1: all I wanted was truth. I spent the whole day
Speaker 1: drafting and redrafting a message. Hi, Siena. I'm Olivia, a
Speaker 1: writer interested in collaborating on a portrait project. Saw your
Speaker 1: work with Greg, and I'd love to connect over coffee
Speaker 1: if you're open. I scent it before I could rethink.
Speaker 1: Stomach in knots all afternoon, pretending to pay attention in
Speaker 1: planning meetings, my mind already in back corners of cafes
Speaker 1: and borrowed names. Siena wrote back that night, warm but brief,
Speaker 1: would love to chat. Thanks for reaching out. Coffee Tuesday,
Speaker 1: let me know a time. No mention of Greg other
Speaker 1: than a vague emoji. Tuesday crept forward too slowly. I
Speaker 1: spent the intervening days living like a private detective in
Speaker 1: my own relationship, watching Greg for tells during dinner, searching
Speaker 1: his eyes for the man I knew, asking more follow
Speaker 1: up questions, getting less and less back. My patience thinned, brittle,
Speaker 1: like the ice on our bathroom mirror in February. The
Speaker 1: cafe on Tuesday was all exposed brick and fern leaf shadows,
Speaker 1: the kind of place Greg would suggest for ambient light.
Speaker 1: I waited ten minutes. Then Sienna swept in, red hair,
Speaker 1: long and loose, camera slung across her shoulder, eyes quick
Speaker 1: and clever. She smiled when she saw me, and in
Speaker 1: person she radiated cool confidence, not the flirty anxiety I'd
Speaker 1: built up in my head. We talked like creative professionals.
Speaker 1: She asked about the project. Let me steer. The conversation
Speaker 1: suggested half a dozen places to shoot. I pressed delicately.
Speaker 1: You and Greg seemed to work together a lot. How
Speaker 1: did you meet? Sienna? Smiled, poised, just through mutual gigs.
Speaker 1: He's got a great eye and our workflow clicks. She
Speaker 1: offered nothing more specific, not a single personal detail. When
Speaker 1: I pushed a little harder, you have other designed partners
Speaker 1: or is Greg your main one? She shrugged, tone polite
Speaker 1: but distant. I keep my teams flexible, a lot of
Speaker 1: crossover on shoots. Her professional caution was almost impressive. Was
Speaker 1: she hiding something? Every answer could mean either she was
Speaker 1: fiercely private or fiercely protective. I guess gave up after
Speaker 1: an hour, made my good byes, and left more confused
Speaker 1: than I'd arrived that night. Greg didn't bring up Siena,
Speaker 1: didn't ask about my day, didn't notice the chill I
Speaker 1: drifted through our apartment, cupboards and bins and drawers, suddenly foreign.
Speaker 1: The real clarity struck late. Greg was out, claiming a
Speaker 1: last minute studio meeting with a colleague. I found his
Speaker 1: sketch book. He usually left half finished pencil studies around,
Speaker 1: but this one was jammed half way down the trash bin,
Speaker 1: pages curled from being pressed under bottles. I almost didn't look.
Speaker 1: When I did, the sketches were immediate and intimate. Sienna
Speaker 1: at a cafe table, Sienna laughing, Sienna's hair falling down
Speaker 1: her back. Each page dated in the corners the last
Speaker 1: several months, all clustered into weeks. I thought Greg was
Speaker 1: staying late at the cowirking space. I flipped the pages.
Speaker 1: Some were almost photographic, eyes drawn in detail. I'd seen
Speaker 1: him lavish only on me in years ear earlier. They
Speaker 1: weren't pornographic or even riscuae, just lovely, treasured, intimate. I
Speaker 1: traced my finger over the pencil lines, and ache pulling
Speaker 1: up through my arms and chest. Every mist dinner, every
Speaker 1: work late, every receipt in a strange pocket. The story
Speaker 1: re arranged itself so clear I could barely stand to
Speaker 1: hold it in focus. Whatever Greg claimed, he was hiding
Speaker 1: this for a reason. The only thing I didn't know
Speaker 1: was whether the line between collaboration and romance was already crossed,
Speaker 1: or if it even mattered, if the emotional betrayal had
Speaker 1: already blown the bottom out of us. But I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to ask softly not any more. End of Part one.
Speaker 1: I left the sketch books played open on my lap
Speaker 1: for a long time, the apartment humming with the distant,
Speaker 1: indifferent city. For ten, maybe twenty minutes, I tried to
Speaker 1: reason with myself. Gregg's an artist. He draws people, but
Speaker 1: he drew me too in the early days, and I
Speaker 1: knew what it meant when he pictured a person in
Speaker 1: this kind of consuming, repeated way. These weren't portfolio studies.
Speaker 1: They were something else, each line threaded with a kind
Speaker 1: of longing so physical it hurt to read. I put
Speaker 1: the book back in the trash, pages smudged where my
Speaker 1: thumb trailed the graphite, and paced the living room in
Speaker 1: stocking feet. I replayed every strange moment, his vanished hours,
Speaker 1: the laughter on the balcony, the careful, incomplete stories. I
Speaker 1: thought about, the missing conversations with friends, the way Gregg's
Speaker 1: phone never buzzed where I could see it any more,
Speaker 1: The dinners that ended with his eyes fixed to the
Speaker 1: middle distance, his jokes fading out the same way you
Speaker 1: cut a song short. The apartment had never felt so small,
Speaker 1: or so muffled. I realized, with a flicker of fright
Speaker 1: that I hadn't heard from him in hours. He sometimes
Speaker 1: texted if a studio session ran late, but to night nothing.
Speaker 1: I debated calling. I wanted answers, but just as much
Speaker 1: I wanted to avoid the whole raw mess, the not
Speaker 1: knowing still offered the tiniest bit of hope. If I
Speaker 1: didn't ask, maybe the worst thing was still just a
Speaker 1: story I'd made up. That lie lasted about five minutes.
Speaker 1: Then I took out my phone and dialed Naomi. She
Speaker 1: answered after the first ring voice, low live you okay?
Speaker 1: Something cracked? Not a sob, not yet, just a kind
Speaker 1: of trembling in my throat. I went to the window,
Speaker 1: pressed my forehead to the cool glass, city lights dappling
Speaker 1: my vision. I don't know, I managed, Do you have
Speaker 1: ten minutes? Ten minutes turned into an hour. My story
Speaker 1: ping ponging between suspicion and shame. Naomi listened, no interruptions
Speaker 1: until I paused for breath. You know, she finally said.
Speaker 1: When Paul broke things off with Claire last year, she'd
Speaker 1: been saying the same things, feeling outside her own life,
Speaker 1: but unable to pin it down a pause. Gregg Es
Speaker 1: never struck me as shady, but if he's different. You're
Speaker 1: not crazy to notice. I fingered the hem of my
Speaker 1: t shirt, nestling into the word different. I thought, it's just,
Speaker 1: but it's more than that. He's hiding her. The words
Speaker 1: stuck in my mouth like a seed husk. Sienna Naomi exhaled,
Speaker 1: Do you want me to ask around quietly? Sometimes friends
Speaker 1: notice patterns before we do. No, I said, too quickly,
Speaker 1: Not yet. I think I need to handle it myself.
Speaker 1: That's brave, she murmured. You're not wrong for doubting live,
Speaker 1: even if you want to be. After we hung up,
Speaker 1: I sat in the dark, listening to sounds from the hallway.
Speaker 1: The neighbor's dog rained, starting again against the glass, some
Speaker 1: one's laughter drifting up from the street. It was nearly
Speaker 1: midnight when Gregg's key rattled in the lock. I wiped
Speaker 1: my face, shoved the sketch book deeper in the trash,
Speaker 1: and waited in the kitchen as he tossed his bag
Speaker 1: on the bench. He froze for a split second when
Speaker 1: he saw me up, then gave a soft, sheepish grin.
Speaker 1: Couldn't sleep, I was waiting. He raised his eyes, careful,
Speaker 1: not defensive, yet just watchful. Everything okay, I could ask
Speaker 1: you the same. My voice surprised even me lo even
Speaker 1: too calm for how my pulse banged in my chest.
Speaker 1: Something shifted behind Gregg's face, a flicker of weariness. He
Speaker 1: putted to the sink, poured a glass of water, standing
Speaker 1: with his back to me. Long night, Studio's chaos still
Speaker 1: behind on edits essel keeps moving the finish line. I
Speaker 1: watched how he avoided my eyes, how he kept his
Speaker 1: hands on the counter, shoulders hunched as if bracing for something.
Speaker 1: I wanted to confront him, to lay out the receipts,
Speaker 1: the tablet, every tiny thing that didn't fit, But my
Speaker 1: mouth was clay stuck. Instead, I asked, when's the project due?
Speaker 1: He sipped his water, stalling end of the month, supposedly,
Speaker 1: but you know how these things go. DeLay's new requests,
Speaker 1: see Enna's She's got a vision he has on her name.
Speaker 1: I closed my eyes a moment, breathing through the tremor.
Speaker 1: She's real, I thought, not just a vapor in my brain.
Speaker 1: Have you worked with her before? I made my voice easy,
Speaker 1: almost curious, He shrugged, Nope, new contact through Sam. Actually,
Speaker 1: he chanced a glance at me. Why the sudden interest.
Speaker 1: The air between us felt glassy. My next sentence trapped
Speaker 1: beneath it. I'm just trying to understand what all the
Speaker 1: pressurees about. You're barely home any more, and when you are,
Speaker 1: it's like we're not in the same place. He studdied
Speaker 1: me a little too carefully. I've told you I'm tired.
Speaker 1: This gig's the whole year for me. I need to
Speaker 1: make it work. I let it sit, then nodded, O kay.
Speaker 1: Not agreement, just o kay. He finished his water, muttered
Speaker 1: something about kneading a shower, and disappeared down the hall,
Speaker 1: bare feet slapping the hardwood. I listened to the pipe's start,
Speaker 1: the rattle of shampoo bottle against tyle. When I dared
Speaker 1: to follow, he'd already locked the door. Alone. I paced
Speaker 1: our bedroom, fingers worrying the edge of my journal. My
Speaker 1: mind spun no proof, not enough, but so much not right.
Speaker 1: It was turning me alien inside my own home. The
Speaker 1: next day, at work, I barely functioned. Slack pings and
Speaker 1: deadline reminders floated around me while I scrolled Siena's socials
Speaker 1: on my phone tucked beneath the desk. It felt adolescent, desperate.
Speaker 1: Each picture, each tagged location. The easy way she and
Speaker 1: Greg seemed to share the city gnawed at me. Was
Speaker 1: I seeing things that weren't there, or missing things that
Speaker 1: were blindingly obvious? That night, Greg was home earlier than usual,
Speaker 1: an olive branch. Maybe. I tried to act normal, to
Speaker 1: be warm, to cook the kind of pasta he liked
Speaker 1: with extra garlic. He smiled, even made half hearted conversation
Speaker 1: about my mad client at work. But he was shadowed.
Speaker 1: I could see it in how quick he was to
Speaker 1: clear the table to vanish to the study with his phone.
Speaker 1: In the bathroom, I found another faint scent, different this
Speaker 1: time powdery, floral, nothing like my own body spray. I
Speaker 1: knelt next to the trash, checking for evidence, tissues, another wrapper,
Speaker 1: anything that might tip the scale from suspicion into fact.
Speaker 1: But the bin was empty except for toilet paper rolls
Speaker 1: and the core of a tooth paste box. I pressed
Speaker 1: my head to the vanity, cold and sweaty. Were these
Speaker 1: just ghosts? Trace evidence? My brain conjured up every time
Speaker 1: Gregg left a silence for me to fill. I showered,
Speaker 1: went to bed, and stared at the shadow on the
Speaker 1: ceiling while Gregg's low voiced foone calls drifted through the wall.
Speaker 1: When he finally slid in beside me, his breathing went even,
Speaker 1: almost instantly, like a person used to leaving the present behind.
Speaker 1: A few days later, our friends hosted another game night.
Speaker 1: Naomi cornered me between rounds of drinks, her voice low
Speaker 1: and kind. Has Greg met Siena before? Or was this
Speaker 1: project their first thing together? I hesitated, wondering how much
Speaker 1: she knew, how much I was ready to share first time.
Speaker 1: I think why She opened her mouth then closed it
Speaker 1: no reason. Just you guys used to talk about everything.
Speaker 1: Now it feels like we're missing a bunch. Her eyes
Speaker 1: searched mine. Are you okay? I nodded too quickly, just tired.
Speaker 1: Work's brutal and Gregg's overwhelmed. She hugged me hard. I'm
Speaker 1: here when you want me for whatever. I promised myself
Speaker 1: I'd tell her the truth if it got any worse,
Speaker 1: but it already felt like confession would be an avalanche
Speaker 1: I couldn't control. Returning home that night, Greg was asleep
Speaker 1: on the couch TV cycling through a screensaver. I watched
Speaker 1: his face slack in sleep, the lines at the edge
Speaker 1: of his mouth deeper than I remembered. He looked older,
Speaker 1: but all so unreachable, like some distant version of the
Speaker 1: man I loved. The next morning, Greg left early, a
Speaker 1: quick kiss on my head that felt obligatory. I stared
Speaker 1: at his side of the bed after the door closed.
Speaker 1: Then did something I had never done in seven years.
Speaker 1: I checked his laptop. I told myself I just needed
Speaker 1: to see his calendar or emails, some innocent work thing
Speaker 1: that would settle everything. Instead, I found a folder marked
Speaker 1: drafts Sienna, full of design files and mood boards, color
Speaker 1: swatches with notes in her handwriting, scanned JPGs, real and intimate.
Speaker 1: Underneath a series of private messages, time stamped, sometimes flirty,
Speaker 1: even playful, calling Greg by pet names, teasing him about
Speaker 1: coffee orders and his tendency to overthink. Most were professional,
Speaker 1: but a few lingered on the screen longer than any
Speaker 1: normal project. Chat. One file high line date V two
Speaker 1: PNNG was a sketch of the two of them, perched
Speaker 1: on the high lines old tracks SIENA laughing head tipped back,
Speaker 1: Gregg's initials worked subtly into the corner. My stomach twisted. Date.
Speaker 1: Was it a joke? I stared at the clock thirty
Speaker 1: minutes before work. When Greg returned that evening, I tried
Speaker 1: to act normal, but every word out of my mouth
Speaker 1: felt two seconds late. How was your day, I asked,
Speaker 1: voice pitched high. He glanced at me a flicker of caution.
Speaker 1: Long got through a bunch though you, I shrugged, unwilling
Speaker 1: to add to the script, just the usual. We orbited
Speaker 1: each other, polite but brittle. I watched him type at
Speaker 1: the kitchen counter, phone vibrating against his palm. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask outright, every time I got close, my confidence withered. Instead,
Speaker 1: I asked for a quiet dinner out, just us, no
Speaker 1: work talk, no phones. He hesitated, then relented. We ended
Speaker 1: up at a dim Peruvian place near Union Square, rain
Speaker 1: starting to spit against the awning as we ducked inside.
Speaker 1: We talked about little things, memories of last year's vacation,
Speaker 1: a half serious debate over the best cheap wine at
Speaker 1: Trader Joe's. It almost felt normal, almost easy, But every
Speaker 1: time Gregg's phone buzzed, every sideway's glance at the street
Speaker 1: outside pulled us away. I tried to make it into
Speaker 1: a date, but the old chemistry fizzled, replaced by too
Speaker 1: quick laughter and a brittle, egg shell, thin truce. On
Speaker 1: the way home, umbrellas brushing, Gregg said we should do
Speaker 1: this more often, just be together without stressing over everything.
Speaker 1: I swallowed hard. If we both want that, we have
Speaker 1: to actually show up. He stopped short on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: water pooling at his feet. What does that mean? I
Speaker 1: stared at him, emotions swirling, fear, hope, longing anger. I
Speaker 1: just want to feel like I'm in this with you, Greg.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel like you're somewhere else. He stared back,
Speaker 1: mouth opening then closing. I'm here live. It sounded tired,
Speaker 1: not convincing. I slid my hand into his, but he
Speaker 1: didn't grip back, not really. We walked the rest of
Speaker 1: the way home in silence. That week, he grew even
Speaker 1: more careful, his phone always faced down. He started working
Speaker 1: late on week ends, saying the client launch needed all hands.
Speaker 1: Once I dropped by his favorite coworking space unannounced, bringing
Speaker 1: late night cookies, but the receptionist said he hadn't signed
Speaker 1: in that night. My chest hollowed. Finally, at the end
Speaker 1: of another long, empty Sunday, I couldn't run from the truth.
Speaker 1: He slipped out after dinner, some excuse about going to
Speaker 1: grab reference books from Paul. When his footsteps faded in
Speaker 1: the stairwell, I flicked on my phone and pulled up
Speaker 1: Sienna's Instagram again, a new post, a moody black and
Speaker 1: white bar interior, all low light and reflection. In the video,
Speaker 1: Siena pans around the table, catching Greg in profyl, head
Speaker 1: tipped low toward her mouth flexed in a secret smile.
Speaker 1: He used to give only me the caption late night
Speaker 1: edits with the only brain that keeps up. It stopped
Speaker 1: me cold. I set down the phone and pulled the
Speaker 1: sketch book from the trash, flipping through page after page again,
Speaker 1: searching for what I'd missed. Each rendering was a confession,
Speaker 1: signed in his hand, as plain as a shouted word.
Speaker 1: I remembered the first time Gregg drew me years ago,
Speaker 1: back when we were new and fearless. He'd worked in
Speaker 1: charcoal eyes, darting between my face and the page, describing
Speaker 1: what made me impossible to capture. Afterward, he'd pressed the
Speaker 1: page to my chest, proud, flat out in love. What
Speaker 1: had Siena become to him? Suspicions reduced every beat of
Speaker 1: my day to investigation. Every comment from a friend every
Speaker 1: mist vent, every stray emil felt like a c works
Speaker 1: stacked up behind unopened emails. I found myself zoning out
Speaker 1: in meetings, replaying conversations, trying to summon the Olivia who
Speaker 1: used to be confident in what she brought to a relationship.
Speaker 1: But when Gregg came home from his run to paul
Speaker 1: S that night, he smelled faintly of spearmint and something
Speaker 1: headier Sienna's perfume. Maybe I was sure. I stepped out
Speaker 1: onto our tiny balcony, breathing in the cold. Down on
Speaker 1: the street, someone shouted, a taxi honked. I felt impossibly
Speaker 1: far away from the world I'd helped build With Gregg.
Speaker 1: If he noticed, he didn't show it, just tossed his
Speaker 1: keys into the bowl, offered me a tired nod, and
Speaker 1: went to the study. By now, the knot in my
Speaker 1: gut had hardened. My trust, never limitless, was burned at
Speaker 1: the edges. But I needed the whole truth, not guesses,
Speaker 1: not hunches. It was time to see how far the
Speaker 1: deception stretched. On Monday, braced by coffee and Naomi's quiet support,
Speaker 1: I sent Sienna a second message, more direct, Hi again,
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to send a treatment for our
Speaker 1: possible shoot. By the way, loved your recent bar series.
Speaker 1: Did Greg help with those edits too, she replied only
Speaker 1: hours later, Hey, appreciate it. He did help with coloring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had a couple late sessions. He always has wild
Speaker 1: ideas for mood. Let me know what you're hoping to
Speaker 1: capture for yours, Sienna. My heart hammered. I reread the words,
Speaker 1: looking for more late sessions. He always has wild ideas
Speaker 1: for mood. It was to any one else harmless, but
Speaker 1: Sienna had never used Sam Lucas anywhere. She spoke as
Speaker 1: if Gregg's presence was natural, constant. I closed the message shaking.
Speaker 1: After work, I stopped by the coworking space again just
Speaker 1: to see. Gregg's name wasn't on the sign in sheet,
Speaker 1: but Sienna's was from an hour earlier. I asked the
Speaker 1: teenage desk at ten t and off handedly, Oh, oh,
Speaker 1: Gregg and Siena working here together to night. He squinted, Ah,
Speaker 1: I think Greg was in this afternoon, but both left
Speaker 1: before six. Sorry, can take a message, I shook my head, No,
Speaker 1: it's fine, just didn't want to miss them. My mouth
Speaker 1: tasted of rust. I left rain prickling my scalp, and
Speaker 1: wandered the city. My thoughts are thunder of hurt and suspicion.
Speaker 1: That night, Gregg returned after nine cheeks, flushed a faint
Speaker 1: smear of lipstick, berry red, not my color, on his collar.
Speaker 1: I didn't mention it, and he didn't notice my stare,
Speaker 1: or chose not to. But that was it. The line
Speaker 1: was crossed. The version of events I'd clung to for
Speaker 1: weeks collapsed. I waited until he was asleep to pack
Speaker 1: away a change of clothes and essentials in my old tote.
Speaker 1: More from instinct than decision, I left it in the
Speaker 1: bottom of the closet, with my running shoes stacked on top.
Speaker 1: I watched Gregg's chest rise and fall, wondered who he
Speaker 1: dreamed of now. Before dawn, I texted Naomi. Need to
Speaker 1: talk to morrow, she replied instantly, any time I'm here.
Speaker 1: I closed my eyes, the city's hush folding in, knowing
Speaker 1: that whatever came next would blow the door off everything
Speaker 1: we'd built. And finally I was ready to let the
Speaker 1: truth stand in the light. I stood there in the
Speaker 1: middle of our kitchen, the city's smearing orange light through
Speaker 1: the blinds, arms wrapped around myself like I was trying
Speaker 1: to stop my insides from spilling out. Gregg's breathing in
Speaker 1: the next room was the only sound, thick and regular,
Speaker 1: as though the world hadn't changed shape in the last
Speaker 1: twelve hours. I watched the digital clock blink past three
Speaker 1: in the morning. My bag sat in the corner, zipped
Speaker 1: and ready. Once I would have tiptoed back to bed,
Speaker 1: fitted myself along Gregg's spine, and let the quiet of
Speaker 1: our apartment fix what the world outside had unraveled. Now,
Speaker 1: every shadow in the kitchen hummed with the knowledge that
Speaker 1: nothing would fix us, not really, not when what sat
Speaker 1: between us was no longer just stress or exhaustion, but
Speaker 1: a living, multiplying secret. Sleep came in fits. Every time
Speaker 1: I shut my eyes, I saw Siena laugh, caught forever
Speaker 1: in sharp pencil, her hair falling in lines. Greg must
Speaker 1: have traced with his thumb before he pressed it into paper.
Speaker 1: A dozen little betrayals scuttled through my mind, moments I
Speaker 1: wanted to trust Greg and forced myself to believe his stories.
Speaker 1: Each one now reframed a dropped stitch in our life.
Speaker 1: When I woke, Greg was gone. No note coffee left
Speaker 1: dripping in the machine, his travel mug missing. I drank
Speaker 1: a cup out of spite, running through what I needed
Speaker 1: from the day, Excuses for work, a call to the landlord,
Speaker 1: a way to keep breathing. Everything was mechanical, a loop
Speaker 1: of movement that didn't let me drop completely into heartbreak.
Speaker 1: Not yet, I texted Naomi first coffee, I need air.
Speaker 1: I can't be here, she replied instantly, her superpower, always
Speaker 1: knowing when not to ask questions, always tell me where.
Speaker 1: We met at a breakfast place half way between our places,
Speaker 1: both of us red eyed and tense. But she let
Speaker 1: me talk in spirals, never interrupting. I poured out everything,
Speaker 1: the perfumes, the receipts, the drawings, the in star stories,
Speaker 1: the stone walling. It's not just an affairs. It feels
Speaker 1: like I've been erased. He's built a whole world next
Speaker 1: to mine and didn't leave a door between. Naomi tapped
Speaker 1: her mug, thinking, you have proof, hard proof, live. I
Speaker 1: scan my memory what counted now, sketch book, dated drawings,
Speaker 1: messages between them, her name all over his files, Sienna's stories,
Speaker 1: his lies about where he was, even lipstick on his
Speaker 1: shirt last night. Does it even matter if they slept together.
Speaker 1: He left me emotionally months ago. Her eyes flashed with
Speaker 1: anger on my behalf. It's the pattern, the lies. I nodded,
Speaker 1: voice dull. I need to confront him, Naomi, But I
Speaker 1: keep thinking, what's the point, He's already gone. She squeezed
Speaker 1: my fingers hard. The point is you hear it out loud,
Speaker 1: you take back your story, live, not just his version.
Speaker 1: I clung to that as the day unwound, canceling meetings,
Speaker 1: putting my phone and do not disturb, calling the landlord
Speaker 1: with a vague lie about repairs so i'd have an
Speaker 1: excuse to come and go without bumping into Greg. I
Speaker 1: boxed up the bare essentials, a few changes of clothes,
Speaker 1: my running shoes, the latest book club pick, the charger
Speaker 1: I never managed to keep track of. I thought i'd cry,
Speaker 1: but the tears felt stuck somewhere under my ribs, hollowing
Speaker 1: me out instead. By six, the apartment was salt still,
Speaker 1: the work commute traffic thickening, a distant hum beneath the windows.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was squatting in someone else's home.
Speaker 1: I texted Gregg, when you come home straight after work,
Speaker 1: we need to talk no answer. I saw the delivered
Speaker 1: check mark and left it. At that time slowed my
Speaker 1: own body, moving marshy, each ring of my phone a
Speaker 1: warning instead of comfort. The echo of Gregg's lies teetered
Speaker 1: in my mind, But what ran beneath them was fatigue.
Speaker 1: I'd never known before that a person could be both
Speaker 1: desperate and defeated at the same time. It was after
Speaker 1: nine when he walked in, No Hay, just the jangle
Speaker 1: of keys. He nearly tripped over my bag. I heard
Speaker 1: his breath catch, the first real emotion since this all began.
Speaker 1: Going somewhere. I was on the couch, sketch book on
Speaker 1: my lap, notes and receipts found out like tarot cards.
Speaker 1: Sit down, Gregg, He started to laugh, strangled automatic old
Speaker 1: script live. What is this? I didn't move. Sit He
Speaker 1: dropped his jacket, face tight, waiting for me to explode.
Speaker 1: Maybe when I didn't, he perched on the arm chair,
Speaker 1: tapping his knee, eyeing the mess on the coffee table.
Speaker 1: I started with the sketch book, touched the corner, flipped
Speaker 1: a page. You want to explain these? Gregg's mouth worked
Speaker 1: soundlessly a moment I sketch people. You know I have
Speaker 1: for years. Not like this. These are dated, Gregg. Every
Speaker 1: date lines up with a night you said you were
Speaker 1: working late nights. You told me you were with Sam
Speaker 1: Lucas or some client. You lied. I know you lied,
Speaker 1: he shifted, nostrils flaring but not denying it. I watched
Speaker 1: for any sign of the man who used to show
Speaker 1: up honest, even when clumsy, guilty, even when he forgot
Speaker 1: a date or ruined a dinner. What is this about,
Speaker 1: he asked? Finally, you're I feel like you're interrogating me
Speaker 1: over drawings. You know I've got a team on this project. Team.
Speaker 1: I let the words spit out. See Ena, How long
Speaker 1: he stared at the books, lips pressed so white. I
Speaker 1: wondered if he'd speak at all. When he did, his
Speaker 1: voice was softer, injured, as if I'd cornered him. You
Speaker 1: don't get what this work means to me, Sienna. She
Speaker 1: makes things easy, collaborative. I can breathe around her. You
Speaker 1: sometimes you want everything neat, everything shared. I needed space.
Speaker 1: An old, sharp part of me wanted to scream, but
Speaker 1: the voice that came out was tired. You hid her, Gregg,
Speaker 1: You let me meet Sam Lucas, trotted out a fake
Speaker 1: when what you were really doing was this. He met
Speaker 1: my eyes, defensiveness crumbling into something like panic. Sam is real,
Speaker 1: but Siena Sienna's the engine on this project. I just
Speaker 1: didn't want to complicate things. If you'd met her, you'd assume.
Speaker 1: I assumed because you lied to me. You eraised her
Speaker 1: from every story. Our friends noticed. They stopped asking about us.
Speaker 1: He grew smaller. You were watching, tracking, snooping through my things.
Speaker 1: I bit back, the urge to laugh and bitter because
Speaker 1: you made me a stranger in my own home. Gregg,
Speaker 1: you kept building walls and then blamed me for noticing
Speaker 1: the gaps. He closed his eyes. It wasn't supposed to
Speaker 1: be like this, So what was it supposed to be?
Speaker 1: Are you sleeping with her? He paused too long. It
Speaker 1: started after a gallery show. She we talked, we drank.
Speaker 1: I was exhausted, and she she made it feel like
Speaker 1: it all mattered, not just the work. She got it.
Speaker 1: Then it was late and we went for drinks and
Speaker 1: the confession trailed off. My voice shook only a little
Speaker 1: how long he swallowed a few months. But it's not
Speaker 1: just sex, It's not even about that. It's about being seen,
Speaker 1: feeling alive. My hands clenched. So I was what Gregg
Speaker 1: just another background? His whole body wilted. No, no live,
Speaker 1: never that you're your home. But I felt, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like I couldn't breathe here any more, like I was
Speaker 1: always failing. She doesn't want anything from me, not really,
Speaker 1: no expectations, no demands, just possibility. I tasted bile. You
Speaker 1: don't get to decide what I should want and then
Speaker 1: punish me for having needs. He reached out, tentative. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I should have told you I didn't want to lose you,
Speaker 1: not really. I thought maybe it would just fizzle, that
Speaker 1: i'd come back and you'd never even know. I stared
Speaker 1: at him, hollow, the sketch book heavy in my lap.
Speaker 1: You left me before you ever left, He nodded, eyes
Speaker 1: wet but not moving, not fighting. Did you ever plan
Speaker 1: to leave for her? I mean? He shook his head. No, Siena,
Speaker 1: it's not that she doesn't want a boyfriend. We agreed,
Speaker 1: it's just inspiration, chemistry. The comic tragedy of it hit me.
Speaker 1: He wanted the feeling without the consequence, the escape, without
Speaker 1: the break. You burnt our whole life down for a
Speaker 1: fantasy you say doesn't even exist, He said no, hands nodded.
Speaker 1: I could have screamed, but there was nothing left to break.
Speaker 1: The air in our living room was thick with everything unsaid,
Speaker 1: years of habits and holidays. Every small kindness lined up
Speaker 1: and torched, the city noise barely penetrated. I could have
Speaker 1: been under water. My voice when it came surprised me
Speaker 1: by how even it was. I don't want an apology, Gregg,
Speaker 1: I don't want to fix this. I need to go.
Speaker 1: I need you out of this apartment to morrow. He nodded,
Speaker 1: some fight leaving his face. Live please. I shook my head.
Speaker 1: I'm done. He didn't argue, didn't cry. We sat like
Speaker 1: that for long minutes, the silence lengthening between us, untouchable.
Speaker 1: I walked into the bedroom, packed the last things I needed,
Speaker 1: and shut the suit case gently, careful not to wake
Speaker 1: any ghosts. He didn't follow. When I stepped into the hall,
Speaker 1: jacket over my shoulders, bag in hand. He finally spoke,
Speaker 1: I never stopped loving you. I turned face as blank
Speaker 1: as I could muster that's not the kind of love
Speaker 1: I want. Then the door snicked shut behind me, and
Speaker 1: the world impossibly kept moving outside. The air hit me hard, cold, clean, brute,
Speaker 1: with the ordinary life of the street. I swung the
Speaker 1: suit case down the steps, not pausing, not checking for Greg.
Speaker 1: At the window on the corner, I dialed Naomi, heart thudding,
Speaker 1: and let her voice fill the empty space where home
Speaker 1: used to be. The first night in the hotel, I
Speaker 1: didn't sleep, but I didn't cry either. I stared at
Speaker 1: the popcorn ceiling and counted the cars in the lock below,
Speaker 1: letting relief and loneliness take turns in my chest. The
Speaker 1: next morning, gray light limbed the city outside the window.
Speaker 1: I sent Greg a short email. I need time. I'll
Speaker 1: come for my things when you're not here. Please respect this.
Speaker 1: I called our landlord and gave notice, no details, just
Speaker 1: a hollow, tired voice, arrangements made in neat, meaningless language.
Speaker 1: One by one, our friends messaged, most unsure what had happened.
Speaker 1: A few like Steve and Arli, sent to Carto support
Speaker 1: anything you need. Naomi, unasked, showed up at the hotel
Speaker 1: with bagels and coffee and staid until I laughed briefly
Speaker 1: at a story from the last game night. My boss
Speaker 1: took the news with unusual gentleness, approved time off boundaries,
Speaker 1: respected a thread back to the real world that felt
Speaker 1: almost generous. By the third day, I'd packed up most
Speaker 1: of my life in cardboard books, sweaters, photos from college,
Speaker 1: even the ugly turquoise lamp Gregg had insisted on keeping
Speaker 1: from his first apartment. The only things I left behind
Speaker 1: were shared donations and our old, half broken blender. I
Speaker 1: removed my key from the ring and left it in
Speaker 1: the apartment's mail slot, relishing the small, simple fire finality.
Speaker 1: I closed myself into the rental car, hands shaking on
Speaker 1: the steering wheel. One drive to the storage unit, One
Speaker 1: more key dropped, one less reason to spin around in watifs.
Speaker 1: All that was left was me, jacket zipped bag on
Speaker 1: the passenger seat, the city endless and uncertain ahead. I
Speaker 1: let the engine idle, my eyes closing as a slow,
Speaker 1: uncertain piece spread through my chest. Later in the hotel,
Speaker 1: I unpacked a single mug, made myself coffee, and settled
Speaker 1: by the window as pale morning crept over the brick
Speaker 1: roof tops. The skylang was grainy, blue, unfamiliar, indifferent. I
Speaker 1: opened my journal, and, with a surge of defiant energy,
Speaker 1: scrawled at the top of a new page, what I
Speaker 1: learned about love. I pressed the pen hard into the page,
Speaker 1: so fierce that the ell in love almost tore through
Speaker 1: my hands shook For a long time, I just stared
Speaker 1: at the words. The air in the hotel room thick
Speaker 1: with instant coffee and ache. My phone was on silent.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in the city. Gregg might have been packing, or
Speaker 1: calling Siena, or explaining to a friend what had happened
Speaker 1: as best he could. But I wouldn't know that thought.
Speaker 1: What I wouldn't and didn't know any more felt both
Speaker 1: terrifying and oddly clean. I was outside his life, now
Speaker 1: scrubbed from whatever story he'd been living, separate from hours.
Speaker 1: I made it to the bath room, splashed water on
Speaker 1: my face, and watched myself in the mirror, pale, the
Speaker 1: tired creases under my eyes deeper, but my mouth firm.
Speaker 1: On the ledge, my phone buzzed to life, screen lighting
Speaker 1: up with a slew of notifications. Some were work reminders,
Speaker 1: a couple from Steve, one from the landlord, Sorry it
Speaker 1: didn't work out, Let me know where to forward your mail.
Speaker 1: Each message felt like a slight nudge, proof my life
Speaker 1: would go on, whether or not I wanted it to.
Speaker 1: Naomi checked in again late that afternoon, bringing over soup
Speaker 1: and pastries. She didn't ask what I had decided, only
Speaker 1: offered easy conversation, pulls of laughter between SIPs, and the
Speaker 1: breath of normality that comes from just being seen. When
Speaker 1: she left, promising to let me rest, my eyelids fluttered,
Speaker 1: refusing sleep, my mind stretching backward and forward. At once.
Speaker 1: Some part of me wanted a fight, a grander, more
Speaker 1: cinematic break, a scene that would sear itself into memory.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't rage that colored my sense of loss,
Speaker 1: not in these cold hours. It was the absence, growing larger,
Speaker 1: bitter as medicine. After Naomi left, the room felt especially silent.
Speaker 1: Every tick and hum of the hotel's ere vents magnified.
Speaker 1: I propped up my laptop, glancing at my EMIL, half
Speaker 1: tempted to reply to Gregg's long, wandering message, filled with apologies, explanations,
Speaker 1: half pleased for understanding. For a moment, the cursor hovered
Speaker 1: over the reply button, a blank field, waiting for something, anything.
Speaker 1: I closed the lid instead. Some silences are a kind
Speaker 1: of message themselves. Everywhere in the room. His absence echoed
Speaker 1: on the window sill outside. The streets had gone bright
Speaker 1: and busy, as if the city's pulse could drown out
Speaker 1: my own. I let the distraction pull at me, scrolling mindlessly,
Speaker 1: stopping at a photo from a rooftop cook out six
Speaker 1: months earlier, Gregg's arm around my shoulders, Naomi mid laugh,
Speaker 1: the skyline sharp behind us. It didn't feel sad exactly,
Speaker 1: just impossibly distant. That version of us was sealed away,
Speaker 1: untouched by late receipts, by the clever lies. We told
Speaker 1: ourselves about resilience and good people don't hurt each other.
Speaker 1: Not really. By mid evening, my entire body ached from inertia.
Speaker 1: I dug out my sneakers and pulled on a hoodie,
Speaker 1: then stepped into the thinning autumn air, letting the cold
Speaker 1: harden my resolve. The streets were slick, engines hissing passed
Speaker 1: in tendrils of mist. I watched the city move as
Speaker 1: I walked each lit window, proof that lives ticked steadily onward,
Speaker 1: indifferent to my private apocalypse. I wandered longer than I
Speaker 1: needed to, not quite ready for another night in the
Speaker 1: faceless hotel room. After a while, I found myself a
Speaker 1: few blocks from what had once been our building, the
Speaker 1: windows of the apartment just two floors up. Catching a
Speaker 1: shaft of yellow light from the corner, I could almost
Speaker 1: see the line of our old balcony, potted fern drooping
Speaker 1: as always, the memory of Gregg's laughter. Drifting through air
Speaker 1: already full of city ghosts, I felt no urge to
Speaker 1: go inside, no flicker of hope or nostalgia, just a chilly,
Speaker 1: bracing sense of finality, our home already becoming some one
Speaker 1: else s. Drifting back to the hotel, I passed a
Speaker 1: small group huddled at a street corner, animated by the
Speaker 1: kind of easy camaraderie that used to weave mine and
Speaker 1: Gregg's life together. The sight felt like an echo, bitter, sweet,
Speaker 1: but not crushing, just another part of what I was
Speaker 1: letting go. When I reached my room, I rifled through
Speaker 1: the last of my packed boxes, pulling out only the
Speaker 1: things that felt true, truly mine. The battered copy of
Speaker 1: Mary Oliver poems, a hiking map with notes in my
Speaker 1: sharp handwriting, a faded photo strip from our first summer together.
Speaker 1: I laid them outside by side, artifacts of a life
Speaker 1: I'd built, pieces I was allowed to carry forward. The
Speaker 1: first night in the hotel had passed in anxious insomnia,
Speaker 1: the second in numb, exhausted tears. Now night three, I
Speaker 1: stretched across the crisp sheets, calmness melting in and out
Speaker 1: in slow tides. I picked up my journal again. This time,
Speaker 1: instead of lists or questions, I wrote, without stopping. All
Speaker 1: the ways I'd tried, all the ways i'd failed to
Speaker 1: notice the change, all the times i'd caught myself waiting
Speaker 1: for Greg to choose me out loud. The writing didn't
Speaker 1: fix anything, but it did shrink the terror in black ink.
Speaker 1: The mess found edges became describable. I wrote until my
Speaker 1: hand cramped, pages filling with truth I hadn't known I
Speaker 1: could name. The days after were a whirl of practical arrangements,
Speaker 1: confirming the transfer of bills, answering a round of gentle
Speaker 1: interrogations from our friends, fielding texts that ranged from shocked
Speaker 1: concern to subtle pro greg rationalizations. Ali Texted relationships are hard.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people drift as if that could explain what had happened.
Speaker 1: But for every uncertain message, there were others, open offers
Speaker 1: from Steve, late night memes from Naomi, as though the
Speaker 1: world could be stitched bit by bit into coherence again.
Speaker 1: Gregg emailed me again, shorter, this time, less pleading, just
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for the pain. I wish I could undo
Speaker 1: what I did. Please let me know if there's anything
Speaker 1: at all you need. I didn't reply. I didn't need to.
Speaker 1: Some debts are unpayable. Before my scheduled day to remove
Speaker 1: my things from the apartment, I stopped at a coffee
Speaker 1: shop and watched the steam curl up from my cup,
Speaker 1: hands gripping the warmth like a talisman. The barish smiled
Speaker 1: at me, asked if I wanted my usual, But it
Speaker 1: was my usual here, I realized, for the first time
Speaker 1: in years, I get to decide what that meant. I
Speaker 1: finished my drink and caught a cab to the apartment
Speaker 1: at noon, timing it for when I knew Greg would
Speaker 1: be gone, offered either a meeting or an apology tour.
Speaker 1: I could only hope was as humbling as my own
Speaker 1: reset had been. The elevator doors pinged open on to
Speaker 1: our floor, everything weirdly familiar, but already emptied of us.
Speaker 1: I walked through the apartment, just two rooms, an echo
Speaker 1: in each, and collected the last of my books, my
Speaker 1: favorite bowl a sweater from the back of the closet.
Speaker 1: With the last box hoisted on my hip, I turned
Speaker 1: one last time to the balcony door, pushed it open,
Speaker 1: and stood outside. The city was loud and bright, rain gone,
Speaker 1: the air fresh in a way I hadn't tasted in weeks.
Speaker 1: I let myself breathe it in one long, unbroken draft.
Speaker 1: Not for good bye, not for hoping Greg would round
Speaker 1: the corner, but for the quiet certainty that I could
Speaker 1: survive even this. Downstairs in the alley, I saw a familiar,
Speaker 1: messy scrawl, one last sticky note stuck to the outside
Speaker 1: of my box, Gregg's loose handwriting a single line sorry
Speaker 1: for everything, wishing you gentler days ahead. The ache was there, automatic, reflexive,
Speaker 1: but the surge of anger or grief I saw coming
Speaker 1: never materialized. Instead, I just felt tired and ready. I
Speaker 1: peeled the note off, folded it small, and tucked it
Speaker 1: in my pocket, not to keep, but to throw away. Later,
Speaker 1: when I was further from this version of Olivia, my
Speaker 1: ride pulled up, trunk already open, driver nodding with mild sympathy.
Speaker 1: It was transactional, the world doing what it always had,
Speaker 1: moving forward, indifferent to any of my old heartbreak. Back
Speaker 1: in the hotel, I stacked the last box beside my bed,
Speaker 1: shut the curtains, and sat on the edge of the mattress,
Speaker 1: willing my heart to catch up to my body. My
Speaker 1: phone buzzed one final time, unknown number. I let it ring,
Speaker 1: then silence. What remained was only me and the slow,
Speaker 1: relentless piece of decisions made. I brewed a cup of
Speaker 1: hotel coffee, awful, comforting mine, and took it to the window.
Speaker 1: Just as the city began to warm with morning. Sunlight
Speaker 1: swept across the rooftops, across my bare feet, gold and ordinary.
Speaker 1: I pressed my palm to the glass and looked out,
Speaker 1: letting memory recede in favor of possibility, a quiet, fragile
Speaker 1: hope that this time the ordinary would be enough. I
Speaker 1: picked up my pen, and, with sunlight licking my wrist, wrote,
Speaker 1: slowly beneath the heading in my journal, beginning a new list,
Speaker 1: what I learned about love, about truth, about leaving. As
Speaker 1: the first words took shape on the page, I understood,
Speaker 1: not everything survives, and that's not always tragedy. Some mornings,
Speaker 1: even after the end, you find the unfamiliar world waiting,
Speaker 1: unbroken and impossibly broken,