Speaker 1: The air on the back porch felt thin, the damp
Speaker 1: chill of an early October night curling around my arms.
Speaker 1: I pulled Marcus's old sweatshirt tighter, his favorite, the one gone,
Speaker 1: saggy at the cuffs, smelling faintly of pine and whatever
Speaker 1: cologne he never quite admitted to using. My phone's screen
Speaker 1: glowed in the dark, thumbs scrolling any more out of
Speaker 1: habit than interest photos, group shots, long tables, crowded with
Speaker 1: old friends and too many bottles us. Last year at
Speaker 1: the lake, Marcus and me sunburned and tangled in a hammock,
Speaker 1: Caroline grinning with her polaroid, Sam mugging for the camera
Speaker 1: with an absurd plastic flamingo. Eight years of that trip,
Speaker 1: traditions sprawling so easily it felt inevitable. This year's photos, though,
Speaker 1: all had the weight and distance of something seen through glass.
Speaker 1: I gone alone for the first time. Marcus claimed he
Speaker 1: was locked in with a client project. Deadline's time too
Speaker 1: tight to escape. I told myself it was fine that
Speaker 1: people have to grow, that space is healthy. But all
Speaker 1: weekend his text had felt delayed, minimal little hearts and
Speaker 1: thumbs up, sorry, swamped. When I tried to share a
Speaker 1: joke or a memory from the cabin. I felt like
Speaker 1: a friend left on red. The feed shifted and I
Speaker 1: paused thumb hovering on a grainy video posted by Caroline
Speaker 1: from last Saturday. Her caption opening night Chaos, Portland Art
Speaker 1: Weirdos assemble. The frame panned across a crowded gallery and
Speaker 1: in the big glossy window, behind a circle of friends,
Speaker 1: I saw him Marcus, head down, same dark sweater, a
Speaker 1: posture I knew by heart, his blurry reflection cataloging a
Speaker 1: row of prints while someone handed him a drink. I
Speaker 1: set the phone on my knee, heart hammering. Marcus had
Speaker 1: been here in the city that night, working at home,
Speaker 1: he'd said. I could almost hear the cadence of his
Speaker 1: text from that evening, going to just order in and
Speaker 1: power through love you. Not a word about going out,
Speaker 1: not even a mention of needing a break, which he
Speaker 1: usually did when work got especially intense. I'd noticed vaguely
Speaker 1: the way he'd dropped routines lately, but talking myself out
Speaker 1: of reading too much into it now, I let myself
Speaker 1: replay it the silent apartment. When I got back from
Speaker 1: the cabin, the half drunk bottle of pino on his desk,
Speaker 1: awed for a grind week nd, and now his shape
Speaker 1: in a stranger's Instagram story, face turned half away. I
Speaker 1: could text him now, ask about it, Hey, did you
Speaker 1: end up making it out after all that night? But
Speaker 1: every rough edged version of that message felt like an accusation.
Speaker 1: I tried other possibilities, running a finger along the lip
Speaker 1: of my mug. Maybe one of his friends needed him.
Speaker 1: Maybe he'd gotten stir crazy after a day alone and
Speaker 1: spontaneous as ever, decided to show up. Maybe I just
Speaker 1: missed him. Maybe I was inventing problems like I sometimes did,
Speaker 1: sharpening shadows instead of relaxing into trust. And still the
Speaker 1: image stuck. I studied the photo again, hunting for something exonerating,
Speaker 1: but there was Marcus, not foregrounded, but present, a ghost
Speaker 1: in some one else's fun. The porch felt colder. I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure if the chill was from the air or
Speaker 1: from the suspicion rooting in my chest. I watched the
Speaker 1: stories cycle through again, set the phone facet, and told
Speaker 1: myself it was probably nothing. But I stayed very still,
Speaker 1: hugging my knees, listening for sounds from inside the house
Speaker 1: as if something might be off kilter inside too. There
Speaker 1: was a time when I would have laughed at this,
Speaker 1: How easy it is for your thoughts to spiral, how
Speaker 1: quickly doubt can flower out of nearly nothing. I used
Speaker 1: to believe Marcus was the fixed point, the only person
Speaker 1: who'd ever tracked me through my own doubt, and settled
Speaker 1: me with a squeeze of his hand under the table
Speaker 1: at dinner. Even now, faced with the possibility of a lie,
Speaker 1: I found myself building him an alibi, some story that
Speaker 1: would explain everything. Venture. The phone battery slipped to red,
Speaker 1: and I forced myself inside. The house was hushed except
Speaker 1: for traffic wooshing by out front. I stopped at the
Speaker 1: hall mirror, catching my own reflection. Tired eyes, mouth set
Speaker 1: in a line, I tried to relax. I flicked on
Speaker 1: the kitchen light and went through the motions, putting away
Speaker 1: the tea, knocking shoes together by the door, setting out
Speaker 1: a glass for morning. Marcus had left the butter smeared
Speaker 1: on the countertop, again a harmless annoyance. I wiped it up,
Speaker 1: trying not to mind, trying to remember that at the
Speaker 1: heart of all of this I loved him, and that
Speaker 1: surely was big enough to hold whatever this was. It's strange,
Speaker 1: isn't it? The way small things accumulate. It's never an explosion.
Speaker 1: It's a shift in weight, a detail you can't quite
Speaker 1: put down, The way your partner's story almost fits but
Speaker 1: doesn't settle in your bones. You notice yourself thinking, did
Speaker 1: it always feel this way? This sharpness underneath the soft
Speaker 1: daily mass. I first met Marcus at a pop up gallery,
Speaker 1: the kind that feels more like a block party than
Speaker 1: a curated space. I just moved back to Portland after
Speaker 1: a stomach turning break up, all ragged pride and pretending
Speaker 1: not to miss my old, tangled life in La Caroline
Speaker 1: dragged me out, promising at least three weird paintings you'll
Speaker 1: actually like. Marcus was hanging prints with Victor, half on,
Speaker 1: half off a wobbly ladder, muttering that the city's artists
Speaker 1: had an unaccountable fondness for uneven walls. He caught me
Speaker 1: rolling my eyes at an absurd sculpture, offered a RYE,
Speaker 1: don't worry, it looks like a melting traffic cone to
Speaker 1: me too, And that was it. The start of teasing
Speaker 1: traded opinions about wine and print, making back and forth
Speaker 1: about which neighborhood bakery was real Portland and which was
Speaker 1: just for trust funds and Instagram. By the end of
Speaker 1: the night, we'd shared half a bottle and agreed that
Speaker 1: out of everyone posing at the gallery, we'd rather be
Speaker 1: at Powell's picking through the staff picks rack. The relationship
Speaker 1: materialized without much pageantry. I liked his optimism, the way
Speaker 1: he could tuck a stray piece of hair behind my
Speaker 1: ear when he thought I was frustrated with the world.
Speaker 1: He liked well, he said. He liked my unapologetic events planner.
Speaker 1: Mind every schedule, every spreadsheet. You keep me from floating away,
Speaker 1: he told me once during one of our marathon walks
Speaker 1: through Forest Park. I suspected he liked that I could
Speaker 1: make him laugh, even on the days he barely left
Speaker 1: the house. We made sense. Our differences didn't great. Instead,
Speaker 1: they circled each other, folded in The apartment we rented
Speaker 1: together had terrible plumbing, but a wall of south facing
Speaker 1: windows warm every morning. By the second year, the place
Speaker 1: was littered with souvenirs from flea markets and Prince markers
Speaker 1: brought home from studio swaps. We built rituals without realizing.
Speaker 1: Sunday record store trips, bike rides to the East Side
Speaker 1: for dairy free ice cream, Open Mike trivia nights every
Speaker 1: other Wednesday, whether we had a team or not, little passive,
Speaker 1: aggressive squabbles over whose turn it was to buy coffee,
Speaker 1: always ending in a shared grin. Our friends, the crew
Speaker 1: we met through gallery nights and dinner parties and held
Speaker 1: on to by refusing the Portland tendency to drift apart,
Speaker 1: cemented us into the city. Sam, with his dry stories
Speaker 1: and taste for bad tequila, became my reluctant confidant. Caroline,
Speaker 1: soft edged but direct, lived three blocks away and hosted
Speaker 1: us for every friend's giving. Victor was Marcus's creative mirror, lighter, sunnier,
Speaker 1: single mindedly talented, always humming, at the center of any gathering.
Speaker 1: Those people saw us. I think as one unit, Marcus
Speaker 1: and Julia, always showing up together, two halves that made
Speaker 1: more sense together than a part. The things that kept
Speaker 1: us vulnerable to each other showed up in different ways.
Speaker 1: I had patches of insecurity left over from a relationship
Speaker 1: gone spectacularly wrong in my twenties, jealousy triggered by nothing,
Speaker 1: the need for reassurance my guilt over ever kneeding. Marcus
Speaker 1: had his own trouble, the ache of wanting to succeed
Speaker 1: as a designer in a city that valued artists until
Speaker 1: the next shinier thing came along. He pull in after disappointments,
Speaker 1: spiraling privately, and sometimes I caught him staring into his
Speaker 1: coffee with a look that made me want to wrap
Speaker 1: him in all my best intentions. Usually we met that
Speaker 1: pain together. There were late night talks sprawling across the bed,
Speaker 1: confessionals over bottles of Oregon pino, Promises exchanged without drama.
Speaker 1: Our friends sometimes joked that we were too functional, irritatingly
Speaker 1: tuned to each other. If anything, Looking back, the only
Speaker 1: cracks I saw were Marcus's occasional secretiveness over gigs that
Speaker 1: didn't pan out, or my tendency to brush aside moments
Speaker 1: when he asked for space. I took his need to
Speaker 1: disappear into headphones for a Saturday as self care. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't I? We were, by all appearances solid. I held
Speaker 1: on to that truth tightly, sometimes with white knuckles, especially
Speaker 1: because I knew bone deep that doubt could corrode you
Speaker 1: if you let it, and Marcus was not my ex
Speaker 1: He had never made me feel small or invisible. He
Speaker 1: had never hidden a thing that mattered. At least I
Speaker 1: used to believe that the week leading up to the
Speaker 1: cabin trip was an exercise in tiptoeing around absences. Marcus
Speaker 1: lingered over his laptop at the kitchen table while I
Speaker 1: packed duffel bags and corralled reusable water bottles, trying to
Speaker 1: finalize the grocery list that always ballooned when ten people
Speaker 1: went into the woods together. He barely glanced up when
Speaker 1: I brought home the special granola he liked, murmuring, thanks, babe,
Speaker 1: just wrapping up something for the Franklin brief. When I
Speaker 1: finally asked if he was sure you really don't want
Speaker 1: to sneak up Saturday night, even for dinner, he hesitated
Speaker 1: and pushed his glasses up his nose, a telle I
Speaker 1: usually found endearing but now read with a twinge. Can't,
Speaker 1: I promised the client, I be reachable time. Ming's just
Speaker 1: garbage this year. He stood kissed my forehead, hands lingering
Speaker 1: just long enough to stifle more questions. Driving out of
Speaker 1: the city Friday morning, my phone pinged with a voice
Speaker 1: memo from Marcus go have fun, okay, text if you
Speaker 1: need anything, I'll hold down the fort love you. It
Speaker 1: wasn't his voice that was odd. It was the tightness
Speaker 1: between the lines, the way affection felt like punctuation designed
Speaker 1: to tidy up a page with too much uncertainty. At
Speaker 1: the cabin, I tried to let it go. If I
Speaker 1: missed him, if I found myself checking for his texts
Speaker 1: in the shallows of Lake Kavanaugh, that was my own problem.
Speaker 1: Friends noticed, of course, that he wasn't there. Caroline asked twice,
Speaker 1: eyebrows arched, and even Sam tried to commiserate, hinting I
Speaker 1: could enjoy a little break from the world's best couple.
Speaker 1: But it didn't feel like a break. It felt like
Speaker 1: someone had quietly edited my life and left the margins empty.
Speaker 1: The weird thing was the way Marcus ghosted on communication. Normally,
Speaker 1: even when buried in work, he'd send goofy photos or
Speaker 1: over the top weather complaints. That week end, my texts
Speaker 1: may be gathered two liner replies. If I called, he
Speaker 1: let it bounce, returning with sorry, deep in the zone
Speaker 1: talk later. That pricked, but I reasoned that the introvert alone. Finally,
Speaker 1: in a quiet apartment might just be leaning into solitude.
Speaker 1: When I came home Sunday, he stood by the door
Speaker 1: with flowers Trader Joe's peonies, a half step above gas station,
Speaker 1: but still flowers. He hugged me long, the way he
Speaker 1: did after we'd been apart, and for a minute I
Speaker 1: sunk against his chest and tried to blot out irrational worries.
Speaker 1: He asked about the trip. He made the right noises,
Speaker 1: but when I gently prodded him, what you do with
Speaker 1: your freedom, he laughed and shook his head. Honestly, nothing
Speaker 1: did a crazy stretch of sketches ate take out barely
Speaker 1: left the house. You didn't miss domestic excitement, trust me.
Speaker 1: His eyes flicked past my face for just a second.
Speaker 1: I let it go. But later, as we unloaded the car,
Speaker 1: I could feel a new slope beneath our conversation, like
Speaker 1: he was angling me away from specifics. I cataloged that moment,
Speaker 1: but decided not to mention it. Why spoil a peaceful
Speaker 1: sunday with imaginary trouble. Except once you start seeing things,
Speaker 1: you keep seeing them. That's the curse of suspicion. It's cumulative, microscopic,
Speaker 1: a taste of metal in your coffee. The next week,
Speaker 1: markers started skipping Wednesday Trivia, which was strange since he
Speaker 1: was the one who'd built our reputation as that couple
Speaker 1: who cleans up the pop culture categories. I assumed he
Speaker 1: was working, but when I washed his jacket, I found
Speaker 1: two crumpled entry wrist bands for the Blue Door Downtown,
Speaker 1: a jazz club we hadn't set foot in since last February.
Speaker 1: The dates stamped on them matched the night he'd claimed
Speaker 1: to work late. I set the wristbands beside his wallet
Speaker 1: on the dresser. Nice night at the Blue Door, I asked.
Speaker 1: As he came out of the shower drying his hair.
Speaker 1: He blinked a little too long, then smiled, Oh, right,
Speaker 1: had to meet Victor's friend for a potential project. Totally
Speaker 1: forgot to mention. Sorry, it was a last minute thing.
Speaker 1: He scooped up the bands and laughed it off, but
Speaker 1: his tone was cautious, watching for my reaction. Our shared
Speaker 1: Google calendar had been gospel for years, scheduling everything from
Speaker 1: big deadlines down to when we planned to see friends. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: chunks of Marcus's events disappeared. First, The Cabin weekend disappeared
Speaker 1: from his schedule. He joked, didn't want the calendar to
Speaker 1: mock me while I missed out. Then his entries grew vague,
Speaker 1: just meeting or out. I tried to play it cool
Speaker 1: when he turned off locations sharing on his phone, which
Speaker 1: had always just been there jointly in case I get
Speaker 1: lost on a run, he'd claim. When I noticed it missing,
Speaker 1: he shrugged, I need to unhook for a few days, Julia.
Speaker 1: Too many pings. I can't concentrate, you know how it
Speaker 1: messes with my head. Saturday, our anniversary slipped by, almost undetected.
Speaker 1: Marcus forgot to make the reservation, the one we joked
Speaker 1: about for weeks, and when I tried to remind him,
Speaker 1: he looked blank. Shit is that? This weekend? He made
Speaker 1: rushed calls, managed to book us at a restaurant miles
Speaker 1: across town. Framed it as an adventure, but I noticed
Speaker 1: him checking his watch at dinner, spinning his ring absently.
Speaker 1: That night, he didn't reach for me the way he
Speaker 1: used to. When I brushed his knuckles, he tensed, then
Speaker 1: turned on his side and mumbled something about an early meeting.
Speaker 1: The next morning, I found myself running errands just to
Speaker 1: get out. I texted Caroline does Marcus seem weird lately?
Speaker 1: I tried to frame it as a joke, but Caroline
Speaker 1: replied too quickly, he's probably buried in work, right, And
Speaker 1: I could hear her own uncertainty sharpening over our coffee later.
Speaker 1: I mean, Marcus gets weird when he's stressed. Remember after
Speaker 1: that magazine interview bombed. He totally shut down. Her voice
Speaker 1: was supportive, but there was a wariness in her eyes,
Speaker 1: like she wanted to believe it but had noticed the
Speaker 1: same cracks I had. Little things started to pool in
Speaker 1: my attention. A boutique hotel charge just drinks that didn't
Speaker 1: make sense. Do you have a new client at the Marston,
Speaker 1: I d asked, only half serious. Yeah, well, actually think so,
Speaker 1: Victor said, their firms expanding. I got lunch with the
Speaker 1: project lead. Good opportunity. He sold the lie smoothly, Yet
Speaker 1: when I off handedly mentioned something about the Marston's bar menu,
Speaker 1: he noncommittally responded, they're all kind of the same and
Speaker 1: wouldn't meet my eyes. One evening, Victor stopped by for
Speaker 1: a quick drink. When Marcus left the room to take
Speaker 1: a call. I tried to tease info out, So what's
Speaker 1: the big secret? Side project. Marcus keeps dropping hints about
Speaker 1: Victor hesitated, spinning his beer bottle. Hees, ah, just spread
Speaker 1: a little thin. He's got some new ideas. He trailed off, fidgeted,
Speaker 1: then redirected to talk about a gallery pop up. He
Speaker 1: wanted me to help plan. There was a tightness to
Speaker 1: his smile, something he wouldn't or couldn't say. That night,
Speaker 1: I lay awake scrolling Marcus's Instagram, replaying stories, combing my
Speaker 1: own memories, searching for what I'd missed. He'd always made
Speaker 1: fun of couples who policed each other's privacy. It only
Speaker 1: matters if you have something to hide, he'd say, brow arched,
Speaker 1: pouring more wine. I wondered what counted as something. Over
Speaker 1: the next week, that old, relentless part of me, honed
Speaker 1: on years of learned caution, took over, scanning receipts for inconsistencies,
Speaker 1: surreptitiously sinking our calendars on my laptop, watching Marcus clock
Speaker 1: his phone screen when he thought I wasn't looking yet.
Speaker 1: Even as I edged toward paranoia, another part of me
Speaker 1: piped up. Don't turn into your worst self, don't invent
Speaker 1: stories in the gaps. Love him like you always have.
Speaker 1: It almost worked until it didn't. On Thursday, the week
Speaker 1: after our non anniversary, Marcus bounded in from work, eyes glowing,
Speaker 1: sliding his bag onto the kitchen table with an energy
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen in weeks. Okay, you're not allowed to
Speaker 1: roast me for secrecy, he said, brandishing an embossed envelope.
Speaker 1: But I have news. I won an award. Not a
Speaker 1: huge deal, but Portland Wreck Design they picked my last
Speaker 1: print series for best New Visual Identity, he grinned, sheepish.
Speaker 1: I wanted to surprise you, so I kept it quiet.
Speaker 1: There's a party at Rowan Gallery next week. I got
Speaker 1: us on the list. For a moment, the cloudness in
Speaker 1: my chest cleared. He cut my cheeks and pressed his
Speaker 1: mouth against mine, insistent and warm. I wanted you to
Speaker 1: be proud of me, he murmured, voice thick. Sorry if
Speaker 1: I've been distant, things have just I don't know I
Speaker 1: needed this. The party was the kind of affair I
Speaker 1: used to envy, but now found exhausting. Swarms of attendees
Speaker 1: trying too hard public congratulations. Marcus pose beside his print
Speaker 1: with forced modesty. Our friends showed up in force. Caroline
Speaker 1: hugged us both Sam made fun of the gallery's whine,
Speaker 1: and even Victor seemed genuinely warm, clapping Marcus on the back.
Speaker 1: I stuck close to Marcus, felt his arm tighten around
Speaker 1: my waist. Tried to believe this was what trust looked like.
Speaker 1: Coming back. For a few days, we slid back into normalcy.
Speaker 1: Marcus was present, cracking jokes, initiating sex again, making offhanded
Speaker 1: plans for weekend hikes. Sorry, I was a ghost, he said,
Speaker 1: nose nuzzling my neck as I loaded the dishwasher. Guess
Speaker 1: I can stop being so mysterious now. Later, alone in
Speaker 1: the bedroom while Marcus showered, his phone buzzed with a
Speaker 1: flood of texts. I glanced automatically saw one from a
Speaker 1: number I didn't recognize, buried among the well wishers. Congrats,
Speaker 1: see you soon. The number wasn't saved, the message wasn't explicit.
Speaker 1: Could have been a friend, a client, anyone. Still, the
Speaker 1: winky face stuck. The next morning, at my usual stop
Speaker 1: at Wilder Roast, the barista called out, Julie, espresso, oat milk,
Speaker 1: already paid for you. The slip read from a va
Speaker 1: in joy Ava, not quite my name, but close. It
Speaker 1: matched the unfamiliar number in Marcus's texts. My hand shook
Speaker 1: as I took the cup. I didn't remember meeting an
Speaker 1: ava who'd know my coffee order, let alone spell my
Speaker 1: name wrong. Walking back, the old tension crept higher, pinching
Speaker 1: my spine. The party, the distance, the secrecy, the warm
Speaker 1: return of affection. It all felt orchestrated, not quite spontaneous.
Speaker 1: I counted again the days he'd been unreachable, the quiet
Speaker 1: look Victor gave me, the strange avoidance when I'd brought
Speaker 1: up anything about that week end at the cabin at home.
Speaker 1: I set the coffee on the counter, watching the foam settle.
Speaker 1: I opened Marcus's Instagram, scanning for likes, tags, anything that
Speaker 1: might tie these threads. Not paranoia, I told myself, just
Speaker 1: due diligence, just care. That night, Marcus came in late,
Speaker 1: chest puffed with pride, dropping stories about the galley's reach,
Speaker 1: the new contacts he'd made. I told him about the
Speaker 1: free coffee. A friend must have left it, he replied, breezy,
Speaker 1: though something tightened in his jaw. He was affectionate, attentive.
Speaker 1: He cleaned the kitchen, folded my cardigan over the back
Speaker 1: of the couch. I tried to relax, but as he
Speaker 1: laughed across the table from me, seeming almost his old self,
Speaker 1: I watched for the slip in his voice, the little
Speaker 1: details he left out, careful as footnotes in an unfinished story.
Speaker 1: Met Ava once, I realized years before, and one of
Speaker 1: those collective gallery events where everyone introduced everyone. She was
Speaker 1: magnetic somehow, in that way that artists sometimes are snippets
Speaker 1: of conversation about curation. Her presence huge in a small frame,
Speaker 1: the type of woman who left a wake of attention
Speaker 1: behind her. I tried to reconstruct the time, the casual
Speaker 1: way Marcus had mentioned her in the past, Ava from Bluebird.
Speaker 1: Remember she's always hustling for the next exhibit. He'd made
Speaker 1: it sound like they ran in adjacent circles. Nothing else.
Speaker 1: Pulled out my laptop, half hungry for answers, half repulse
Speaker 1: by my own suspicion. On a whim, I typed her
Speaker 1: name into Facebook, scrolled through her open gallery posts there,
Speaker 1: tagged in a photo from the night I spotted Marcus
Speaker 1: in Caroline's Instagram. Ava and Marcus back to back, laughing,
Speaker 1: lost in conversation, My chest constricted. The post was friendly.
Speaker 1: Nothing more a group shot, but Marcus's hand hovered over
Speaker 1: Ava's shoulder in a gesture that struck me as intimate,
Speaker 1: familiar in a way that gnawed at me. I copied
Speaker 1: the phone number from Marcus's messages, opened my own contacts nothing.
Speaker 1: I sent it to Caroline, Hey, you know who this
Speaker 1: number is. She took her time, replying pretty sure, that's
Speaker 1: Ava from Bluebird Collective. Why I did not answer? Not
Speaker 1: at first. I tabbed through photos on the event page again,
Speaker 1: tracking people in the blurry background, the wedge of Marcus's grin,
Speaker 1: Aarva's arm in a painted sleeve, the client meeting at
Speaker 1: Marston the same night, the deleted calendar entry. Everything started
Speaker 1: to freeze together in a hard, uncomfortable shape. Saturday, hunched
Speaker 1: at my laptop with receipts arrayed like a bad detective film,
Speaker 1: I dug deep Marcus had been weirdly adamant about locking
Speaker 1: himself in the studio for his side project. The lunch receipts,
Speaker 1: the boutique hotel, the gallery entries. They traced a pattern
Speaker 1: through the city, away from our routine haunts, into a
Speaker 1: separate orbit. I finally called Victor, pinning down his strangeness.
Speaker 1: Vic don't let me sound crazy, but I need to know.
Speaker 1: Has Marcus been working much with AARVA lately. I haven't
Speaker 1: wanted to pry, but Victor was silent. I heard the
Speaker 1: flick of his lighter through the phone. I mean they've
Speaker 1: had few projects. Yeh, Marcus is just look. I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know the whole deal, but they've been spending time.
Speaker 1: I thought it was just work. But another pause. You
Speaker 1: should ask him, Sorry, Julia, I wish I had more.
Speaker 1: I thanked him, mind racing, feeling both validated and sick,
Speaker 1: I opened our joint bank statement, watching the screen fill
Speaker 1: with transaction dates. The pattern was clearer now, lunches in
Speaker 1: North Portland coffee shops off the main strip bars. Neither
Speaker 1: of us had visited together in months. I let myself
Speaker 1: remember the beginning of the secrecy. It hadn't started overnight.
Speaker 1: The appetite for privacy grew with every creative failure. Marcus
Speaker 1: endured at his main clients, with every time I tried
Speaker 1: to urge him to network, to take himself seriously, with
Speaker 1: every moment he came home defeated, and I offered solutions
Speaker 1: instead of softness. The guilt landed heavily. Was it possible
Speaker 1: I'd driven him to need someone else's attention? Or was
Speaker 1: that just the story he'd tell when and if this
Speaker 1: came out. Sunday, he returned from drinks with Victor, smelling
Speaker 1: faintly of citrus and something more floury perfume not mine.
Speaker 1: I tried one last time to act as if I
Speaker 1: was wrong, as if none of this added up. I
Speaker 1: set the table for two, opened a bottle of wine
Speaker 1: I've been saving since the spring. Marcus slouched into the kitchen,
Speaker 1: phone in hand, thumb racing across the glass. I tried
Speaker 1: a gentle joke, so are you and Ava winning designs
Speaker 1: version of prom King and Queen. His face changed, eyes
Speaker 1: flicked up, then narrowed in a rehearsed smile. Ava. No, God,
Speaker 1: she's a force. She's just curating, bringing a lot of
Speaker 1: people together. We've worked together a bit, that's all. The
Speaker 1: laughter seemed empty. He reached for his fork, then stopped,
Speaker 1: as if he'd lost his appetite. The conversation skittered away
Speaker 1: from me. He answered my questions with friendlier questions, changing
Speaker 1: sub when I lingered on details. Later, I checked his
Speaker 1: phone again, hating myself for the compulsion. The sea you
Speaker 1: soon message had been deleted. I tried to sleep, but
Speaker 1: every time I closed my eyes, I recalled the look
Speaker 1: on Marcus's face, half weary, half defiant. The man I
Speaker 1: loved so intently, so completely, felt distant now, sitting a
Speaker 1: few feet away, but further than ever. I was running
Speaker 1: out of stories to tell myself. I stared at the ceiling,
Speaker 1: listening to Marcus's breathing as he drifted off. My heart
Speaker 1: buzzed and ached and waited, still hoping for innocence, even
Speaker 1: as every small, inconsistent detail circled tighter, pointing toward a
Speaker 1: truth I did not want to see. In the morning,
Speaker 1: sunlight sliced through the cracks in our bedroom shades, printing
Speaker 1: bands across Marcus's bare shoulders. He was already up by
Speaker 1: the time I blinked, awake, tapping quietly at the kitchen table.
Speaker 1: Headphones cinched over his ears. I padded in ill, tangled
Speaker 1: in sleep and worry. He didn't hear me approach. I
Speaker 1: watched him for a moment, how he hunched over some sketch,
Speaker 1: brow tense, jaw working. The sight should have comforted me,
Speaker 1: proof that he was here still domestic, grounded in our
Speaker 1: real life. Instead, I felt outside it all. He looked up,
Speaker 1: startled when I touched his back. Didn't mean to sneak up,
Speaker 1: I said, forcing brightness. You want eggs? He shook his head,
Speaker 1: pulling off the headphones. Already eight needed to get a
Speaker 1: jump on edits for the juno pitch. Sorry, should have
Speaker 1: let you sleep in, I nodded, glancing at the sketch
Speaker 1: bad geometric shapes, seemingly random but careful. No note of
Speaker 1: the collective he claimed to be working with, big deadline. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Victor's busting my ass on this one, he flashed a
Speaker 1: quick smile. But it's good. Feels good to be busy again.
Speaker 1: You look tired, I said, you sure you're okay? Marcus
Speaker 1: reached for my hand across the table, squeezing gently, before
Speaker 1: pulling away to refresh his coffee. I'm fine, promise, just
Speaker 1: need this to go. Right after that, his tone warmed.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can escape somewhere, hit the coast, just us,
Speaker 1: no phones, none of this stress. I smiled, but the
Speaker 1: words snagged. The man who rarely suggested getaways wanted to
Speaker 1: run from his own world from phones. He poured a
Speaker 1: finger of oat milk stirring in slow circles, eyes fixed
Speaker 1: somewhere just over my head. My day spiraled on autopilot.
Speaker 1: I buried myself in back to back calls with caterers
Speaker 1: and a corrugated box mountain for an upcoming down town party.
Speaker 1: I let the friction of my work blunt the anxiety,
Speaker 1: but nothing stuck in a lull, I texted Caroline drinks
Speaker 1: to night girls only. She replied faster than I expected. Yes,
Speaker 1: yours or mine? I opted for mine. I wanted her
Speaker 1: in my space, maybe to see what that nothing had changed,
Speaker 1: or everything. I bought a bottle of cheap prosecco, set
Speaker 1: out chips, half hoping Marcus would walk through and give
Speaker 1: some innocent, stupid reason for everything. A fight with Victor,
Speaker 1: a secret birthday plan, anything that put me back on
Speaker 1: ordinary ground. Caroline arrived with a breeze and a hug,
Speaker 1: eyes flicking over my shoulder before landing on my face.
Speaker 1: You look like someone canceled cake on your birthday, she said,
Speaker 1: collapsing onto the couch. What's going on? For a second,
Speaker 1: I almost said nothing, but the dam i'd been shoring
Speaker 1: up all wheak cracked. I think Marcus is hiding something,
Speaker 1: I admitted, voice catching, not just stress hiding like something else.
Speaker 1: She poured a glass, sat quiet as I spilled details
Speaker 1: from the past ten days. The hotel bill, the deleted
Speaker 1: calendar events, the just work lunches, the strange messages, even
Speaker 1: the coffee my name spelled wrong handed over by a stranger.
Speaker 1: When I finished, Caroline didn't jump to comfort. She sat
Speaker 1: with it, turning the facts over. That is weird, she admitted.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's always been bad with details when swamped,
Speaker 1: but this feels different. She chewed her lip. When Victor
Speaker 1: was over, he mentioned Marcus and Arva were brainstorming together.
Speaker 1: I didn't think anything of it, but but what she frowned.
Speaker 1: Victor seemed off, like he wanted to tell me something
Speaker 1: but didn't know if it was his place. A hush
Speaker 1: stretched long. I poured more prosecco, hands shaking enough that
Speaker 1: Caroline took the bottle and set it down hard. Jules,
Speaker 1: do you want me to talk to Victor or should
Speaker 1: I just back off? No, I whispered, not yet. I
Speaker 1: want to figure this out myself. I just needed to
Speaker 1: say it out loud. Caroline took my hand, thumb tracing
Speaker 1: slow circles on my knuckles. You're not crazy, and even
Speaker 1: if you were, he owes you truth. You know that right?
Speaker 1: I nodded, blinking hard. I know the truth felt distant,
Speaker 1: like a shure. I wasn't sure I could ever swim toward.
Speaker 1: After she left, I sat in the half light of
Speaker 1: the living room scrolling aarv's Instagram. It was a medley
Speaker 1: of half posed studio shots, blurred gallery photos, captions, cryptic
Speaker 1: and intimate, progress, not perfection, late night hang with good people.
Speaker 1: In one recent post, there was a photo just a hand,
Speaker 1: fingers stained with ink, curled around a sketch book I
Speaker 1: recognized as Marcus's. I stared at the image for long minutes,
Speaker 1: trying to decide if I was inventing things. Even the
Speaker 1: Galleries event recap video Ava grinning at the camera, Marcus
Speaker 1: moving past in the background, out of focus, looped endlessly,
Speaker 1: as if the city conspired to taunt me. Two nights later,
Speaker 1: Marcus worked late again, or so he said. I watched
Speaker 1: the digital clock tick past ten thirty, phone silent, excuses
Speaker 1: running thin. I wanted to call Victor, but cowardice held
Speaker 1: me instead. I pulled my jacket on and walked to
Speaker 1: the blue door rehearsal dinner in full swing, jazz seeping
Speaker 1: out into the street. My stomach twisted when I peered inside.
Speaker 1: No Marcus, but the bartender knew his order, smiling as
Speaker 1: he wiped down glasses. Your partner still into the Omaro sours.
Speaker 1: He and his friend were here last week. I forced
Speaker 1: a bright laugh. Yeah, he's always on that kick back
Speaker 1: in the apartment, Marcus slumped through the door at midnight,
Speaker 1: smelling like soap and city rain. He slid into bed
Speaker 1: beside me without a word. I pressed my face into
Speaker 1: his back, hoping if I just pressed hard enough, I'd
Speaker 1: become certain again. The next day, I borrowed his jacket,
Speaker 1: a slip of paper crunched in the pocket, A receipt
Speaker 1: Marston Hotel, two cocktails, one club sandwich, time stamp two
Speaker 1: zero nine p m. Another client lunch, I asked. That
Speaker 1: night as he changed Marcus didn't miss a beat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Victor and that guy from the festival committee. Which guy?
Speaker 1: He slid his belt off, tossing it carelessly. Oh, Jason
Speaker 1: or James? Can't remember why? He was too easy, too unconcerned,
Speaker 1: too slippery. Frustration boiled at the edges of my voice.
Speaker 1: You just seem lost lately, not present. He turned, eyes wounded.
Speaker 1: Am I not allowed to be tired? Every day? Feels
Speaker 1: like running in circles? Sorry? If my vibe isn't perfect,
Speaker 1: that's not I just want to know what's actually going on.
Speaker 1: He leveled a look at me, so weary, so depleted.
Speaker 1: I nearly apologized. I don't have the bandwidth to talk
Speaker 1: about my feelings right now, Can we just? He trailed off,
Speaker 1: pulling on a T shirt, already walking away. Left alone,
Speaker 1: I took inventory of the little things gone missing. His keys,
Speaker 1: usually dumped in the bowl near the door, had been
Speaker 1: gone for a week. His notebook from the studio nowhere
Speaker 1: to be found. Our spare set of gallery passes missing
Speaker 1: from the stack on the fridge. The puzzle grew by
Speaker 1: subtraction rather than addition. Late Friday, I found Marcus hunched
Speaker 1: over his sketch pad, hand moving in slow, deliberate lines.
Speaker 1: I lingered in the doorway. You ever going to show
Speaker 1: me that famous side project? Or will I see your
Speaker 1: masterpiece in a coffee shop window? First? He flinched, hand
Speaker 1: dropping to cover the paper. It's not done, you'll hate it.
Speaker 1: I doubt that. He closed the sketch book, snapping the elastic,
Speaker 1: meeting my gaze just long enough to dare me to pry.
Speaker 1: Give me some time. I promise I'll show you everything
Speaker 1: when it's ready. I wanted to say I miss when
Speaker 1: everything wasn't a secret, but all I let out was okay.
Speaker 1: We ate in near silence. Victor texted me that night,
Speaker 1: you all good. Haven't seen you in a bit. I hesitated,
Speaker 1: fingers poised above the keyboard, then typed, things are tense.
Speaker 1: Did Marcus mention if he's starting something new with Ava?
Speaker 1: The reply took nearly an hour, maybe a lot of brainstorming.
Speaker 1: I think he's not super talkative with me either. I
Speaker 1: pressed harder anything I should worry about. Three dots blinked,
Speaker 1: then faded. No reply. Saturday morning brought a fresh wave
Speaker 1: of emptiness. Marcus slipped out early, leaving only a folded
Speaker 1: note on the table studio day, Love you back for dinner.
Speaker 1: His script was hurried, less playful than usual. I debated,
Speaker 1: following him absurd, childish. Instead, I called Sam, asking if
Speaker 1: he wanted brunch. He met me at our favorite diner,
Speaker 1: looking rough but attentive. You look wrecked, he said, ordering
Speaker 1: both of us Hel the dog mimoses you ever feel
Speaker 1: like you missed something important because you love some one
Speaker 1: too much to see straight, I asked, not meaning to
Speaker 1: be so raw. Sam put his fork down. Considering depends
Speaker 1: with Marcus. Ay the guy escot his moods, but he's
Speaker 1: always been solid. Did he screw up a gig or?
Speaker 1: I told him, in halting bits about the weird gaps,
Speaker 1: the Rvor connection, the secrets. He listened, slow and serious.
Speaker 1: Want me to scare him, he joked, then shook his
Speaker 1: head seriously, though, if you want dirt on gallery types,
Speaker 1: I have a friend who knows everyone well, every one
Speaker 1: who used to date everyone. If that helps, I waved
Speaker 1: it off, not actually wanting a third degree of rumor.
Speaker 1: I just need to know if I'm making this up.
Speaker 1: He reached across the table, squeezing my forearm. I doubt
Speaker 1: you are. Question is, what do you want to do
Speaker 1: if you're not? I had no answer. By Sunday, Marcus
Speaker 1: still felt remote, trapped in his phone, smiling thinly through
Speaker 1: every mundane moment. I caught him staring at me once
Speaker 1: in the soft half light of twilight, his face inscrutable.
Speaker 1: I wanted to believe it was love, but it looked
Speaker 1: more like someone bracing for a confession. Another week, more
Speaker 1: missing details. Our mutual friends had started texting only me
Speaker 1: for plans, as though Marcus had already drifted from the
Speaker 1: group co ordination. He missed a dinner at Victor's place,
Speaker 1: blaming late edits. When I asked Victor directly, he avoided
Speaker 1: my eyes, fixated on chopping Parsley. Everything cool with you
Speaker 1: and Marcus, I asked lightly, I guess. Victor finally answered,
Speaker 1: he's just in his own head lately, tunnel vision. You too,
Speaker 1: aren't fighting, are you? I pressed? He shook his head,
Speaker 1: hair falling over one eye. No, nothing like that. It's
Speaker 1: just he's got this new idea and Ava's been helping
Speaker 1: him more than me lately. I only hear what filters
Speaker 1: down the grapevine. Maybe he's just trying different collaborators. That
Speaker 1: last word stuck collaborators. On a rainy Tuesday, after Marcus
Speaker 1: left for a supposed networking breakfast, I dared myself to
Speaker 1: check his studio. The door wasn't locked. He trusted me there,
Speaker 1: but his main sketch books were missing from the shelf.
Speaker 1: I poked through drawers, feeling like a criminal, but the
Speaker 1: only new artifact was a polary tucked under a pile
Speaker 1: of receipts. Marcus and Arva heads together, grinning wide, some
Speaker 1: festival crowd blurring behind them. The shot was cropped tight
Speaker 1: enough that for a moment I could almost believe it
Speaker 1: was me. I slid the photo back, sick with myself,
Speaker 1: terrified of being caught, but more terrified by how natural
Speaker 1: they looked together. Marcus came home late. Dinner was a disaster.
Speaker 1: Rice burned voices tentative. Finally, as he rinsed plates, he said,
Speaker 1: I know I've been absent. I'm sorry. Works just hard,
Speaker 1: but I really am trying to make something of myself
Speaker 1: for us. I reached for him, hugging him from behind.
Speaker 1: He relaxed a fraction. You don't have to prote with me,
Speaker 1: you know, if something's wrong. My words trailed off. He
Speaker 1: patted my hands and turned off the sink. It's just work,
Speaker 1: he repeated, You mean too much for anything else to
Speaker 1: be wrong. That should have felt like comfort. It didn't.
Speaker 1: The next morning, nursing a hangover from too many solo
Speaker 1: glasses of wine, I called the Marston Hotel's cafe. HI
Speaker 1: could I ask? Was there an art collective lunch last week.
Speaker 1: I left a note book. The hostess scanned the memory
Speaker 1: of her logs. No Ah, nobody by that reservation name.
Speaker 1: Are you sure it was us? I thanked her, heart dropping.
Speaker 1: Marcus's story frayed at the seams. I was still no
Speaker 1: closer to a confrontation. The lies intersected in pitiful, veiled ways,
Speaker 1: all plausible if you never looked straight at them. The
Speaker 1: gifts of uncertainty, I realized, are smooth and gentle. Nobody
Speaker 1: wants to puncture what's holding them aloft? Thursday night to
Speaker 1: Wark midnight. Marcus came home, humming some soft as he
Speaker 1: rarely admitted liking. He unlatched the door quietly. Find me
Speaker 1: on the couch, awake, lights low. Couldn't sleep, he asked,
Speaker 1: hanging his coat. Not really, he eyed me. Uncertain, Want tea?
Speaker 1: I picked up those ginger biscuits you like? Sure? We
Speaker 1: moved around each other in the kitchen in practiced choreography.
Speaker 1: He talked about a show at the City Gallery, about
Speaker 1: how weird Portland smelled after the rain, about everything except
Speaker 1: the only subject that mattered to me. Us. I watched
Speaker 1: his face for clues, searching for affection for guilt, for
Speaker 1: anything unguarded. Finally, sitting at the kitchen table tea cooling,
Speaker 1: I ventured a gentler approach. Who have you been spending
Speaker 1: so much time with lately? Is it just work? Or
Speaker 1: are you and Ava getting close? His smile was automatic,
Speaker 1: almost brittle. Ava, No, nothing like that. She just knows
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I've been networking, like you keep
Speaker 1: telling me. But honestly, I like our life as is.
Speaker 1: He reached for my hand, but I let it rest
Speaker 1: limply in his grip. You know I trust you, right,
Speaker 1: I said quietly. He nodded, squeezing, holding my gaze just
Speaker 1: a second too long. I know I'd never do anything
Speaker 1: to hurt us, Jaye. We sat there in the hush
Speaker 1: past midnight, breathing in tandem. I wanted him to say more,
Speaker 1: to unspool it all. I would have forgiven anything in
Speaker 1: that moment. I think if only he offered me the truth.
Speaker 1: But he stood first, kissed the top of my head,
Speaker 1: and left the room with his tee untouched. By the
Speaker 1: end of the week, I wore my worry like a
Speaker 1: second skin. At the grocery store, I ran into Avar
Speaker 1: in person. A collision at the check out, both of
Speaker 1: us startled by the encounter. She wore bright red lipstick,
Speaker 1: hair up in a complicated knot, and she smiled too quickly. Julia, right,
Speaker 1: haven't seen you since that gallery disaster last year. Her
Speaker 1: voice was all surface cheer, but she looked past me
Speaker 1: as she spoke, hands fluttering nervously over her basket. Yeah,
Speaker 1: small city, I replied, then, grasping at nonchalance, added Marcus
Speaker 1: mentioned you two have been working together. He's excited about
Speaker 1: your project. She hesitated a flick that only someone sleuthing
Speaker 1: for cracks would have caught. Oh ah, yeah, he's great,
Speaker 1: lot of talent. We both nodded, silence, flattening the interaction.
Speaker 1: As I turned away, I caught her glancing at me,
Speaker 1: mouth tight. On the walk home, a cold rain started.
Speaker 1: I hunched my shoulders, trying to keep myself from shaking.
Speaker 1: I was so tired of this suspecting spinning, waiting for
Speaker 1: some small breath of honesty that never came. That night,
Speaker 1: I poured the apartment another glass of wine, set out
Speaker 1: Marcus's favorite record. When he returned, music thrumbing in the background.
Speaker 1: He seemed thrown by the gesture, but let himself be
Speaker 1: drawn close. You're beautiful, you know, he whispered, voice thick, hands,
Speaker 1: tentative at my waist as we swayed. It would have
Speaker 1: been perfect, if only I'd believed it. Later, after he'd
Speaker 1: drifted to sleep, I lay awake, listening to the slow
Speaker 1: tick of the radiator, piecing together every exchanged glance, every
Speaker 1: gap in every story. My doubts weren't just speculation any more.
Speaker 1: They chained together, logic and intuition, joining hands. My own
Speaker 1: calm broke around four am, anxiety humming, I whispered to
Speaker 1: the darkness, tell me the truth, Marcus. I waited, knowing
Speaker 1: he couldn't hear me, but needing the sound of it
Speaker 1: in the room. In the days that followed, everything sharpened.
Speaker 1: I became intentional. I went back through our credit card statements,
Speaker 1: tracing not just single entries, but patterns. A lunch here,
Speaker 1: a late coffee there, always neighborhoods off the act of
Speaker 1: his usual clients, always times that didn't match the freelance calendar.
Speaker 1: I called Caroline again, this time, voice low and urgent.
Speaker 1: Do you remember who was at the Bluebird Collective opening
Speaker 1: last month? Did you see Marcus with any one? She paused,
Speaker 1: the line filled with nervous chewing. I wasn't really paying attention,
Speaker 1: but I think I saw him talking with Ava. Looked
Speaker 1: like a group, but they were kind of off on
Speaker 1: their own half the time. I just you don't think
Speaker 1: I don't know, I replied, trying to swallow the hope
Speaker 1: that she would say something anything normal. Sam called the
Speaker 1: next night, nearly midnight. Sorry, weird question. Did Marcus ever
Speaker 1: mention knowing Gil the guy from the record store? Because
Speaker 1: Gil es been acting weird about some print job, said
Speaker 1: Marcus owed him for a rush, and then clammed up.
Speaker 1: When I said, you probably knew no, I said, dull
Speaker 1: another stray link, but thanks, Sam. If you hear more,
Speaker 1: let me know. I was accumulating proof, none of it explicit,
Speaker 1: but all of it pointing in the same direction. Something
Speaker 1: was happening. An entire parallel world existed where I wasn't invited,
Speaker 1: but was affected all the same. The final piece was
Speaker 1: almost mundane. Saturday, walking back from Errands, I passed a
Speaker 1: Florists two blocks off our usual route one. Marcus and
Speaker 1: I had only visited together once, after a concert. In
Speaker 1: the window, a little card read congratulations Marcus and Ava.
Speaker 1: Beautiful collaboration. I stared the world tugging at the edges
Speaker 1: of my sight. The florist's bell chimed as I stepped inside,
Speaker 1: feigning innocence. I'm looking for a bouquet for my friend Julia,
Speaker 1: I told the owner, who smiled and said, of course,
Speaker 1: Marcus was just in last week. Actually, he and Ava
Speaker 1: ordered for the gallery event. I managed to smile, to
Speaker 1: pay to leave without trembling. On my way home, I
Speaker 1: checked my phone, typed Marcus's name and aarv's into Facebook,
Speaker 1: searching for any mention, any tag, a handful of shared events,
Speaker 1: nothing overt, but now every caption every so grateful to
Speaker 1: my team, reverberated. I texted Victor a Marcus and Ava
Speaker 1: together a lot outside work, this time to my surprise,
Speaker 1: he called immediately. Jules, are you okay, he said, voice urgent,
Speaker 1: Not really, please, Vic, I won't freak out on you.
Speaker 1: I just need to know the truth. He hesitated, then
Speaker 1: sighed they've spent a ton of time together off book.
Speaker 1: At first it was for that design Award submission, but
Speaker 1: lately I don't know. I stopped getting looped in. If
Speaker 1: you want my opinion, Marcus was lost after that gallery
Speaker 1: rejection aarvas she's she pulls people in. He seemed happier lately,
Speaker 1: but guilty too. I've never seen him keep things from
Speaker 1: you before. Were you covering for him? I asked raw.
Speaker 1: Victor's voice cracked. No. I didn't want to believe he
Speaker 1: could do anything to hurt you. I thought maybe you
Speaker 1: two would work it out and it'd be fine. A beat.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Julia, I really am. The conversation rolled in
Speaker 1: my head like a stone in my shoe all night.
Speaker 1: When Marcus arrived home, I was lying in the dark,
Speaker 1: letting the ceiling shadows swim above me. He sat on
Speaker 1: the bed's edge, not touching me. I'm going to sleep
Speaker 1: at Victor's studio next week, he said quietly. Deadline's insane.
Speaker 1: It just makes sense. I stared at his profile, watching
Speaker 1: the tightness gather at his jawling. You think leaving solves this,
Speaker 1: I whispered. He glanced over, eyes wide, darting solves what
Speaker 1: whatever it is you're hiding? He hesitated, then looked away,
Speaker 1: muscles tensed to bolt. There's nothing. I just need space
Speaker 1: to finish the project. Fine, I said, take it. He
Speaker 1: climbed fully into bed, careful, not to touch me, the
Speaker 1: rift between us wider than the mattress. I listened to
Speaker 1: his breathing, fast, then slow, then even as if he
Speaker 1: really could sleep on all these lies, I was done
Speaker 1: waiting for permission. To morrow, I would lay it out.
Speaker 1: I would gather evidence, knit every floating clue into a
Speaker 1: singular demand. Tell me the truth, or don't come back.
Speaker 1: But even as I told myself that, in the dark,
Speaker 1: I heard his breath catch once twice and wondered which
Speaker 1: one of us was really holding their life together with
Speaker 1: only silence and hope. Marcus's breath caught again, a tiny,
Speaker 1: involuntary stutter in the dark. I waited for him to
Speaker 1: say something, apologize, confess, even deflect. But all I heard
Speaker 1: was the hush of the room, the distant wash of
Speaker 1: rain against our window. I lay absolutely still, daw tight,
Speaker 1: every muscle rigid, the pounding of my heart far too
Speaker 1: loud in my own ears. He shifted once, settling deeper
Speaker 1: into the mattress, pulling away just enough that his body
Speaker 1: heat vanished from my side of the bed. There was
Speaker 1: nothing left but space and the trace scent of his soap. Sleep,
Speaker 1: when it arrived was shallow and fitful by the time
Speaker 1: my phone alarm chimed, the gray haze of dawn was
Speaker 1: leaking into the room, and Marcus's side of the bed
Speaker 1: was empty. I stared at the dented pillow, my whole
Speaker 1: body bone tired, a pulse of dread. Humming quietly, I
Speaker 1: knew something real had changed in the air, not just
Speaker 1: between us, but inside me. Not the anxious guessing of
Speaker 1: the past weeks. A kind of certainty had settled, heavy
Speaker 1: and cold as a stone, waiting only for daylight to
Speaker 1: make it concrete. I found Marcus quiet in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: already dressed, mug in hand. He didn't look up right away.
Speaker 1: I hovered in the doorway, one hand curled tight around
Speaker 1: the door frame. When I did speak, my voice was hoarse.
Speaker 1: I need to talk, Marcus, not to night, not some
Speaker 1: day now. He met my gaze for just a second,
Speaker 1: eyes bloodshot, jaw working, then nodded barely perceptible. O K,
Speaker 1: but can I finish this? I've got to, he stopped,
Speaker 1: realizing before I replied that there was no schedule left
Speaker 1: to postpone on no convenient escape route. I sat down
Speaker 1: opposite him, back straight against the cold kitchen chair. I'm
Speaker 1: not backing off this time, I said, my voice steadier
Speaker 1: than it felt. You can tell me, or I'll go
Speaker 1: to Arvar and get the truth. He crumpled the empty
Speaker 1: coffee packet between his fingers. You don't need to drag
Speaker 1: any one else into this. A beat of silence stretched out.
Speaker 1: I let it. The kitchen filled with the hiss from
Speaker 1: the radiators and the low click of the fridge cycling on. Fine,
Speaker 1: he said, words barely more than a murmur. Just give
Speaker 1: me a minute. He slipped out onto the back porch
Speaker 1: without looking at me. Left alone, I stood slowly. My
Speaker 1: hands trembled as I tidied the mug, the tiny act
Speaker 1: giving me something to focus on besides the knot in
Speaker 1: my chest. This was it, the before and after moment.
Speaker 1: There would be no way to reseal this wound, no
Speaker 1: matter what came out of his mouth. Upstairs, I heard
Speaker 1: his footsteps, heavy, listless. I followed, still in yesterday's clothes,
Speaker 1: not caring what I looked like. He waited in the hall,
Speaker 1: arms crossed, His mouth was pinched, and he looked exhausted
Speaker 1: in a way I hadn't seen since the worst days
Speaker 1: of his career. Panic. I stood below him on the
Speaker 1: lowest step, refusing to let him look down at me,
Speaker 1: needing us at eye level for this. All right, I said,
Speaker 1: let's talk. He gestured to the living room. We sat
Speaker 1: on opposite arms of the couch, faint morning light soaking
Speaker 1: the room in a blue wash. It felt painfully performative,
Speaker 1: like actors waiting for cues. I'm not out for blood, Marcus.
Speaker 1: I just want the facts, the truth, all of it.
Speaker 1: He scrubbed his face, fingertips dragging slow against his cheek bones.
Speaker 1: I didn't plan any of this. I didn't. I just
Speaker 1: I was lost. Things got away from me. That's not
Speaker 1: an answer. My words were flat, now, emptied of urgency.
Speaker 1: Did you sleep with her? He blinked, drew in a
Speaker 1: quick breath, Julia, Yes or no? He hesitated, then met
Speaker 1: my eyes for the first time. Yes, he said it quietly,
Speaker 1: chin tucked, shame radiating off him. It happened just once.
Speaker 1: I laughed, a sharp, joyless sound, the art opening. He nodded,
Speaker 1: unable to speak. Is that all it was, Marcus? One
Speaker 1: night I could hear my own voice fraying because it
Speaker 1: doesn't line up with every secret you've kept, all the time,
Speaker 1: you've spent everything you were raised or moved or lied about.
Speaker 1: Don't say it was just one night when this has
Speaker 1: been going on for months. He flinched. I didn't. He stopped. Reconsidered, Julia,
Speaker 1: I'm not proud. I kept telling myself it was only
Speaker 1: about work that I was chasing, so something that made
Speaker 1: me feel worth something again. When the collaboration with Arva started,
Speaker 1: it was electric. But in the beginning it was just ideas.
Speaker 1: Not it never is, I said, bitterness leaking out. But
Speaker 1: then you started deleting things, changing your habits, lying. He
Speaker 1: studdied his hands picking at a Hangnil, you were always
Speaker 1: so sure of me. I don't know if I ever
Speaker 1: deserved that. After the Franklin Gig tanked, everything felt like
Speaker 1: it was slipping Aarva she she paid attention. She saw
Speaker 1: what I thought I'd lost. It felt like like finally
Speaker 1: not failing for once. But it wasn't about you, Julia.
Speaker 1: It was I was just wrecked. You let it go
Speaker 1: on every time you came home. You let me sit
Speaker 1: across from you and trust you. Do you even know
Speaker 1: what that does to someone? I know I fucked up.
Speaker 1: I do, He whispered, I should have stopped it. I
Speaker 1: almost did a dozen times, but every time I tried,
Speaker 1: something pulled me back. She understood things I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to talk about with you any more. His voice
Speaker 1: was low, just hovering above audible. You could have talked
Speaker 1: to me, Marcus, you could have told me anything. Instead,
Speaker 1: you lied, and what thought I'd just keep buying whatever
Speaker 1: story you told me? He shook his head, eyes trained
Speaker 1: on the floor. No, I was just afraid of hurting you,
Speaker 1: of seeing what I'd really done. A strange clarity zipped
Speaker 1: through my nerves, anger and grief, yes, but also the
Speaker 1: edge of release. Are you in love with her? He
Speaker 1: flinched again, as if slapped. No, he said, and for
Speaker 1: the first time his voice was firm, It's not that
Speaker 1: I never wanted anything more. I love you. Everything else
Speaker 1: was just noise and I got lost. It wasn't nothing
Speaker 1: because you broke something I don't even know how to
Speaker 1: name any more. He nodded, lips pressed thin. I know.
Speaker 1: Is there anything I can do to fix it? I
Speaker 1: stared at him, at the face i'd woken up next
Speaker 1: to for nearly eight years, at the shoulders I knew
Speaker 1: by heart, now hunched and trembling under the weight of
Speaker 1: his own choices. I saw all the versions of us
Speaker 1: tangled together, warm, laughing, invincible. I saw the ache he
Speaker 1: moved with. Now, for the first time, I realized I
Speaker 1: could step away from it. My voice was almost gentle
Speaker 1: when I told him, you need to leave, Marcus, you
Speaker 1: need to go right now. He gazed at me for
Speaker 1: a long long time, eyes damp and pleading, but not
Speaker 1: fighting any more. He nodded once, rose and walked slowly
Speaker 1: down the hall. He packed quickly, stuffing clothes into a
Speaker 1: duffel while I remained in the kitchen wiping a spotless counter.
Speaker 1: The air was charged with the finality of a thunder
Speaker 1: storm rolling through. Every movement in the hallway rang louder
Speaker 1: for what it meant. He moved from room to room,
Speaker 1: each trip shorter than the last, his footsteps uneven. I
Speaker 1: kept expecting him to stop, to try again, to say
Speaker 1: any of the things you say when you want to
Speaker 1: fight for forgiveness. He did, maybe he knew there was
Speaker 1: nothing left to say. Every now and then he'd pause
Speaker 1: in the hallway, glancing at me with a question he
Speaker 1: was too tired to voice. I didn't offer an opening.
Speaker 1: He set his house key on the kitchen counter, the
Speaker 1: metal clicking against the granite. For a moment, we stood,
Speaker 1: looking at each other through a thousand silent arguments and
Speaker 1: lost plans. I'm sorry, Julia, he said, voice thick, broken
Speaker 1: all the way through. I didn't trust myself to answer,
Speaker 1: so I just nodded. He opened the door, paused, hoping
Speaker 1: for a reprieve, and when none came, left as quietly
Speaker 1: as if he'd only gone out for groceries. The silence
Speaker 1: as the door clicked shut was a new kind of emptiness,
Speaker 1: no longer tense or uncertain, just hollow. I locked it
Speaker 1: behind him. The next hour, I moved through the house
Speaker 1: on instinct, mind haze, hands busy. I texted Caroline and Victor,
Speaker 1: short and direct, Marcus and I are separating. Please don't
Speaker 1: ask right now. Their responses came in flashes, Caroline with
Speaker 1: shards of heartbreak, Victor with gilt and sadness. My phone
Speaker 1: vibrated a long apology message from Marcus unread. Everything practical
Speaker 1: became complicated at once. I opened the Least Agreement, the
Speaker 1: joint checking app, a shared drop box full of all
Speaker 1: the artifacts of a life built together. I closed each tab.
Speaker 1: I wasn't ready for logistics. Moving Marcus's things into neat,
Speaker 1: emotionless boxes. Felt impossible, so I did nothing. The house
Speaker 1: was still full of him traces everywhere I looked. I
Speaker 1: stood at the kitchen sink, staring into the shallow basin,
Speaker 1: hands braced on the edge. The city noises outside filtered
Speaker 1: in low and strange and alien like I had stepped
Speaker 1: outside my own life, but could never quite return. I
Speaker 1: listened for the sound of Marcus's laugh, for footsteps overhead,
Speaker 1: for the shape of old routines. All of it was gone,
Speaker 1: like a radio suddenly switching to static. Still, I let
Speaker 1: myself stand there, feeling every sharp and ordinary detail, all
Speaker 1: the things unchanged and all the things lost, and told
Speaker 1: myself this is real, and it is over, and somehow
Speaker 1: the world keeps moving even when you can't. By early evening,
Speaker 1: Caroline came by, soft and cautious. Do you want company,
Speaker 1: she asked, her voice gentle. I shook my head and
Speaker 1: she didn't press, only squeezed my arm as she left
Speaker 1: groceries on the table. Victor texted twice apologies that said
Speaker 1: everything and nothing. Every member of our circle, in one
Speaker 1: way or another, reached out, stunned, hovering in the new
Speaker 1: void Marcus's exit created I canceled my next week of
Speaker 1: work events in a handful of halting emails, citing a
Speaker 1: personal emergency. My boss wrote back and clipped concern, but
Speaker 1: left it at that. I boxed a few stray Marcus
Speaker 1: objects and set them by the door, then stopped, unable
Speaker 1: to keep shorting the life I just lost. The apartment
Speaker 1: felt heavier as dusk arrived. I moved through rooms, touching
Speaker 1: souvenirs of trips, gallery postcards, half finished bottles of wine.
Speaker 1: My phone buzzed twice, a new number, then Marcus again.
Speaker 1: I let them go unacknowledged. When night took the sky,
Speaker 1: I finally lowered myself onto the living room, rug back
Speaker 1: against the couch, knees drawn up. The air was cold,
Speaker 1: the city beyond the windows busy with strangers. The house
Speaker 1: was stripped of tension, now only the flat ache of
Speaker 1: what comes after. I sat there, cocooned in the emptiness
Speaker 1: pulse evening out. I didn't cry, though the prickle pressed
Speaker 1: against my rib cage. Instead, I let the silence be
Speaker 1: what it was, undeniable, absolute, and mine. After a long hour,
Speaker 1: I stood and moved quietly to the record shelf. I
Speaker 1: thumbed through the sleeves, searching for the album Markus and
Speaker 1: I always played on slows Sunday mornings. A tired, beautiful thing,
Speaker 1: worn soft from use. It came free in my hand.
Speaker 1: Cover edges frayed, the memory, almost soothing. I put the
Speaker 1: record on the player, dropped the needle. A tremor ran
Speaker 1: through my fingers, but I steadied myself, watching it whirl
Speaker 1: into motion. The first chords filled the air, gentle and melancholy.
Speaker 1: I returned to the floor, arms around my knees and listened,
Speaker 1: letting the familiar melody wash over me, solid and grounding
Speaker 1: memory without hurt. For just that brief interval, I let
Speaker 1: the music play to the end, breathing quietly, not rushing
Speaker 1: to move or fix or analyze. When the final notes
Speaker 1: faded and the needle gave only static, I rose crossed
Speaker 1: the room and with a shaking hand, turned out the light.
Speaker 1: The light clicked off, leaving the world in grainy silhouette, soot,
Speaker 1: black windows, the restless city beyond, shapes of books and
Speaker 1: furniture carved out by what little moonlight pressed in from
Speaker 1: between the buildings. I didn't move for a long time.
Speaker 1: The dark wasn't frightening, just honest, stripped bare in a
Speaker 1: way nothing else had been for weeks. I let myself
Speaker 1: breathe deep and quiet, and waited for feeling to catch
Speaker 1: up to fact. There was loneliness, sure, but it was
Speaker 1: no longer panic, just the emptiness of a finished room
Speaker 1: after every one leaves in the morning. I woke at dawn,
Speaker 1: and the silence of the house met me. It was
Speaker 1: total and unbroken, a new emptiness where for so long
Speaker 1: there had been the creak of Marcus's steps, the brush
Speaker 1: of coffee grinding, even the briefest exchange of sleepy helloes.
Speaker 1: The smell in the air was only mine now, sheets
Speaker 1: faintly floral, the kitchen just clean and cool, none of
Speaker 1: Marcus's spices or sharp after shade. Pushing against my senses.
Speaker 1: I found the note he'd left beside his key on
Speaker 1: the table, a single line, I'm sorry for everything. I'll
Speaker 1: give you space. I didn't cry, only placed it in
Speaker 1: the bottom drawer with everything else. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do with bits of us that no longer belonged
Speaker 1: anywhere in the open. By afternoon, the real consequences started
Speaker 1: showing up, like visitors I hadn't invited. Our phones still
Speaker 1: mirrored each other's calendars. I got a pop up while
Speaker 1: trying to email a client his dentist appointment. Then Ava
Speaker 1: Collective rap brunch scheduled for Sunday, the first time I
Speaker 1: ever saw my own name next to hers in one
Speaker 1: of his entries. Months ago had been for something mundane
Speaker 1: J plus Ava gallery run. Now the overlap was gone,
Speaker 1: cleanly divided. A private life split along a line I
Speaker 1: hadn't been told about. Caroline called just once, voiced, gentle
Speaker 1: and too careful. I'm outside just to drop food. No pressure,
Speaker 1: I can go. I buzzed her up, grateful but not
Speaker 1: ready for words. She came in, wrapped me in a hug,
Speaker 1: then set down a tray of soup, and left quietly,
Speaker 1: as if my grief was contagious. I let myself eat
Speaker 1: half a bowl, leaning against the counter, then put the
Speaker 1: rest away. Food was too complicated, too alive. I tried
Speaker 1: to tackle logistics, starting with the lease a landlord's EMIL
Speaker 1: sat open, blinking for a response. I could barely write,
Speaker 1: there's been a change, Marcus will be out for now.
Speaker 1: My mouse hovered over the shared checking account, but I
Speaker 1: closed the tab before making any changes. It felt too final,
Speaker 1: like removing a safety net before knowing if I'd land
Speaker 1: on my feet. I started a list of Marcus's things
Speaker 1: I'd found scattered around the apartment, a stack of magazines,
Speaker 1: mismatched socks, a packet of old photo prints, toiletries left
Speaker 1: under the bathroom sink. I wrote it mechanically, surprised at
Speaker 1: how easily life dissolves into inventory when given the smallest push.
Speaker 1: Victor texted again, asking if I needed anything practical help
Speaker 1: moving furniture, a ride, if I wanted to crash somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I thanked him, said I was staying put for now.
Speaker 1: I didn't mention that sleeping anywhere else would feel like running,
Speaker 1: as if the house were a crime scene, still waiting
Speaker 1: for a final investigation. For days two, maybe three, may
Speaker 1: be less, I operated on low power, drifting between cleaning
Speaker 1: and dozing, picking up items markers had left behind and
Speaker 1: almost putting them back in their places before shoving them
Speaker 1: into a box instead. The ache was mostly dull, a
Speaker 1: background hum, until practical things reminded me what had shifted
Speaker 1: for good. The main escalation arrived almost accidentally. A floral
Speaker 1: delivery truck appeared below my window as I was tearing
Speaker 1: up old insurance paperwork. I ignored it only coming downstairs
Speaker 1: when I heard the bell buzz again and again. The
Speaker 1: driver handed me a small square arrangement, a dense knot
Speaker 1: of white freezier and blue thistle, the kind of bouquet
Speaker 1: markers claimed made him think in color. There was a
Speaker 1: card inside. I expected something from him, some new string
Speaker 1: of apologies. But the handwriting on the envelope was neat
Speaker 1: slant Ava's from memory, I realized inside a note congratulations
Speaker 1: again on the award for both of you. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: this is so complicated. If you want to talk, my
Speaker 1: number s on the back. Ava. For a stunned second,
Speaker 1: I braced against the door frame, staring at the flowers.
Speaker 1: My first urge was to toss them instantly. But my
Speaker 1: second urge, stronger, more bitter, was to read the card
Speaker 1: over and over until my mind ran out of ways
Speaker 1: to reinterpret it. Had Ava known? The question vibrated through me?
Speaker 1: How much did she know about Marcus's life with me?
Speaker 1: Was this pity, guilt or something colder? A stake in
Speaker 1: ground I hadn't even realized I was standing on. I
Speaker 1: disassembled the bouquet, methodically cutting the thick stems. Dropping them
Speaker 1: one by one into the compost. It was stupid ceremonial,
Speaker 1: and it did nothing to ease the coil of humiliation
Speaker 1: beneath my skin. When I was done, I tossed the
Speaker 1: card into the trash and took the trash down to
Speaker 1: the alley, hands shaking, breath fogging out in the chilly air.
Speaker 1: That evening exhaustion gutted me, but I forced myself to shower,
Speaker 1: dress and try facing the outside world, just for an hour.
Speaker 1: I walked to the corner store for milk, moved through
Speaker 1: aisles as if under water, forcing my feet to take
Speaker 1: up space in the mundane rhythms of a city that
Speaker 1: would not stop to accommodate my internal disaster. When I returned,
Speaker 1: a message blinked on my phone, this time from Marcus.
Speaker 1: He had sent a simple, abrupt request, Can I come
Speaker 1: pick up some things to morrow? Let me know when's best.
Speaker 1: I stared at it until the edges of the kitchen
Speaker 1: blurred the thought of facing him, Seeing him in the apartment,
Speaker 1: his hands on our silverware and books, made my heart
Speaker 1: thunder in my chest, and then a moment later, sink
Speaker 1: like a stone. But there was no good reason to
Speaker 1: avoid it. We both had to survive the undoing, piece
Speaker 1: by piece. Between three and five, I typed each word,
Speaker 1: deliberate and cold, I added, after a pause, please come alone,
Speaker 1: He replied, only o K. The next day dragged slow,
Speaker 1: each hour marked by small tasks, cleaning Marcus's work space,
Speaker 1: boxing t shirts, removing pictures from shared frames. I left
Speaker 1: our favorite foto us on the coast, laughing wind in
Speaker 1: our hair in the box, not ready to decide if
Speaker 1: I wanted to keep it or burn it. When the
Speaker 1: bell rang at three twelve, I braced myself against the counter,
Speaker 1: waiting until I could move my face out of its
Speaker 1: blank mask before opening the door. Marcus looked thinner, older, somehow,
Speaker 1: shoulders caved in under a dull green coat. His eyes
Speaker 1: flicked over me, hopeful but cautious, as if searching for
Speaker 1: something that could let him stay just a minute longer
Speaker 1: in any version of our old life. Thanks for letting
Speaker 1: me come by, he said, voice awkward around the edges.
Speaker 1: Let's just get this over with, I replied, step aside,
Speaker 1: He worked quietly, barely speaking. I saw just once his
Speaker 1: hand pausing madare over a stack of records. He took
Speaker 1: only half of them, the ones he'd collected before me
Speaker 1: and left the others without comment. Every gesture felt like
Speaker 1: both a wound and a strange kindness. Occasionally I caught
Speaker 1: him glancing my way, as if wanting to say something more,
Speaker 1: maybe ask how I was, but always failing to find
Speaker 1: the thread through so much loss. After an hour, his
Speaker 1: bag was full, and he double checked for a charger
Speaker 1: for his laptop and for a red scarf I knew
Speaker 1: was a gift from Harva. When he was done, he
Speaker 1: turned to face me, holding the duffel awkwardly at his side. Julia,
Speaker 1: I know you'll never believe me, but I keep wishing
Speaker 1: I could take all of it back. Not he swallowed,
Speaker 1: not us, just the way I ruined things. I never
Speaker 1: wanted to hurt you, not you. There was nothing left
Speaker 1: to argue. I nodded and stared at the fan shaped
Speaker 1: crack in the ceiling, then back into eyes. I know
Speaker 1: you didn't want to, but you did. He brushed a
Speaker 1: hand through his hair, cheeks dark with shame. For a moment,
Speaker 1: I thought I should try to offer him absolution, grant
Speaker 1: him something as irrelevant as forgiveness, but I realized I
Speaker 1: wasn't ready. He must have seen the answer on my face,
Speaker 1: because he took a shaky breath, nodded and stepped back.
Speaker 1: If you need anything practical, just let me know, he said,
Speaker 1: voice fraying. The silence that followed was expansive, gentle, in
Speaker 1: a way that hurt more than shouting. I didn't want
Speaker 1: him to stay, didn't want another round of apologies or analysis,
Speaker 1: but at exactly that moment, I was painfully grateful for
Speaker 1: the years we'd held together, for what they had been
Speaker 1: before everything frayed. He let himself out, shutting the door
Speaker 1: quietly behind him. I heard his footsteps recede down the stairs,
Speaker 1: slow at first, then gone. Relief wasn't what rushed in.
Speaker 1: It was a weary clarity, pure and almost kind. The
Speaker 1: truth had taken everything, but also returned me to myself
Speaker 1: in a raw, unadorned way. I moved through the apartment,
Speaker 1: turning over the new boundaries of my life. I gathered
Speaker 1: the rest of his things into a second bag, left
Speaker 1: them by the door. E mails pinged on my phone,
Speaker 1: lease Cosina updates, a reply from my boss, a confused
Speaker 1: invitation to what would have been some one's birthday dinner
Speaker 1: for both of us. I responded to none of them.
Speaker 1: Night deepened outside the late city, going blurry behind misted windows,
Speaker 1: I poured a glass of water, cradling it in both hands,
Speaker 1: letting the coolness ground me. My gaze landed on a stray,
Speaker 1: sticky note Marcus had left behind by more pepper, written
Speaker 1: in his scruffy hand. Somehow that was what finally pierced me.
Speaker 1: I pressed the note against my palm until my skin prickled,
Speaker 1: and then, without ceremony, dropped it in the trash. In
Speaker 1: the hour after Marcus left, the apartment felt imposs still
Speaker 1: almost expectant, as though waiting for some final act that
Speaker 1: would close the loop on everything. For a while, I
Speaker 1: sat on the edge of the couch, knees pulled to
Speaker 1: my chest, watching my own reflection in the black window.
Speaker 1: A final text came at midnight. It was short. I
Speaker 1: know it doesn't help, but I hope some day you'll
Speaker 1: find someone who gives you the honesty you gave me.
Speaker 1: I didn't reply, but read it three times, then set
Speaker 1: my phone faced and for good. There were no more
Speaker 1: tasks I could do, no more conversations to have. All
Speaker 1: that remained was the feeling of being the last one
Speaker 1: left in a space built for two I put away
Speaker 1: the last of the dishes, made up the bed on
Speaker 1: my own side, and when I finally lay down, I
Speaker 1: closed my eyes, not to dream, but to hold the
Speaker 1: absence in my arms, letting it be what it was,
Speaker 1: no longer a thing to dread, but something to endure,
Speaker 1: and then eventually to move through. Outside the city kept
Speaker 1: spinner headlights streaking by, voices drifting up from the street.
Speaker 1: Maybe in the morning I'd answer the worried texts, Maybe not.
Speaker 1: For now, I let the hush wrap around me, sharp
Speaker 1: and bracing and true. The apartment was empty, but inside
Speaker 1: that silence, I realized so much space had been freed
Speaker 1: for the first time in years, not just by losing markers,
Speaker 1: but by finally knowing the ground beneath my feet was real,
Speaker 1: even if it was rough and new. That small, honest, clarity,
Speaker 1: quiet as it was, was enough for nap.