Speaker 1: Saturday morning is slow and gray in the sort of
Speaker 1: way that makes the world seem thick, muffled, like the
Speaker 1: inside of a shell. I wake to the sound of
Speaker 1: rain ticking at the window. For a few minutes, I
Speaker 1: lie still and let myself drift at the boundary between
Speaker 1: sleep and waking, until a prickle of awareness lands on me.
Speaker 1: The other side of the bed is cool and empty.
Speaker 1: I pull the sheet up under my chin, waiting for
Speaker 1: the smell of coffee, James's early morning ritual, one that
Speaker 1: always fills the house before I'm fully conscious. But the
Speaker 1: scent is faint, barely clinging to the air, as if
Speaker 1: the pot was poured and immediately abandoned. My hand finds
Speaker 1: the edge of his pillow, worn soft at its corner,
Speaker 1: but he isn't here. I sit up and realize that
Speaker 1: his cycling kit, something electric blue and neon yellow, unfamiliar
Speaker 1: and stiff with newness, is draped across the low slung
Speaker 1: mid century chair by the window, socks rolled into tight balls,
Speaker 1: water bottle perched on its arm as if waiting for
Speaker 1: him to sweep back in. A phone buzzes on the dresser,
Speaker 1: not mine. He left behind, screen pulsing with a notification.
Speaker 1: I reach for it, then pause, suddenly self conscious. The
Speaker 1: screen lights up at the touch of my hand, a
Speaker 1: message long ride to day, don't wait up club breakfast
Speaker 1: after love you. There's a sparkly lit groups selfie on
Speaker 1: his lock screen. I almost laugh. It's the sort of
Speaker 1: picture that would have made him groan a year ago,
Speaker 1: all neon clad arms and dazzle teeth, bared, sweaty and
Speaker 1: tired beneath the city's night lights. James has always prided
Speaker 1: himself on his hipster cynicism about sport, especially any sport
Speaker 1: requiring matching shirts. Now Here, he is grinning ear to
Speaker 1: ear in some imported cycling jersey at what must have
Speaker 1: been midnight, arm around a woman whose dyed blonde hair
Speaker 1: catches the camera flash just so, a cascade of shimmer
Speaker 1: and half wild confidence. I let the phone drop from
Speaker 1: my hand on to the bed, the screen winking out.
Speaker 1: I look away, feeling a sting in my chest. I
Speaker 1: refuse to name. I remind myself that it's early, that
Speaker 1: I'm probably just annoyed he's left me to lounge alone
Speaker 1: while he's out finding in dorphins in drizzle. We've always
Speaker 1: allowed each other independence or tried to. He's mentioned this
Speaker 1: new club almost every day for weeks, a group that
Speaker 1: rides both Saturday and Sunday rain or shine, and finishes
Speaker 1: sweaty and jubilant over breakfast tacos or ramen or cold beer.
Speaker 1: Still there's a flavor to his excitement that feels uncharacteristic. James,
Speaker 1: who once referred to cyclists as lycracultists, now packing starchy
Speaker 1: gels and talking about cadence as if he's prepping for
Speaker 1: the Olympics. It's easier to joke about than question. So
Speaker 1: I rub my thumb across the bed sheet instead of
Speaker 1: pushing the feeling away. I flex my toes, go through
Speaker 1: the small stretch that wakes my body up. Maybe it's nothing.
Speaker 1: He's already left for the day, probably hours ago, if
Speaker 1: the kit is out and the coffee brewed and gone cold.
Speaker 1: I can almost picture the whistle of his breath as
Speaker 1: he gears up, filling a pocket with keys and phone
Speaker 1: and chapstick, slipping out before sunrise. Normally i'd have felt
Speaker 1: an arm drift around me as he went, But now silence.
Speaker 1: It's noon. When he blows through the door again, loud
Speaker 1: and sunburned, I'm half heartedly working in the studio off
Speaker 1: the living room, cluster of tablets and brushes balanced in
Speaker 1: my lap, A mess of half rejected poster sketches surrounding me.
Speaker 1: I try to look up casually, as if I hadn't
Speaker 1: noticed he was gone so long? Hey, ride warrior, I
Speaker 1: call voice pitched easy. How was the club? He flashes
Speaker 1: a grin, carrying his helmet and sunglasses. Epic actually took
Speaker 1: the old shoal creek root crashed breakfast after I, legit
Speaker 1: thought my calves were going to seize. His hair sticks
Speaker 1: up in haphazard horn, dew damp and sweat beads cling
Speaker 1: to his throat. He smells sharply of wind effort and
Speaker 1: that faint metallic tang of city rain. I fish for
Speaker 1: something that won't make me sound needy nice. Who all
Speaker 1: was out there with you this time? Someone new on
Speaker 1: the route. He tosses his helmet on to the bench
Speaker 1: and starts thumbing through his phone. I catch the way
Speaker 1: his eyes flick to mine before his gaze drops. Oh,
Speaker 1: just the usual suspects. Mad's that guy, THEO the twins.
Speaker 1: Miela brought her brother along. Poor guy couldn't keep up
Speaker 1: He laughs, almost too loud, scrolling rapidly, and then almost
Speaker 1: absently turns his phone face down on the stone counter.
Speaker 1: The threads of curiosity knit tighter somewhere low in my chest.
Speaker 1: Did you end up at betew Es again or try
Speaker 1: somewhere new? I ask, feigning casual interest. He shakes his head.
Speaker 1: You know the drill wherever has enough tables and won't
Speaker 1: kick us out for muddy shoes. He rakes his hand
Speaker 1: through his hair, checks the kitchen clock. Shit, is it
Speaker 1: really noon? I've got a few designed deadlines this afternoon, babe. Sorry,
Speaker 1: already moving down the hall, I watch him go the
Speaker 1: hem of his new cycling jersey, this one not matching
Speaker 1: the paper receipt I glimpsed earlier in the week, vanishing
Speaker 1: around the corner. There is a feeling I can't shake.
Speaker 1: We haven't quite said the right thing to each other,
Speaker 1: not all morning. I stare at the lump of his
Speaker 1: kit on the chair, a bright synthetic skin that might
Speaker 1: as well be armor. Outside. The rain comes harder. I
Speaker 1: don't ask again. I can already tell he won't answer. Later,
Speaker 1: with James vanished back into his studio and distant music
Speaker 1: thrumbing against the walls. I find myself cycling through the
Speaker 1: last few months in my head. It's such a different
Speaker 1: pattern from what we built together. How could I have
Speaker 1: missed the initial shift? There's a memory I keep returning
Speaker 1: to early spring ostin humidity, beginning to edge towards summer Storminus.
Speaker 1: The two us tangled over half finished album cover in
Speaker 1: our shared workspace. I've been wrestling with perspective lines, trying
Speaker 1: to find the right balance of handwritten grit and digital
Speaker 1: slickness for a local band's first vinyl pressing. James was
Speaker 1: sprawled behind me, sketching drafts on his tablet, feet woven
Speaker 1: through the back slats of my chair. That lower left
Speaker 1: font is fighting you, he warned, brushing a loose strand
Speaker 1: of my hair away with an inky thumb. Give in,
Speaker 1: try helvetica and let yourself be basic. For once he'd
Speaker 1: grinned at me, then full arrogant golden, before leaning in
Speaker 1: to kiss my neck just below the ear. All the
Speaker 1: tension in the world melted away. That was our magic,
Speaker 1: making something together, arguing until a deadline snapped us back
Speaker 1: into unity, then finding each other again over cold beers
Speaker 1: and whatever was left in the fridge. We delived this
Speaker 1: way for seven years. Creative partners, sometimes competitors, always collaborate.
Speaker 1: Our friends teased us for being entwined, almost twinlike in
Speaker 1: certain moods, but neither of us had ever felt smothered
Speaker 1: by the closeness. If anything, James had always been the
Speaker 1: one who pulled me out into the world gallery crawls,
Speaker 1: outdoor installations, impro of street festivals, bringing new people into
Speaker 1: our warm, odd circle of downtown weirdos. I sometimes marveled
Speaker 1: at how open he could be, how easily he wove
Speaker 1: himself into other lives. I'm introverted by temperament, recharging best
Speaker 1: in chaotic privacy, music, loud, headphones on hands, busy with
Speaker 1: design or clay. He likes noise, mess, laughter, new faces.
Speaker 1: But he always came home, always looked for me in
Speaker 1: a crowd. We let life blend together. Work and home
Speaker 1: and social life stitch tightly. Neither of us made much,
Speaker 1: but with both freelancing and landing steady design contracts from
Speaker 1: a few local non profits and upstart film studios, money
Speaker 1: was just sufficient. The little Craftsman House in East Austin
Speaker 1: felt like a museum of our time, arts spilling off
Speaker 1: every wall, gig posters layered over each other in the hall,
Speaker 1: paints still caked in indelible loops on the back step
Speaker 1: from one of his ill advised public mural practice nights.
Speaker 1: Friends would gather on Fridays for takeout dumplings and too
Speaker 1: much mescal, everyone bringing another piece of the city with them.
Speaker 1: We had our routines. Saturday mornings were slow, sometimes headachey,
Speaker 1: spent flipping through gallery schedules and mapping out the day.
Speaker 1: Sundays were lazy, records spinning while one of us wrote
Speaker 1: up invoices and the other finished a print. Thursday afternoons
Speaker 1: meant brown bag tacos on bart and springs somewhere, just
Speaker 1: us half way inventing the next project. We'd always said
Speaker 1: we'd rather have messy freedom than settle into something predictable.
Speaker 1: Sometimes what we called the kid conversation would come up,
Speaker 1: usually over drinks, and we'd grin at each other, relieved
Speaker 1: at the mutual not yet maybe never. It was a comfort,
Speaker 1: a mutual rebellion against the expectations pressing in from the
Speaker 1: edges of our world. There were vulnerabilities, of course, I've
Speaker 1: always known that James's big energy outshines mine. Sometimes at parties,
Speaker 1: I'd feel myself retreating into the kitchen just to watch him.
Speaker 1: He never made me feel small, though, never until the
Speaker 1: last few weeks, when it was as if I was
Speaker 1: fading from the center of his field of vision. Until recently,
Speaker 1: all of that difference felt safe. That was the bedrock,
Speaker 1: I told myself as I wandered into the living room
Speaker 1: and straightened a stacked print on the sideboard. This absurd foundation,
Speaker 1: these quiet agreements, the unspoken rule that we didn't keep secrets,
Speaker 1: that if one of us felt the thread slipping, we'd
Speaker 1: say something. We promised ourselves honesty was the only real
Speaker 1: currency for two people living so closely, working so tightly.
Speaker 1: So why did the world suddenly feel like I was
Speaker 1: outside looking in? Maybe that's why. On the next Friday evening,
Speaker 1: when James texts at the last moment to cancel our
Speaker 1: usual date night clubs, doing a long ride with beer after,
Speaker 1: can we push the disappointment cuts sharper. I've been looking
Speaker 1: forward to this all week. There was an outdoor pop up,
Speaker 1: some kind of interactive projection by a friend from grad school,
Speaker 1: and we'd marked it on our kitchen chalkboard calendar for weeks.
Speaker 1: Friday a shlaghs gig plus tacos. It was the sort
Speaker 1: of night we live for friends, art chaos. But his
Speaker 1: message is breezy and nonchalant, as if he doesn't remember
Speaker 1: or care. I start typing a response, Delete it, try again, Sure,
Speaker 1: no problem, kill it, save me a story. I add
Speaker 1: a winking face, then put my phone down. My hand
Speaker 1: feels oddly tense. He comes home late, nearly one a m.
Speaker 1: Tan lines unexpectedly sharp even under the porch light. Cheeks flushed.
Speaker 1: I smell the tang of sweat and the faintest citrusy
Speaker 1: beer on his breath as he drops a cold kiss
Speaker 1: on my cheek. Sorry, love club ran over beers after downtown.
Speaker 1: I'll make it up to you, he murmurs, already drifting
Speaker 1: down the hallway, peeling off his jersey from the bathroom.
Speaker 1: Water runs thick against the tile. There's a slapping sound
Speaker 1: his phone hitting the sink edge maybe, and a heavily
Speaker 1: exhaled sigh. I linger by the cracked door. He emerges
Speaker 1: in sweatpants and a faded festival T shirt, scrolling rapidly
Speaker 1: through messages, thumb quick and agitated. I notice he's put
Speaker 1: a new lock code on his phone. I watch him surreptitiously,
Speaker 1: wondering when that change happened. The next morning, his side
Speaker 1: of the bed is damp from a fresh shower, and
Speaker 1: he's already gone. When I wake off, I presume to
Speaker 1: the real ride. I'm left with a stack of take
Speaker 1: out boxes last night's dishes still soaking in the sink.
Speaker 1: After that, it becomes a pattern. James starts coming home
Speaker 1: late from rides, breathless with stories about club people. Mad's
Speaker 1: this theo that Mieler and her brother always with some
Speaker 1: new in joke I can't quite follow. He imitates someone's quip,
Speaker 1: makes an exaggerated face, but when I try to join in,
Speaker 1: his smile falters, as if I'm missing the reference. Only
Speaker 1: he holds one night. I tease him, You're going to
Speaker 1: become insufferable with all these cycling puns. Who even are
Speaker 1: these new ride or my friends? He laughs and shrugs, says,
Speaker 1: you know, club types not really your scene, gear heads,
Speaker 1: big on group texts, that kind of thing. The answer
Speaker 1: seems a little too quick, a little too generic. I
Speaker 1: push down a twinge of irritation, remind myself that he's
Speaker 1: allowed new friends. Still, the phone is always near by
Speaker 1: now face down, thumb flicking back to the home screen
Speaker 1: if I cross behind him. It's subtle, so subtle, But
Speaker 1: I start to wonder if I'm making things up in
Speaker 1: my head, letting jealousy blow up into something out of proportion.
Speaker 1: Haven't we always promised not to do this? I recall
Speaker 1: him once, mocking friends caught in suspicion, spirals why bother
Speaker 1: being with someone you have to track? As I watch
Speaker 1: him ignore a text mid conversation, phone mute but visibly
Speaker 1: humming in his palm, trying to be breezy about it.
Speaker 1: I bring up his club friends in a larger group
Speaker 1: Friday at our house, Artists, designers, the couple from up
Speaker 1: the block. So who are these new cycling fanatics? I joke,
Speaker 1: topping up a wineglass. You've been abducted by the lycra cult, right.
Speaker 1: There's a short silence as our circle looks blank. James grins,
Speaker 1: but there's a tension in his posture. Just new folks
Speaker 1: from around nobody yaw would know, mostly east Side people,
Speaker 1: you know how those groups mushroom. No one disagrees, but
Speaker 1: for the first time I notice a sideway's glance between
Speaker 1: two friends. Someone starts talking about a project for the
Speaker 1: public library, and the topic moves on. As James helps
Speaker 1: clear dishes, he says you good, gently, but with a knowingness,
Speaker 1: as if he sensed my feelings and wants to press
Speaker 1: them down before they can surface. Of course, I say brightly,
Speaker 1: just don't get inducted into any cults without giving me
Speaker 1: a heads up. He laughs, his smile wide, but his
Speaker 1: eyes unreadable. That night, I lie in bed listening to
Speaker 1: him scroll endlessly through his phone, tiny blue white light
Speaker 1: flickering against the far wall. Neither of us speaks. Eventually
Speaker 1: I hear the flat final click of his lock screen.
Speaker 1: My body tenses, shame curling in my gut. What sort
Speaker 1: of person watches her own husband for clues? Have I
Speaker 1: always needed more reassurance than I let on? But I
Speaker 1: can't deny that something fundamental has shifted. We used to
Speaker 1: live in a tacit easy trust. We could go a
Speaker 1: whole day on opposite sides of the city, rejoining at
Speaker 1: night to swap stories, never wondering about the invisible time
Speaker 1: of Now, the space between us feels jagged. The first
Speaker 1: real fracture comes two weeks later, on another rain slicked Saturday, night.
Speaker 1: James had left in the late afternoon after a strange,
Speaker 1: abrupt phone call in the hallway. He'd been oddly energized
Speaker 1: pulling on his new kit, this one black with a
Speaker 1: flash of pink bands at the cuff, and barely pausing
Speaker 1: between changing and stuffing snacks in his pannier. Club meeting
Speaker 1: might run late tonight. We're sorting out a fall ride,
Speaker 1: he says, almost sheepish, as if anticipating a challenge. I'll
Speaker 1: probably you be back. Don't wait up. I wait. The
Speaker 1: hours crawl by. I flick through ourt station portfolios, try
Speaker 1: to reorganize digital assets for a client, but can't get
Speaker 1: into the flow. By midnight, I'm watching the clock every
Speaker 1: passing half hour, prickling tighter. James comes home after one,
Speaker 1: the door opening with the faintest creek. I'm up lying
Speaker 1: on the capuch, pretending to watch tik toks. He moves quietly,
Speaker 1: heading straight to the bathroom, and when he emerges, he's
Speaker 1: in fresh clothes and avoids meeting my eyes. When I
Speaker 1: ask how the ride went, he says, long, cold ride.
Speaker 1: Leader forgot the route, so we circled down town for
Speaker 1: an hour. Some one forgot snack's disaster. He disappears into
Speaker 1: his studio before I can reply. Next morning, I log
Speaker 1: into our joint checking accounter update a recurring contract payment,
Speaker 1: and I notice something odd a two hundred sixty dollars
Speaker 1: charge at Cycle Market, a high end bike boutique in
Speaker 1: the Warehouse district. I scroll back, trying to line it
Speaker 1: up with James's recent shopping spreeze. He'd mentioned needing a
Speaker 1: better lock, but the number seems inflated. I ask him
Speaker 1: about it voice light. Did you finally cave and buy
Speaker 1: the carbon seat post of your dreams? He barely glances
Speaker 1: up from his tablet. Just stuff for the bike parts, gels,
Speaker 1: That shop's a total rip off, but needed new tires.
Speaker 1: I almost believe him, until he walks past later wearing
Speaker 1: a cycling jersey with a completely different logo. The colors
Speaker 1: are wrong too. I make a mental note, but don't
Speaker 1: say anything more than once. I walk into the kitchen
Speaker 1: and find his phone glittering with notifications, dozens of messages
Speaker 1: piling up in a club chat. When I step too close,
Speaker 1: he quickly taps out of the screen. Once I catch
Speaker 1: a glimpse of the beginning of a thread Mads breakfast
Speaker 1: at tiny spoon after ride, before the screen goes black.
Speaker 1: I try to tell myself that this is all perfectly normal,
Speaker 1: that people drift into new hobbies and find fresh infatuations
Speaker 1: all the time. But the persistent secrecy, screen time, sudden
Speaker 1: lock devices, stories that feel partly fabricated, great, the hints
Speaker 1: begin to pile up in ways I can't rationalize. One Thursday,
Speaker 1: as I tidy up the living room, I accidently knock
Speaker 1: over a small stack of receipts from the mail tray.
Speaker 1: Among the usual groceries and coffee shops, there's a hand
Speaker 1: written stub for brunch Grove east Side for two. I
Speaker 1: turn it over, no date, just the name scribbled in
Speaker 1: blue ink. It's a restaurant James and I have always
Speaker 1: wanted to try, but never have. His goofy fridge magnet
Speaker 1: for the place has been there for over a year.
Speaker 1: He's never once mentioned going later that afternoon. I mention
Speaker 1: Grove east Side as a meal option, just to test
Speaker 1: the waters. Maybe next date night. Ha, we keep missing
Speaker 1: our chance. James lifts an eyebrow. Yeah, I keep hearing
Speaker 1: it slammed for weekends. Maybe on a week day if
Speaker 1: they ever do late hours. I nod, biting back a question.
Speaker 1: The following Saturday, determined to restore a little normalcy, I
Speaker 1: decide to surprise him, maybe bring his favorite Vietnamese iced
Speaker 1: coffee to the trail cheer his group on midride, I
Speaker 1: prep everything, take my own old, creaky bike, and pedal
Speaker 1: up the route he always describes, following his Strava maps
Speaker 1: like bread crumbs. But when I arrive at the park
Speaker 1: he named, I spot a dozen cyclists, but none are him.
Speaker 1: I loop the trail twice, calling out growing, sweatier, wobblier.
Speaker 1: I check his last location, Share gone turned off for
Speaker 1: the first time I can remember, A weird squirming starts
Speaker 1: in my gut. After almost an hour, I head home,
Speaker 1: feeling foolish. He returns by mid afternoon, flushed, cheerful, spinning
Speaker 1: a story about how the group switched roots last minute
Speaker 1: because of construction and their service dropped out downtown. You
Speaker 1: should have come, he jokes, too brightly. I laugh, but
Speaker 1: the gesture feels paper thin even there in jokes sound rehearsed.
Speaker 1: Mad slips into his stories more and more. Mad's nearly
Speaker 1: crashed her bike trying to film a tick tock. He
Speaker 1: tells me the name floating in his mouth, like something private.
Speaker 1: There's a softness to how he mentions her, the sort
Speaker 1: of familiarity I remember from our own inside games years ago.
Speaker 1: One evening, a mutual friend, a local muralist, someone who's
Speaker 1: known us both for years, comes by to borrow a
Speaker 1: spare brush. As we chat, she says, off handedly, I
Speaker 1: thought I glimpsed James at the Lamplight Bar last week?
Speaker 1: Was that after a ride? Her eyes are sharp but friendly.
Speaker 1: Didn't peg him for the place? I blink. I don't
Speaker 1: think he mentioned it. Was he in full cycling get up?
Speaker 1: She grins. Naw, just sneakers and jeans with a couple folks.
Speaker 1: I think one of them had crazy red hair, almost orange. James,
Speaker 1: when I ask that night, says he'd stopped for a
Speaker 1: post ride shower at a friend. S must be a
Speaker 1: mix up. His answer slides off too easily, no hesitation.
Speaker 1: Weeks slide by like this, bits of story that don't
Speaker 1: quite align, brunch receipts that don't fit our lives, sudden
Speaker 1: cycling expenses without matching gear out that bleed into mornings,
Speaker 1: and through it all James grows more, restless, more impatient,
Speaker 1: ever quick to encourage me to find my own club,
Speaker 1: maybe pick up hiking, join a new art collective, get
Speaker 1: out there more. It's strange language from him. He's never
Speaker 1: wanted more. Distance, Intimacy fades. He grows more distant in small,
Speaker 1: consequential ways. Once eager to plan a gallery hop, now
Speaker 1: absent from our nights, often vanishing into the second bedroom
Speaker 1: to catch up on club coolms. I shared routines, disintegrate
Speaker 1: coffee together. Fewer mornings, no more lazy afternoons, giggling over
Speaker 1: fonts and album covers, Fewer impromptu ramen runs. The way
Speaker 1: he laughs with me changes. I catch a glint of
Speaker 1: calculation in his eye, as if measuring what to offer,
Speaker 1: what to hold back. One night, feeling emboldened or simply desperate,
Speaker 1: I raise it as gently as I can, curling into
Speaker 1: him beneath the covers. You seem really somewhere else these days.
Speaker 1: Are we okay? He scoffs lightly, turning away, A bit,
Speaker 1: of course, We're okay. You're overthinking. I'm just swamped. Everyone's
Speaker 1: got a thing lately, right. He kisses my forehead, his
Speaker 1: lips cold, but I sense it. I've stopped mentioning my
Speaker 1: fears to friends. I tell myself that I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to control him, just trying to understand. But in the
Speaker 1: endless space between his explanations, I start to imagine a
Speaker 1: dozen hidden stories. If I lay awake at night, unable
Speaker 1: to sleep, I tell myself it's because of work, stress,
Speaker 1: of never ending deadlines. But what keeps me turning night
Speaker 1: after night is a gnawing dread that something has broken
Speaker 1: and I am the only one pretending it hasn't. The
Speaker 1: next week, as I scroll through our joint calendar, I
Speaker 1: notice gaps, unaccounted mornings, blocked out, club rides with a
Speaker 1: lock symbol drawn in. He's never been the type to
Speaker 1: use private notes for group events. Even his social media,
Speaker 1: once unfiltered and spontaneous, now lingers over every post as
Speaker 1: if he's self frediting. Our story push to a point
Speaker 1: where I can't keep stuffing my anxieties down. I finally
Speaker 1: bring it up, breastbone, aching it's more than just work, James.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're missing each other, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know what's happening in your life any more. He sits
Speaker 1: up abruptly ruffles his hair, looking tired. Not everything is
Speaker 1: about us, you know. Sometimes I just need a break
Speaker 1: from the same old stuff. We've been in the same
Speaker 1: groove for years. I just wanted to feel something different,
Speaker 1: try out a new scene. I hear the words, but
Speaker 1: what registers most is the frustration pulsing in his chest,
Speaker 1: the wedge that seems to have driven us into opposite corners.
Speaker 1: He pulls out his phone again, screen up, but angled
Speaker 1: away from me, and stares as notifications pile in. Maybe
Speaker 1: you should sign up for a ceramics class, he suggests,
Speaker 1: tone almost forced bright, or those Thursday gallery walks. Something
Speaker 1: you can do without me could be fun. Right, my
Speaker 1: voice is a strand weaker than I want it to be,
Speaker 1: so the answer is just separate hobbies. After all this time,
Speaker 1: he gives me a look, a wall slamming down in
Speaker 1: his eyes. I just need space mea every one needs
Speaker 1: a little space sometimes. That night, I moved to the
Speaker 1: guest room, ostensibly to work late, though I can't remember
Speaker 1: the last time I finished a project at midnight and
Speaker 1: still felt whole. I wake early the next morning, resolve
Speaker 1: coiling tight. I will not keep drifting in circles around
Speaker 1: the same doubts. I will gather what evidence I have,
Speaker 1: weigh it, decide what sort of marriage I am actually
Speaker 1: caught in. But that's the lie I tell myself deep down,
Speaker 1: I'm not ready to let go. I want him to
Speaker 1: disprove it all, banish my ugly suspicions, restore the pattern
Speaker 1: of years before. But with each passing day, that hope
Speaker 1: starts to sour. A few nights later, after he comes
Speaker 1: in late again, I begin checking the details, the sequence
Speaker 1: of receipts, the way his rides overlap with events I
Speaker 1: know he hasn't attended. I piece together a timeline, but
Speaker 1: inconsistencies multiply instead of clarifying. Some supposed club meetings match
Speaker 1: no local cycling calendar. Their official group doesn't list him
Speaker 1: as a member. The real break comes when our friend
Speaker 1: Ali pulls me aside at a down town opening. She
Speaker 1: keeps her voice low, almost apologetic. I know this probably
Speaker 1: isn't my place, but I keep seeing James with that
Speaker 1: cycling group at odd bars, never any one I recognize
Speaker 1: except him and sometimes that wild haired woman. You guys,
Speaker 1: still good, I force a smile, Yeah, all good. He's just,
Speaker 1: you know, into this whole new thing. Guess that's marriage sometimes, right.
Speaker 1: But it occurs to me that the more I try
Speaker 1: to close the gap. The wider it becomes, the less
Speaker 1: I speak up, the more he disappears into his other world.
Speaker 1: The next time I see his phone unattended, I almost
Speaker 1: reach for it, but my hand hovers inches from the screen.
Speaker 1: I remember our early promise, a pledge to never snoop,
Speaker 1: to trust by default, not by force. I put it
Speaker 1: back down, heart thrumbing loud enough that I can hear
Speaker 1: blood in my ears. Still that night, I lie awake,
Speaker 1: staring at the ceiling, feeling every minute of silence as
Speaker 1: an accusation. Something is happening just out of view, and
Speaker 1: I'm afraid to find out what, but more afraid of
Speaker 1: living in the dark. Three days later, he invites me
Speaker 1: at last to a club brunch. It's after a casual
Speaker 1: Sunday ride, and he sounds both eager and careful, pitching
Speaker 1: it like an olive branch. You should come meet everyone.
Speaker 1: It's time you joined us, right. I try to read
Speaker 1: his tone. Is this relief or calculation? But I agree,
Speaker 1: deciding to set aside my reluctance try to see this
Speaker 1: club as he's seen it. We show up at a
Speaker 1: beer garden on the east side, picnic tables brimming with cyclists.
Speaker 1: James drifts easily into the group, teasing, touching shoulders, lightly
Speaker 1: exchanging glances. I only half understand I meet Mad's a breezy,
Speaker 1: laughing woman, short platinum hair, a spatter of freckles and
Speaker 1: cycling tattoos on her calve's. She's loud, friendly, genuinely warm.
Speaker 1: She greets me like an old friend, jokes about stealing
Speaker 1: James's title as group's smoothie maker, slaps him lightly on
Speaker 1: the arm. Everyone is welcoming, but the entire thing feels choreographed,
Speaker 1: like I've been inserted into a tableau that's been carefully
Speaker 1: arranged for just this purpose. James is attentive, makes a
Speaker 1: visible effort to keep me included, brings me drinks, boasts
Speaker 1: about my latest gallery piece. Midway through brunch, I even
Speaker 1: start to believe I've invented the entire thing, that all
Speaker 1: my doubt is just an internal storm insecurities refracted through
Speaker 1: rainy weather and late hours. Maybe I'm the one who's
Speaker 1: failing to a joust, the one too possessive of old rituals.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is how marriages grow. Afterward, we walk home
Speaker 1: hand in hand. Our laughter is easy. The city glowing
Speaker 1: with sun and afternoon beer. James presses his lips to
Speaker 1: my head at the corner, soft as he did years before,
Speaker 1: See You Belong. We spend the afternoon in bed, the
Speaker 1: first full genuine intimacy in months. I fall asleep, tangled
Speaker 1: in his arms, hope seeping cautiously back in Later, as
Speaker 1: he naps beside me, I scroll through his Instagram. He's
Speaker 1: tagged me in a group Fota every one raising pint's
Speaker 1: post ride Mads's arms slung casually around his shoulders. The
Speaker 1: caption reads, she finally joined the crew. Everything looks normal,
Speaker 1: even enviable. I close my eyes and try to believe
Speaker 1: it's all over, that I've misread the signs, let paranoia eclipse.
Speaker 1: What's real? That I can have the oldest back if
Speaker 1: only I let go? But just beneath my skin, doubt thrums,
Speaker 1: unsettled and persistent. Even in his arms, I feel the
Speaker 1: presence of something silent, unyielding a truth neither of us
Speaker 1: is yet ready to speak. I drift in and out
Speaker 1: of sleep that afternoon, tangled around James, warm and momentarily
Speaker 1: sated in a way I thought we'd lost. There's a
Speaker 1: tenderness in how He strokes the base of my spine,
Speaker 1: as if he knows I need reminding that I still
Speaker 1: belong here. The sour note of anxiety fades for a bit,
Speaker 1: and I let myself believe in this softness, let myself
Speaker 1: be convinced by the easy chatter at brunch, the comfort
Speaker 1: of his hand on my thigh, the laughter that came
Speaker 1: so easily when he introduced me as the real artist
Speaker 1: in the house. But somewhere in the late golden hours,
Speaker 1: when the day's warmth seeps away and shadows stretch long
Speaker 1: in our living room, I catch him exchanging texts, quick fingers,
Speaker 1: darting under the sheets, hiding the phone screen. When I
Speaker 1: shift beside him, the urge to say something lodges in
Speaker 1: my throat, bubbles up and recedes. He catches my eye,
Speaker 1: gives me a lop sided grin, and flips his phone
Speaker 1: face down before reaching to pull me close again. We
Speaker 1: order take out and sit on the floor of the
Speaker 1: living room, sharing noodles out of the carten, watching a
Speaker 1: dumb action movie on mute. It almost feels like old times,
Speaker 1: except every so often his eyes flick to his phone.
Speaker 1: I try for hours not to read into it, as
Speaker 1: the week starts. Our routines creep back into place. Early mornings,
Speaker 1: coffee quietly shared, headphones on in our adjacent studios, sporadic meetings,
Speaker 1: and deadline juggling for both of us. There are stretches
Speaker 1: where I forget to watch for clues, or catch myself
Speaker 1: just missing him the way I did before. Anything felt wrong,
Speaker 1: But suspicion isn't something you can pack away for good.
Speaker 1: The smallest things catch his new reluctance to leave his
Speaker 1: phone behind the way he steps out onto the porch
Speaker 1: to take calls, now muffling his voice. I walk into
Speaker 1: the kitchen and he's mid sentence laughed, a low and private.
Speaker 1: He catches me listening and switches to a tone I'd
Speaker 1: never mistake for real. I try not to lose myself
Speaker 1: in these tiny trespasses, but it's getting harder. That Thursday,
Speaker 1: I finish a draft for a client earlier than expected.
Speaker 1: I glance over at James's studio, A crack of light
Speaker 1: under the door, the muffled bounce of old gorrillas tracks.
Speaker 1: I wander over, poke my head in. I'm grabbing coffee,
Speaker 1: want anything? He startles, minimizing his screen before swiveling around no,
Speaker 1: I'm good on a roll. His tablet is out, but
Speaker 1: I notice his phone propped up behind it, almost hidden
Speaker 1: beneath a notepad. I could chalk it up to creative tides.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he's deep in a flow and doesn't want interruption.
Speaker 1: But there's a defensive edge to how he sits, as
Speaker 1: if he needs to physically shield his space from me.
Speaker 1: I get myself a cock and stare at the garden
Speaker 1: through the streaky kitchen window, willing myself to let it go.
Speaker 1: But that night, after he's already asleep, I notice something.
Speaker 1: His locks screen pass code has changed. I try our
Speaker 1: old code, half thinking I might check the weather app
Speaker 1: or dismiss an alarm, but the phone gives me the
Speaker 1: angry buzz of rejection. It's such a small, sharply unnecessary secret.
Speaker 1: We've never hidden passwords, never felt the need to protect
Speaker 1: our tiny digital worlds from each other. I try not
Speaker 1: to overreact, but every day it feels like there's a
Speaker 1: little less room for me in his life. Over the
Speaker 1: week end, I walk over to our friend's place for
Speaker 1: a back yard cook out, something we'd always attended as
Speaker 1: a duo. James claims he can't make it because of
Speaker 1: a club commitment, but I notice he never specifies what
Speaker 1: the event is. At the cook out, some one asks
Speaker 1: after him. I shrug. Careful he's into this cycling thing now,
Speaker 1: I say, takes up all his spare time. Ali, our
Speaker 1: muralist friend, sets her wine down. He's really leaned in.
Speaker 1: HA never figured him for the club type. I laugh,
Speaker 1: but it's brittle me neither. A gentle silence falls. Her
Speaker 1: eyes search mine, but she doesn't press. On the walk home,
Speaker 1: the neighborhood damp and shivering with crickets, I review every
Speaker 1: offhand interaction lately, every moment someone skirted around asking if
Speaker 1: we were okay. On Sunday, the sun is blinding. I
Speaker 1: walk into the living room to see James pulling on
Speaker 1: that now familiar kit, fussing with his gear. I hover
Speaker 1: in the door frame, unable to decide if I want
Speaker 1: to kiss good bye or just to be left alone.
Speaker 1: He notices my gaze. You sure you don't want to
Speaker 1: come out for a ride, He offers, light as air.
Speaker 1: I try to match his energy. You'd hate having me
Speaker 1: slow you down. Not true, he replies, but it's so
Speaker 1: pat it comes out as a deflection. Then, Besides to
Speaker 1: day's a quick just training hills. He's restless, gathering things
Speaker 1: with almost exaggerated business. I catch him checking his reflection
Speaker 1: in the door's window, smoothing his hair, adjusting his sunglasses twice.
Speaker 1: Any one new joining to day? I ask the question,
Speaker 1: sounds forced even to me. He shrugs, I don't know,
Speaker 1: probably the usual gang. Without warning, he stoops to kiss me,
Speaker 1: lips pressed into my cheek a beat too long, as
Speaker 1: if he's not sure what role to play. A spray
Speaker 1: of sunscreen clings to the air. After he's gone, I
Speaker 1: sink onto the couch with a sigh. On an impulse,
Speaker 1: I text him, maybe I'll crash your ride later and
Speaker 1: bring snacks. Let me know where you all land. It's
Speaker 1: two hours before he replies, might change plans. Club chats
Speaker 1: all over the place. Don't worry if you don't hear
Speaker 1: from me. A smiley face, no location. I open our
Speaker 1: shared Google calendar and see that his afternoon is my
Speaker 1: club ride blocked out until evening. Then nothing. It's these
Speaker 1: every day fractures, places you'd expect overlap, but find only
Speaker 1: negative space that gradually tear at the fabric of trust.
Speaker 1: The same afternoon, I get a call from THEO, one
Speaker 1: of the names James often drops in his stories. We
Speaker 1: exchange pleasantries. I ask about a collaborative zine project. He
Speaker 1: sounds hesitant. Dodges talk about the club. Honestly, I just
Speaker 1: ride with them now and then not really in the
Speaker 1: group chat. I think Mads organizes most stuff these days.
Speaker 1: It bothers me how directly he distances himself from the
Speaker 1: circle James has described as tight knit, inseparable. I dig
Speaker 1: a little, so not really a club, more loose hang outs.
Speaker 1: Theo's laugh is uncertain. Yeah, I guess it's kind of fluid.
Speaker 1: Some rides, only a few show up. James's stories had
Speaker 1: made it sound so formal, club meetings, decisions, even the
Speaker 1: supposed discipline of matching kits and roots. I end the
Speaker 1: call with a buzzing in my ears. That night, after
Speaker 1: James is asleep, I sneak into the living room to
Speaker 1: retrieve a sweater passing by his bag tossed onto the chair.
Speaker 1: I append its contents across the cushion, half in search
Speaker 1: of my own lost phone charger, half because I'm no
Speaker 1: longer above snooping receipts for energy bars, food wrappers, an
Speaker 1: unfamiliar metal key on a neon string, a folded slip
Speaker 1: with the name Mads written in casual cursive, something about
Speaker 1: meeting Friday, eight forty five, no last name, no more details.
Speaker 1: My hands start to shake. I put everything back, careful
Speaker 1: to restore every item to its place. On Wednesday, I
Speaker 1: work late at a coffee shop downtown. As I get
Speaker 1: up to leave, I spot James through the window, striding
Speaker 1: down the block, flanked by a small group. He's laughing
Speaker 1: with a woman with platinum hair, easily Madads. She swats
Speaker 1: him with her cycling glove. Leans close as they walk.
Speaker 1: I freeze my hand half way to my bag, not
Speaker 1: ready to approach. I watch them duck into a tacco
Speaker 1: joint together, no bikes in sight. I almost follow, then
Speaker 1: stop myself. I text him later dinner plans go late,
Speaker 1: He replies, just got home, grabbed food with the club
Speaker 1: post ride. The fact that he replies, while I know
Speaker 1: exactly where he was five minutes ago, makes something inside
Speaker 1: me go cold. Three nights later, I hear him pacing
Speaker 1: the patio, talking low into his phone. I open the
Speaker 1: sliding door just enough to hear. His tone is urgent,
Speaker 1: pinched with excitement and frostration. I don't catch every word,
Speaker 1: but a name rings clearly. Mads, yeare I know? To Morrow?
Speaker 1: I promise she's got a show Friday, I can stay late.
Speaker 1: A ream of shame throttles me for eavesdropping, but I
Speaker 1: can't let go. The old trust that used to underpin
Speaker 1: our closeness now feels like an act. I'm failing to
Speaker 1: keep up. Our home grows quieter, lonelier, even when James
Speaker 1: is present. I start keeping more to myself, pouring hours
Speaker 1: into freelance work, avoiding joint errands. I stop mentioning date
Speaker 1: nights altogether. On Friday, I walk into his studio while
Speaker 1: he's out for a meeting. I see a greeting card
Speaker 1: propped on his desk, flamboyant, lime green, with cyclists tumbling
Speaker 1: across the front. It's unsigned, but inside is a note
Speaker 1: clipped out in handwriting I don't recognize to new Rides,
Speaker 1: secret Hills, Secret Chills. M there's a smudged lipstick kiss
Speaker 1: in the corner. That night at dinner, my nerves are fraying.
Speaker 1: I set the card in front of his plate, silent.
Speaker 1: This was on your desk. He looks at it too slowly. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's from the club. Some one's joke. I guess, not
Speaker 1: sure who left it. He shrugs, flips the card shut.
Speaker 1: People are just weird. I stare, Is this for Mads?
Speaker 1: My voice is quieter than I mean, brittle, betraying something
Speaker 1: even I hadn't intended to show. He laughs, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't quite reach his eyes. Your being so intense, babe,
Speaker 1: it's nothing. She's just the group's prankster. Don't read into it.
Speaker 1: For a moment. I want to believe him so badly
Speaker 1: that my head aches from the effort. But now suspicion
Speaker 1: is a river, a current dragging me under with every
Speaker 1: off hand detail. Saturday comes, James leaves before dawn, claiming
Speaker 1: an extra long ride out to the lake. By ten,
Speaker 1: I steel myself and text Mads, whose instagram I dug
Speaker 1: up after brunch, a casual hello under the guise of
Speaker 1: organizing a gallery meet up for the Creative Club. She
Speaker 1: replies with a string of smiley faces, enthusiastic, but offers
Speaker 1: nothing more personal. Would love to let me know club's
Speaker 1: got some wild stuff planned. I click through her photos,
Speaker 1: half candid group shots blurred by rain, a few of
Speaker 1: her alone midry. I'd never any sign of James, But
Speaker 1: then one from last week, a group's selfie captioned tire
Speaker 1: fixed legends. James is grinning, arm hooked through hers, a
Speaker 1: little too familiar, the way he'd pose with me before
Speaker 1: a show. I close the app feeling cold. The house
Speaker 1: is strangely silent. Every click of the fridge, every shifting
Speaker 1: beam in the ceiling loud in the quiet that evening.
Speaker 1: Our mutual friend ally texts missed you. At tiny spoon
Speaker 1: last week, saw James with the cycling crowd, crowded table
Speaker 1: looked like a fun bunch. I almost ask her for details,
Speaker 1: but can't bring myself to look hungry or paranoid. Instead,
Speaker 1: I type maybe next time and leave it at that.
Speaker 1: Piece by piece, everything that once seemed harmless now glimmers
Speaker 1: with warning. James's schedule becomes inscrutable. Club rides over at
Speaker 1: every calendar event, and any attempt at overlap is neatly parried.
Speaker 1: Joint finances stop sinking up as smoothly. Small gaps appear,
Speaker 1: cash with drawals, brunch spots that don't match his stories,
Speaker 1: bar tabs at hours he claimed to be out riding.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he comes home with new gear, cycling gloves, a
Speaker 1: bright pair of wrap around sunglasses, water bottles marked with
Speaker 1: brands newer than anything he's shown me. Once, unpacking groceries,
Speaker 1: I find a pair of sunglasses identical to Mads's resting
Speaker 1: in our bag, priced tag pins still on. He blames
Speaker 1: a club lost and found, but never passes them along.
Speaker 1: One night, I try to address it with diplomacy, still
Speaker 1: as armor. Are you sure you're happy with all of this?
Speaker 1: The club? Everything? It just feels different between us lately,
Speaker 1: He sighs, pressing fingers to his temples. It's fine, Mia,
Speaker 1: I just needed something new, different air. You take things
Speaker 1: so seriously sometimes, Then changing tack, he softens. Look, come
Speaker 1: to the club hang again next week? Really, I want
Speaker 1: you there. As if on cue, his phone buzzes, lighting
Speaker 1: the kitchen in blue. He picks it up, His face
Speaker 1: closes while he reads. Then he types something fast, thumb
Speaker 1: dancing over the screen. We could have our own club again, too,
Speaker 1: you know, he says, but his voice lands somewhere between
Speaker 1: a plea and a performance. I nod, willing myself to
Speaker 1: believe in these surface gestures, but underneath, something old and
Speaker 1: true has started to die. I spend a Sunday combing
Speaker 1: through our joint bank statements a private rebellion. There are
Speaker 1: more odd charges from that boutique cycling shop, and two
Speaker 1: more brunch receipts. I pieced together the sequence, mapping spend
Speaker 1: against his supposed rides. The money spent doesn't fit the
Speaker 1: time line or the gear he owns. As deadline pressure
Speaker 1: mounts for both of us, I retreat behind a wall
Speaker 1: of work, pushing off any big conversation. James grows more erratic.
Speaker 1: One minute effusive and warm, the next distant, flicker with nerves,
Speaker 1: almost like he's afraid I might read his face and
Speaker 1: see something ugly. One evening, after he goes out to
Speaker 1: plan roots with club folks, I scroll through my phone,
Speaker 1: considering calling Mads directly, wheeling through possible explanations for everything.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's innocent, just club adrenaline, just secrets among fast friends.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm becoming vicious with suspicion for no reason. And
Speaker 1: yet the old narrative refuses to return. The cracks are everywhere.
Speaker 1: The next evening, James suggests again that I find my
Speaker 1: own circle. He nudges me to join a painting co op,
Speaker 1: a ceramics class volunteer, somewhere anywhere that keeps me out
Speaker 1: in the city, more less likely to cross his shadow
Speaker 1: at home. We need our own space, both of us.
Speaker 1: It's healthy, he says, the way someone might recite relationship
Speaker 1: advice they've rehearsed for weeks. I frown, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to live in parallel. That's not us. He looks away,
Speaker 1: lips pressed tight. It could be, he offers quiet. I
Speaker 1: find myself wanting to scream, but all I do is
Speaker 1: pack away my half finished sketch books, set them out
Speaker 1: of sight, and let the silence grow. Wednesday, an invitation
Speaker 1: arrives from Mad's herself group text cycle Market Drinks seven
Speaker 1: p m. James C. Seed plus two others I've never met.
Speaker 1: Hope you can join. We want to see if you'll
Speaker 1: ride with us next Saturday. Mere. There's a wave emoji,
Speaker 1: the tone so upbeat. I want to believe it's genuine.
Speaker 1: James is visibly pleased, leans in at dinner. See they
Speaker 1: love you already. This will help, But I watch him
Speaker 1: tap out a separate message, phone angled away, private chat.
Speaker 1: No doubt I go out with them anyway. The bar
Speaker 1: is packed, music thumping, The club is real enough, people laughing,
Speaker 1: clinking glasses, talking, gear Mad's holds her own court, magnetic
Speaker 1: and bright, telling stories about crashing bike into a city fountain.
Speaker 1: I'm drawn in for a while, basking in their energy,
Speaker 1: letting myself forget. But mid drinks, I catch James and
Speaker 1: MADD's sharing a look, a silent exchange, warm and secretive.
Speaker 1: It lands like a punch. He spends the rest of
Speaker 1: the evening glued to my side, too, demonstrably, hands on,
Speaker 1: as if to prove a point. I play along, but
Speaker 1: I'm more certain than ever, even as the evidence remains
Speaker 1: slippery indirect. We walk home together in a cloud of
Speaker 1: other people's laughter. But when we reach the porch, I pause.
Speaker 1: Do you love this new world? I ask? He hesitates,
Speaker 1: searching my face. Yeah, he says softly. It's different, and
Speaker 1: I needed different. We both did. He pulls me close,
Speaker 1: pressing his forehead to mine. I want to say so much,
Speaker 1: to demand truth, but all I can do is hold
Speaker 1: on to him, clutching at the version of us that
Speaker 1: might already be gone. That night, I don't sleep. I
Speaker 1: wander the house with cold tea, replaying every exchange. I know,
Speaker 1: in some deep part of myself that I am standing
Speaker 1: on the edge of something about to break. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I want to catch it or let it fall. Eventually,
Speaker 1: dawn comes, pink and brutal. At the edge of the blinds,
Speaker 1: James is already up, already dressed, already half way out
Speaker 1: the door. He blows me a kiss, careless, and is gone.
Speaker 1: The house pulses with quiet, as if holding its breath,
Speaker 1: waiting for what comes next. I stood there, rooted in
Speaker 1: the loamy morning light streaming across the kitchen floor, jacket
Speaker 1: half zipped, groceries forgotten on the counter. James's last careless
Speaker 1: kiss still lingered, thin as mist, already disintegrating. The house
Speaker 1: snapped back into itself, silent, ere heavy, the dull thump
Speaker 1: of my own heartbeat rattling in my chest. My palms
Speaker 1: were slick. I needed to do something, move, breathe, anything
Speaker 1: to jostle myself out of this half dreamed state I've
Speaker 1: been living for weeks. I padded to the living room
Speaker 1: and slumped on the edge of the couch, phone in hand,
Speaker 1: thumb hovering. The night before, after the bar, I'd replayed
Speaker 1: the way James and Madds looked at each other too
Speaker 1: many times to count, soft glances masked by the avalanche
Speaker 1: of group noise, his quick retreat into demonstrative affection with
Speaker 1: me whenever he noticed me watching. I thought I'd be
Speaker 1: able to sleep after that, but I drifted in and
Speaker 1: out every creak of the house, registering as an accusation.
Speaker 1: My head buzzed with all the evidence, the receipts, the
Speaker 1: code switching, the gas lighting apologies, the way he shrank
Speaker 1: from me and then performed inclusion when it suited him.
Speaker 1: Now the threads were too tangled to ignore. I thought
Speaker 1: about Madds's invitation to ride, how James had jumped in,
Speaker 1: breezy and pleased, but dashed off to his phone every chance.
Speaker 1: He got no answers, only more careful choreography. I tossed
Speaker 1: my phone aside, letting it hit the rug with an
Speaker 1: unsatisfying thunk. It was all surface friction, like two magnets,
Speaker 1: refusing either to attract or fully repel. My body hurt
Speaker 1: from the tension, an ache between my shoulder blades and
Speaker 1: deep inside my jaw. If I waited any longer, I'd fossilize.
Speaker 1: By early afternoon, I wandered through the rooms, picking up
Speaker 1: his discarded kit, folding a towel he'd left on the
Speaker 1: bedroom floor, straightening chairs, as if creating order would anchor me.
Speaker 1: But the world felt wrong. The coffee cups too clean,
Speaker 1: last night's bowls still on the side table where he'd
Speaker 1: abandon them, the ever multiplying stack of cycling mags and
Speaker 1: read invoices for freelance work gone unpaid. Even my own art,
Speaker 1: half finished collages, sketch books bent and gaping, felt like
Speaker 1: it belonged to a time line I was slipping out of.
Speaker 1: I made coffee and drank it black, staring at the
Speaker 1: slice of his phone case, peeking from the couch cushions.
Speaker 1: Should I risk another look? Something in me recoiled, fear
Speaker 1: of confirming what I already knew, fear of how small
Speaker 1: and ugly that need could make me. But the alternative
Speaker 1: was worse. The ignorance was mute and choking. He returned
Speaker 1: in a gust of laughter, helmet in hand, cheeks red
Speaker 1: with wind. You wouldn't believe the head wind on manner.
Speaker 1: I almost got blown into a food truck, he called,
Speaker 1: voice echoing off the walls. I nodded, unable to summon
Speaker 1: the old banter sounds brutal, I heard myself say. He
Speaker 1: set his helmet down, already walking away. Shower, then deadline. Hell,
Speaker 1: want to do? Take out? He didn't wait for an answer.
Speaker 1: I watched him go, the sweat dark shape of his back,
Speaker 1: and felt all the words I needed catch in my throat.
Speaker 1: This half life, these messy, shiny scraps of days, half shared,
Speaker 1: half stolen, were wearing holes in me. I left the
Speaker 1: house before I could change my mind, heading for the
Speaker 1: only physical thing that made any sense any more, the
Speaker 1: library's mural wall, where layers and layers of wheat, paste
Speaker 1: and paint marked years of creative energy, arguments stories. I
Speaker 1: stood in the shadow of our old work, a piece
Speaker 1: James and I had both touched and ran a finger
Speaker 1: over the cracked edge. It had faded, as all things do,
Speaker 1: but I could still see the shape of us in it.
Speaker 1: That version of us belonged here, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: if it would survive anywhere else. When I finally walked
Speaker 1: home dusk bleeding in James's bike was gone again. A
Speaker 1: note on the table club meeting might be late. No
Speaker 1: sign of dinner, no offer to call or check in,
Speaker 1: just the short, snipped message. I stared at it for
Speaker 1: a long time, afraid to let myself feel the scope
Speaker 1: of that emptiness. I knew deep in the bone this
Speaker 1: was a threshold. The story I'd been living in, one
Speaker 1: where I could will honesty into being by asking for
Speaker 1: it gently enough, was closing on me tighter and tighter.
Speaker 1: I reached for his old iPad, almost on autopilot. I
Speaker 1: felt like a burglar in my own home, heart pounding,
Speaker 1: fingers trembling. It was unlocked, probably forgotten in his rush,
Speaker 1: or maybe just habit, but the timing was perfect. The
Speaker 1: device chirped with notifications, and suddenly everything was frighteningly easy.
Speaker 1: A message banner, Mads, miss you already last night was everything. Three.
Speaker 1: I pressed the icon without letting myself think. The full
Speaker 1: conversation bloomed before me weeks worth of messages, starting with cycling, banter,
Speaker 1: looping through playlist recommendations, art shows, in jokes, then softer edges.
Speaker 1: Couldn't sleep thinking about your hands. Next weekend can't come
Speaker 1: soon enough, sah h, I'm getting so bad at keeping secrets,
Speaker 1: but for you, I'll do it. When are you going
Speaker 1: to finally tell her? His reply, I'm working on it.
Speaker 1: Just give me more time, okay. I scrolled a growing
Speaker 1: horror settling in. There were references to escaping to the
Speaker 1: lake house, making up excuses for club rides that never exist,
Speaker 1: air blinks, restaurant photos, the brunch receipt right there, documented
Speaker 1: with a photo of them together, her arm draped over
Speaker 1: his shoulders. The kind of intimacy I knew all too well,
Speaker 1: Plans to meet off the books, logistics for trysts, naked
Speaker 1: affection in pixelated sentences, a record of yearning, of small
Speaker 1: lies compounded into a masterpiece of evasion. My hands shook
Speaker 1: violently enough that the screen nearly tumbled from my lap.
Speaker 1: The room spun. I tried, in my own absurd way
Speaker 1: to reason through what I saw. Was it just texting? No,
Speaker 1: the receipts, the false overrides in his calendar. The week
Speaker 1: end he claimed a client pitch, but instead hold up
Speaker 1: in a boutique hotel with her. There was nothing left
Speaker 1: to rationalize. I felt broken, open, roar in a way
Speaker 1: that left no place to hide. For a moment, I
Speaker 1: had to physically steady myself to keep from wretching. I
Speaker 1: debated calling a friend, but I couldn't bring my to
Speaker 1: voice it. Instead, I texted Ali, just a short note,
Speaker 1: are you still up? Immediately, she replied, always for you,
Speaker 1: what's up? I almost typed the whole thing out, but
Speaker 1: deleted the words before sending. I couldn't drag any one
Speaker 1: else into this yet, I messaged James instead, barely breathing,
Speaker 1: fingers cramped. We need to talk now. Minutes passed, the
Speaker 1: world contracted into the square of light beneath the lamp shade,
Speaker 1: the waiting, the ticking of the old wall clock. His
Speaker 1: reply came in staccato bursts. On my way home, Everything okay?
Speaker 1: Then after I didn't reply, a terse be there in
Speaker 1: five The moment stretched brittle as glass. I paced, not
Speaker 1: bothering to wipe my eyes. I gathered the receipts in
Speaker 1: a pile, then scattered them again, unable to decide if
Speaker 1: I wanted to lay it all out or hide the
Speaker 1: worst of it from myself. A car pulled up, his
Speaker 1: familiar steps on the porch doors, swinging open keys, hitting
Speaker 1: the bowl. He walked in, saw me at the kitchen table,
Speaker 1: the iPad opened to the thread with mads, the receipts
Speaker 1: spread before me. For a heart beat, neither of us spoke.
Speaker 1: He went still, hans half way to dropping his gloves
Speaker 1: in the basket mer. He started, carefully, neutral but already defensive.
Speaker 1: What's this? I held up the device. Don't bother, James.
Speaker 1: I saw it all. He blanched, The flush in his
Speaker 1: cheeks gone so fast it could only be gilt. Aye,
Speaker 1: it's not what you think, Wi. My voice was raw.
Speaker 1: It's all right here. The week end club, retreat, the brunches,
Speaker 1: the hotel, your messages to her, the lies. Just stop.
Speaker 1: His shoulders sagged. He slumped into a chair across from me,
Speaker 1: not even pretending to reach for a comforting gesture. It
Speaker 1: didn't mean to go that far, he said, voice thin.
Speaker 1: We started riding together. She just I don't know. She
Speaker 1: understood something about me. The club was fun, but he
Speaker 1: ran his hands through his hair, pressing down as if
Speaker 1: trying to curb a migrin. I was restless. It wasn't
Speaker 1: about her, not at first. I just needed to feel different,
Speaker 1: needed something to pull me out of the rut. I
Speaker 1: stared at him. You could have told me you wanted
Speaker 1: more or less. Instead you created a whole parallel life.
Speaker 1: Months of lying to my face, making me the fool,
Speaker 1: letting me gaslight myself every time I noticed. He flinched
Speaker 1: at that I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't
Speaker 1: think it would go this far, but suddenly I was
Speaker 1: in it. There were things I couldn't say, and by
Speaker 1: then everything just snowballed. I kept thinking I could fix it,
Speaker 1: hide it, until I figured out what I actually wanted.
Speaker 1: He tried to make it sound accidental, like cheating was
Speaker 1: an errants side effect of his confusion. You and me,
Speaker 1: we had stopped, I don't know, feeling like a team.
Speaker 1: I mean, you were always so steady, so finished. It's
Speaker 1: like you didn't need me to be interesting anymore. I breathed, air,
Speaker 1: shuddering in my throat. So it's my fault you started
Speaker 1: another relationship. No, he exploded, desperate. No, I just got lost.
Speaker 1: She was there, she got the weird, restless parts. I
Speaker 1: seized up. You planned everything, inventing stories for me, for
Speaker 1: your friends, for her. Who even are you, James? He
Speaker 1: pressed his palms over his face. I don't know any more.
Speaker 1: I just know I he hesitated. I don't want to
Speaker 1: lose you, Mia. I'm so sorry. I know it means
Speaker 1: nothing to you, but i'm sorry. I'm sick over what
Speaker 1: I did. Please we can fix this. I laughed, a
Speaker 1: sound hard and small. Are you in love with her?
Speaker 1: His mouth worked, but nothing came out. That's what I thought,
Speaker 1: I said. The silence bore down, thick and endless. I
Speaker 1: could feel the unraveling in my bones. He tried again,
Speaker 1: lower this time. I just want to feel something. I
Speaker 1: have nothing left but apologies, no ways to justify it,
Speaker 1: but MEA, I do love you. You loved me maybe,
Speaker 1: but you didn't respect me, not enough to tell the truth.
Speaker 1: He started to reach for my hand. I pulled away. Fine,
Speaker 1: he said, voice breaking, I'll go. If that's what you want,
Speaker 1: say the word go, I answered, I can't even look
Speaker 1: at you. He left, the door, shutting quietly behind him.
Speaker 1: The house was suddenly enormous, every echo ringing with the
Speaker 1: truth we tried so hard not to say. I sat unmoving,
Speaker 1: breath shallow, staring at shadows on the far wall. As
Speaker 1: night began to close in. The trust that had built
Speaker 1: itself into every surface here had dissolved molecule by molecule
Speaker 1: in a matter of minutes. There was nothing left to salvage.
Speaker 1: I started to pack up his cycling gear, the garish jerseys,
Speaker 1: the spare shoes, the water bottles, gathered in a basket,
Speaker 1: by the door. I stacked it on the porch, a
Speaker 1: silent signal. The act felt ceremonial final. James's absence grew
Speaker 1: quickly into something solid and cold. I stripped the sheets,
Speaker 1: opened windows in the bedroom, letting air flood through. I
Speaker 1: doused the kitchen lights, shut his studio door, walked the
Speaker 1: length of the house, as if practicing what it meant
Speaker 1: to move through it alone. That night, I found myself
Speaker 1: answering calls and messages from a handful of friends Ali,
Speaker 1: then THEO, then a neighbor who'd heard about something going down.
Speaker 1: I told the story as simply as I could, keeping
Speaker 1: the wounds shallow. Despite the shock and their repeated offers
Speaker 1: to help, I declined every suggestion of company. I could
Speaker 1: not yet bear to share this space with anyone who
Speaker 1: would try to make sense of the senseless. When Mads texted,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I didn't want it to happen this way,
Speaker 1: I blocked her number without replying. I spent the next
Speaker 1: hour splitting our finances, resetting passwords, watching as the color
Speaker 1: slowly drained from the sky outside. There was no anger left,
Speaker 1: only an ache and a spreading sense of impossible quiet. Eventually,
Speaker 1: I curled up in the guest room, blinds lowered, shutting
Speaker 1: out the city. Even sleep was sparse, shallow, full of
Speaker 1: dreamless flickers, interrupted by the distant hum of passing tires
Speaker 1: or the whirring of the house's old pipes. By morning,
Speaker 1: it was done, his things boxed on the porch, my
Speaker 1: own routines pared down to their smallest possible forms. Black
Speaker 1: coffee toast, the rhythmic hum of the dishwasher, the kind
Speaker 1: of life that asked nothing but to keep moving, if
Speaker 1: only in the smallest circles. That afternoon, I emailed the
Speaker 1: cycling club group withdrawing politely from any future events, for
Speaker 1: appearance's sake, for dignity, for space. The replies were quick, baffled,
Speaker 1: a little too neutral. Rumors started to ripple through our
Speaker 1: creative community, texts pinged in shock, empathy, hints of schadenfreuder.
Speaker 1: I forced myself to respond graciously, then left the phone
Speaker 1: in a drawer. The hours became structured only by the
Speaker 1: demands of day to day survival. Tiny tasks presented themselves
Speaker 1: as anchors, vacuuming, dusting, rehanging a crooked frame, starting a
Speaker 1: fresh art piece that required no collaboration. His absence was
Speaker 1: a silence that filled every room. By Sunday, routine crept
Speaker 1: in again. I brewed coffee and looked out over the
Speaker 1: worn back yard, the mist curling around the lemon tree
Speaker 1: we planted together. I tried to remember our joy at
Speaker 1: planting it, but even that memory had begun to sour.
Speaker 1: The ache was constant, but edged now with a new,
Speaker 1: unwelcome clarity. In the afternoon, I gathered up the last
Speaker 1: of his mugs, washed them, and set them beside the
Speaker 1: cycling kit on the porch. Another unnoticed kindness, another boundary.
Speaker 1: I thought about what it meant to be alone in
Speaker 1: a house built for two, and found I could not answer.
Speaker 1: In the stillness, I stood in the center of the
Speaker 1: living room, arms folded, letting the eerie quiet settle like
Speaker 1: dust on my skin. Outside, the city was waking up, horns, cicadas,
Speaker 1: the distant sound of laughter spilling from a patio. Somewhere.
Speaker 1: My world had contracted to these four walls, and yet
Speaker 1: I was still here. That terrified me nearly as much
Speaker 1: as being betrayed had. When dusk folded itself across the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I turned off every light, walked to the hallway, table
Speaker 1: and methodically tore our last shared to do list in two.
Speaker 1: The finality settled not on a wave of anger or
Speaker 1: even grief, but on the steely, exhausted relief that comes
Speaker 1: with having no more lies left to swallow. The next morning,
Speaker 1: I woke before sunlight. The ache was quieter, though sharper
Speaker 1: for its newness. I made coffee and stood by the
Speaker 1: front window, cradling the mug in both hands. Without thinking,
Speaker 1: I slipped into my sneakers, pulled on a soft jacket,
Speaker 1: and stepped out into the empty street. The cool air
Speaker 1: tasted different, metallic, brisk, unshared. I wandered through our old roots,
Speaker 1: stopping before the murals we painted in better years, running
Speaker 1: my finger tips over the sun faded lines. Each brushstroke
Speaker 1: seemed to belong to another era, another version of myself.
Speaker 1: The city buzzed indifferent, My phone pinged only once the
Speaker 1: entire morning, and I ignored it. I found myself climbing
Speaker 1: a familiar flight of concrete steps, pausing before a mural.
Speaker 1: James and I once planned its surface, half eroded colors dulled.
Speaker 1: I stared at it until the sky bruised pink overhead.
Speaker 1: Then quietly I turned and walked home. Back at the house,
Speaker 1: I pulled off my sneakers and stood for a long
Speaker 1: moment in the entryway, listening to the hush. Nothing weighed
Speaker 1: inside except my own breath, uninterrupted in the cooling air.
Speaker 1: I finally let the tears fall, not wild, not desperate,
Speaker 1: but slow and clean, matching the hush that had followed
Speaker 1: in the wake of everything gone. I was here. I
Speaker 1: was still here. After the tears ceased, I just stood there,
Speaker 1: tracking the shift of the morning light across hardwood. My
Speaker 1: eyes felt swollen, yet it was as if a numb,
Speaker 1: cool clarity had replaced the twisting panic that ruled every
Speaker 1: hour of the week before. The house, emptied by the
Speaker 1: echo of last night's explosion, was colder. Even the dust
Speaker 1: mote swirling drew my focus. When I made myself breakfast,
Speaker 1: I realized I had unconsciously set out two mugs, poured
Speaker 1: coffee into both, spooned out yogurt for two The rituals
Speaker 1: remained in muscle memory. The reality had to catch up.
Speaker 1: I stalked through the rooms, collecting the fragments of his life.
Speaker 1: Mismatched socks under the bed, half used stick of deodorant,
Speaker 1: a battered paperback left by the bath dub. Each object
Speaker 1: was invested with a private weight, a string to some memory,
Speaker 1: good or sour. A few times my hand would hover
Speaker 1: undecided was this his ours? Would its absence change the
Speaker 1: imprint in the room in me? I boxed up everything
Speaker 1: that clearly belonged to him, the things I didn't want
Speaker 1: to look at, touch or fight over later. Cycling gear,
Speaker 1: note books, laptop chargers, a half finished model of some
Speaker 1: logo mock up he'd started weeks ago. The boxes accumulated
Speaker 1: in the hallway by the door. I taped each carefully,
Speaker 1: like handling evidence. Between each small action. There were pauses
Speaker 1: I thought to check his emails, peek into the few
Speaker 1: lingering pockets of our digital overlap. I made myself stop.
Speaker 1: There was nothing left that would offer comfort, no peace
Speaker 1: in finding more inconsistencies, no Catharsis, in sorting through the
Speaker 1: debris of his duplicity. Maybe later, when it was about practicality,
Speaker 1: not now. By mid morning I heard from Alley. The
Speaker 1: sound of her knock was gentle, almost apologetic. She brought
Speaker 1: out muffins, which she pressed into my hands in silence.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk for long. I wasn't ready to spill
Speaker 1: the whole thing, but she squeezed my wrist and promised
Speaker 1: to keep the needle sharp. Community gossip at bay. I
Speaker 1: promised nothing in return, and felt strange relief in that too.
Speaker 1: When mid afternoon James texted let's talk please, I'm outside.
Speaker 1: I was startled by how detached I felt, reading it
Speaker 1: a strange anticipation, not hope exactly, but a readiness, as
Speaker 1: if my body had been holding a dam and was
Speaker 1: now finally prepared for the rush. I thought about whether
Speaker 1: to ignore him, but I didn't want the dread of surprise,
Speaker 1: visits of words left unsaid pressing into my chest. I
Speaker 1: told him he could come in to collect his things,
Speaker 1: nothing more. He stood on the steps, hands jammed deep
Speaker 1: in his jacket, eyes ringed dark. I opened the door
Speaker 1: just wide enough to fill the space between us with
Speaker 1: chill and the scent of spent rain. His lips parted
Speaker 1: as if to say more than thanks for packing this up,
Speaker 1: but the only words that landed were rusty and small.
Speaker 1: He bent to lift the first box, but paused mere
Speaker 1: He managed trembling, I know I don't get to ask,
Speaker 1: but anything you want to say or He trailed off,
Speaker 1: gaze darting, not really, I answered, surprised at the steadiness
Speaker 1: of my own voice. What else could I hear that
Speaker 1: isn't already in the messages? He flinched, and for a
Speaker 1: moment the urge to demand explanations, to rake every ugly
Speaker 1: detail out of him, burned bright, but the exhaustion was stronger.
Speaker 1: I hope you find whatever it is you were looking for,
Speaker 1: I added, quieter. He nodded, jaw clenched. I watched him
Speaker 1: carry the heavy load of his own destruction down the
Speaker 1: porch steps, three trips, four, the boxes thunking into the
Speaker 1: trunk with each trip. He asked if I wanted anything back,
Speaker 1: old tour shirts, a favorite mug, the cycling bottle i'd
Speaker 1: hand painted. No. I told him there was poetry in
Speaker 1: letting even the smallest artifacts go. He lingered at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the steps, almost hopeful, sheepish in the thin light. Aye,
Speaker 1: there's nothing I can say to make this better, he said, awkwardly.
Speaker 1: You deserved better. I mean it. I held the door frame.
Speaker 1: I know I did. He searched my face for a
Speaker 1: signal anger, tenderness, invitation, but all I could muster was
Speaker 1: the tired, tight contour of closure. After a long moment
Speaker 1: he turned, went to the car and was gone. When
Speaker 1: I went back inside, the quiet was loaded, doubled with
Speaker 1: the sense not just of absence, but of something else completion.
Speaker 1: The boxes were gone, the hall empty for the first
Speaker 1: time in years. I vacuumed the last stray shred of
Speaker 1: packing tape and brewed another pot of coffee, wanting the
Speaker 1: smell to overwrite the sharp, nervous sweat that still clung
Speaker 1: to the walls. In the hours that followed, the phone
Speaker 1: rang a dozen times, messages from numbers I knew, friend's
Speaker 1: clumsily signaling support. Some I did, club contacts or mutuals,
Speaker 1: likely panicked by the schism. I ignored all but the essentials.
Speaker 1: I wasn't interested in my own myth being dissected in
Speaker 1: the group chat autopsy. I logged on to our joint
Speaker 1: accounts and tethering my name from his where possible. The
Speaker 1: acts were concrete, oddly satisfying. Passwords changed, autodebits canceled, insurance
Speaker 1: forms flagged for revision. Nothing dramatic, nothing vengeful, just quiet,
Speaker 1: methodical cleansing, as if tidying up after illness. Every step
Speaker 1: light in the room of fraction let in new air.
Speaker 1: I took down the studio key from the board by
Speaker 1: the front door. The two labeled hooks now uneven. I
Speaker 1: slid his into the already packed bin in the corner,
Speaker 1: shivering at the way even objects seemed to acknowledge what
Speaker 1: had been lost. Messages from mads continued to trickle in one, two, three.
Speaker 1: They oscillated between awkward apology and self justification. Didn't expect
Speaker 1: it to happen. Hope you're okay. I'm so sorry for
Speaker 1: the hurt. I read none after the first blocked her
Speaker 1: everywhere I could. I told James in a brief text
Speaker 1: not to give any one else my number or address.
Speaker 1: One last time, I cycled through the rooms, fixing whatever
Speaker 1: needed fixing. I peeled our oldest gig poster from the
Speaker 1: back hallway, slow, careful, gentle, as if unbandaging a wound,
Speaker 1: and slid it behind the studio door. I would decide
Speaker 1: later what to do with it. For now, it was
Speaker 1: enough that it didn't glare at me. Each morning, whispering
Speaker 1: of a different life. By twilight, the shadows stretched across
Speaker 1: the living room in jagged triangles, quiet and deeply mine.
Speaker 1: The next morning, I woke to the sound of birds
Speaker 1: the whir of the neighbor's lawn mower, the distant hum
Speaker 1: of a city grinding into Sunday. My mind hovered on
Speaker 1: the edge of habit for a moment. I expected movement
Speaker 1: in the bed beside, the shuffle of a second body
Speaker 1: claiming socks, the smell of aftershave. Instead, just space, unshared
Speaker 1: and sharp edged. I made myself shower, dressed deliberately pale
Speaker 1: green sweater, worn jeans, shoes James always teased me for liking.
Speaker 1: On the table, I stacked the last unpaid bills and
Speaker 1: sorted the weaker head a gallery client waiting on proofs
Speaker 1: two commissioned deadlines I'd nearly let collapse in the swirl
Speaker 1: of discovery and shame. It occurred to me that the
Speaker 1: rest of the world didn't stop for heartbreak. Only the
Speaker 1: interior world went silent. When I opened my laptop, I
Speaker 1: found an e mail from a gallery director asking if
Speaker 1: James and I would consider a retrospective on our mural work,
Speaker 1: the partnership that shaped the East Side Scene. I responded
Speaker 1: with a polite brief no, explaining that the partnership had
Speaker 1: dissolved and that I would not be available. I felt
Speaker 1: no need to offer context, let them wonder, let them
Speaker 1: fill in their own details. The narrative was theirs, now
Speaker 1: not mine. That afternoon, I left the house, walking until
Speaker 1: the crowds of South Congress ebbed and the chaos faded.
Speaker 1: In a boutique thrift store, I picked up a set
Speaker 1: of water colors on impulse, fresh, untouched, innocent of any
Speaker 1: shared history. The clerk made a little small talk admiring
Speaker 1: my sweater. I smiled, accepting the compliment like it belonged
Speaker 1: to someone new. I stopped at a food truck, ordering
Speaker 1: lunch for one. Eating outside at a wobbly table, sun
Speaker 1: on my neck, it felt novel, foreign, not yet comfortable,
Speaker 1: but almost defiant in its ordinariness. When I arrived home late,
Speaker 1: suns spilling across the porch, I saw that James had
Speaker 1: left his set of house keys on the door mat,
Speaker 1: tucked under a crudely folded napkin, like a final offering,
Speaker 1: no note, no message. I pocketed them and left them
Speaker 1: in a drawer. In the strange suspension that follows seismic change,
Speaker 1: time telescoped, stretched, compressed, became meaningless. I returned a few
Speaker 1: essential calls, logistics, deadlines, nothing personal. When THEO called voice unsteady.
Speaker 1: He confessed he'd wondered about James and Mad's for months,
Speaker 1: that he'd been too cowardly to say anything. I reassured
Speaker 1: him there was nothing left for him to do, that
Speaker 1: the wound was already open. Air let in. As dusk fell,
Speaker 1: I swept the porch, shook out a rug, watered the
Speaker 1: drooping lemon tree. I realized that, in reclaiming these tasks
Speaker 1: as mine alone, they became less about filling time and
Speaker 1: more about proving to myself that time would move with
Speaker 1: or without my permission. Later, in my studio, I cleared
Speaker 1: the last of James's belongings, a box of dried out markers,
Speaker 1: scraps of reference photos, a battered zine from our first
Speaker 1: year together. I started to prepare a new canvas, blank,
Speaker 1: nothing mapped, no shared, designed to argue over. I smoothed
Speaker 1: the paper, tore open the new water color, and watched
Speaker 1: as the first wash of bright blue blood across the page.
Speaker 1: The world outside glowed gold and violet, moving toward night.
Speaker 1: For the first time in months, I wasn't waiting for
Speaker 1: footsteps on the porch, wasn't anticipating a stranger's confession or
Speaker 1: the slip of keys in a lock. I washed the
Speaker 1: last mug in the sink, set it to dry, and
Speaker 1: sat for a long time by the window. Austin's heartbeat
Speaker 1: rolled in from blocks away, haphazard and indifferent. The air
Speaker 1: slipped through the cracked pane, cool and steady. I pressed
Speaker 1: my palm to the glass and let myself simply exist there, untethered, silent,
Speaker 1: not yet healed, but unmistakably alone, And with dusk deepening,
Speaker 1: city lights flicking on, I finally rose, switched off the
Speaker 1: lamp and let the house fall into gentle, uninterrupted darkness.