Speaker 1: I had already told myself not to check my phone again,
Speaker 1: but as I stood with my hands in my pockets
Speaker 1: at the edge of the white room's crowded main gallery,
Speaker 1: the compulsion twisted my spine all over again. There it was,
Speaker 1: her last text, just a single line above that tiny
Speaker 1: grey timestamp. Sorry, studio's crazy won't make it tonight, love you.
Speaker 1: Even as I read it for the third time, the
Speaker 1: familiar pang between my ribs made me flash. Love you. Capsule-sized,
Speaker 1: tossed off. As casual as hitting the like button on
Speaker 1: a meme. Three months ago, we'd have been arm-in-arm in
Speaker 1: the exact spot where I was now, grinning at the
Speaker 1: crowd we'd quietly helped assemble. Years ago, we'd have ended
Speaker 1: the night tucked into the back booth at Tremont, legs entwined,
Speaker 1: cycling through private reviews of every guest's weird joke or
Speaker 1: inspired tangent. But now I was alone, suffocating a pointless
Speaker 1: hope she'd still come charging in, paint on her knuckles,
Speaker 1: stories tumbling out. She didn't. People floated through the whitewashed space,
Speaker 1: clutching wine glasses, pausing at stretched canvas or welded wire,
Speaker 1: making all the rec gallery murmur noises. Nina and I
Speaker 1: had chosen a third of the pieces here, debated layouts,
Speaker 1: reached consensus about which sharply owner-sculptors would break into the
Speaker 1: city's next wave. Six months ago, I could have recited
Speaker 1: every bio by heart. But tonight, my mind stuttered. I
Speaker 1: realized I hadn't asked about most of these new pieces.
Speaker 1: Nina had handled more than half of the invites herself
Speaker 1: and never sent me the second draft of the floor plan.
Speaker 1: When I glanced toward the entrance once more, Martin was
Speaker 1: the first to catch my eye. He'd already crossed the gallery. Well, hey, man.
Speaker 1: His hug was awkward, a single-armed, half-distracted squeeze as he
Speaker 1: scanned the room, clearly hunting for her. I gave him
Speaker 1: what I hoped looked like a relaxed smile. Vanina got
Speaker 1: tied up at the collective, creative surge last minute. I
Speaker 1: added a broad shrug, as if this was simply our
Speaker 1: new normal. Martin laughed too sharply. She's really throwing herself
Speaker 1: into that new crowd. Ha, the whole city's watching her
Speaker 1: collective now. I grinned more thinly. Guess so. He took
Speaker 1: a sip of wine, then, in a low voice, listen,
Speaker 1: if she makes it out later, tell her Marta owes
Speaker 1: her a shot for skipping my sculpture talk last week,
Speaker 1: I prepped two cringey puns just for her. Will do,
Speaker 1: I promised, and he was soon lost in conversation with
Speaker 1: a pair of illustrators. By then, a few other friends
Speaker 1: of our friends had drifted over, asking where she was,
Speaker 1: if she'd share some of her crazy collective gossip soon,
Speaker 1: wondering if she'd submit work to the new resident artist initiative.
Speaker 1: Amidst more talk, dropped half-believable lies about her process, stretched
Speaker 1: anecdotes across treacherous silences. When a polite, bespectacled gallery board
Speaker 1: member said, if there's Nina on deadline again, I miss
Speaker 1: seeing you two together at these things. There's a real
Speaker 1: warmth between you. I nearly choked on my own tongue.
Speaker 1: I excused myself and retreated to the refreshments table, swirling
Speaker 1: club soda in a plastic cup. Was I being ridiculous?
Speaker 1: It wasn't like her to skip something this important, but
Speaker 1: she'd always had periods of obsession, and that's lost her inspiration. Nina,
Speaker 1: bound brighter than anybody, admits sometimes too bright for either
Speaker 1: of us. She'd vanish into her work, intensity pushing out
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. And hadn't I always bragged
Speaker 1: about how fiercely independent we were? Still, as the reception
Speaker 1: shifted into that odd, loose energy that makes everyone more
Speaker 1: brittle or over-familiar, I kept feeling Nina's absence reshape my
Speaker 1: own edges. Maybe creativity wasn't meant to follow a schedule.
Speaker 1: Maybe she was just rediscovering herself. I watched the crowd
Speaker 1: dance between art and anticipation and, for the first time,
Speaker 1: felt truly outside an event we'd once owned together. The
Speaker 1: air outside the white room was thick with the city's
Speaker 1: June warmth, ghosts of cigarettes twisting in the aisles behind
Speaker 1: clinking glass. I walked home alone, knowing how badly Nina
Speaker 1: would hate the last-minute curatorial choices, hating myself for cataloguing
Speaker 1: all the ways she would have teased me about my posture,
Speaker 1: the wayward collars, my relentless loyalty to classic dark denim
Speaker 1: over her preference for bolder colours. At our building, I
Speaker 1: paused in the tiny elevator, listening to its staticky jazz.
Speaker 1: In our apartment, our shared studio glowed from the kitchen's
Speaker 1: night-lighter rectangle of watercolour paper left to dry, Nina's signature
Speaker 1: slashes of blue interrupting the otherwise serene space. Her cues
Speaker 1: were everywhere, books splayed by her side of the couch,
Speaker 1: a thrift store lamp she'd rescued from the curb, traces
Speaker 1: of the lavender hand cream she'd started using in winter,
Speaker 1: lingering on doorknobs and pillowcases. For a few minutes, I
Speaker 1: just stood there, letting the evidence of our mutual history
Speaker 1: calm me. We'd built this life like two architects arguing
Speaker 1: over aesthetics, but always close in the distance. Partners. That
Speaker 1: word had substance. I realized, not for the last time,
Speaker 1: I needed to let tonight go. Instead of stewing, I
Speaker 1: sent her a silly selfie with the caption, If you
Speaker 1: don't feed us soon, we are staging a coup. She
Speaker 1: replied an hour later with three emojis, palette, storm cloud,
Speaker 1: red heart. I tried to believe it was enough. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you can trace the shape of split back to the
Speaker 1: moment when routines stop being mutual and start being solitary.
Speaker 1: Our routine, for most of the last six years, had
Speaker 1: been almost aggressively collaborative, stitched together out of stubborn midwestern
Speaker 1: pragmatism and downtown out-scene bravado. We'd met in grad school,
Speaker 1: Nina bounding ahead of me up the chip stairs at
Speaker 1: the gallery annex, violet hair back then, face-wide grin, challenging
Speaker 1: me to a round of gallery bingo while the visiting
Speaker 1: lecture droned on. She was already known for fusing old
Speaker 1: Polaroid transfers into her acrylic pieces, but she didn't advertise that.
Speaker 1: At the party, she'd drag new friends to the leakiest roof,
Speaker 1: tilt her chin to the skyline, and extract a story
Speaker 1: nobody else had noticed. The rest, people used to say,
Speaker 1: happened fast. We'd pulled thrifted furniture from Craigslist, chaired our
Speaker 1: first sublet, organized guerrilla art shows off alleyways. I'd always
Speaker 1: been the methodical one, wary of risk, building Excel budgets,
Speaker 1: keeping our studio slotted for both her feverish bursts and
Speaker 1: my quieter commissions. Nina called it maintaining the nest, I
Speaker 1: thought of it as joint stewardship two brains planning a
Speaker 1: creative life that was more than survival. After grad school,
Speaker 1: we'd lucked into a rent-controlled two-bedroom in Chambers, a pocket
Speaker 1: neighborhood notorious for loud murals and early-a.m. food trucks. Those
Speaker 1: first three years were mostly dinners with artist friends, debates
Speaker 1: over design software versus real paint, sharing discoveries from museum trips.
Speaker 1: Some months were lean, sometimes a commission would fall through
Speaker 1: and we'd adjust date nights down to a bottle of
Speaker 1: grocery store wine and fries at Rosetta's. But there was
Speaker 1: never any question we'd find our way through. When she
Speaker 1: landed the Agnes Grant, we went out for ice cream
Speaker 1: and walked the perimeter of the city's sculpture garden with
Speaker 1: our hands linked, dazed and giddy. My own first big
Speaker 1: client came the next autumn, and she made a sheet
Speaker 1: cake with icing in the shape of my company's logo.
Speaker 1: laughing when he slid sideways. We kept each other's trophies
Speaker 1: on a floating shelf in the studio, half pretending neither
Speaker 1: of us cared if friends noticed whose came first. We'd
Speaker 1: always had little flashes of insecurity who sure got the
Speaker 1: better review, who picked up a client first. Sometimes, when
Speaker 1: a curator praised her irrepressible hunger for reinvention, I bristle
Speaker 1: with a private petty ache. And when my steady project
Speaker 1: work paid for a stay at her dream studio residency
Speaker 1: in Santa Fe, she once murmured, sometimes, I envy how
Speaker 1: you always seem so steady, so sure you're good enough.
Speaker 1: But these passing storms turned honest, talked out over cigarettes
Speaker 1: on the fire escape, solved with late-night pancakes or the
Speaker 1: ritual crawl of three favorite things before bed. Secrets never
Speaker 1: linger between us. Or so I thought. Our annual artist
Speaker 1: retreat had been a tradition since that second year. We'd
Speaker 1: hike upstate, rent a cabin with near-zero-sale service, live like
Speaker 1: aesthetics for three days, sketch, walk, read aloud ideas, measure
Speaker 1: the coming year's hopes. The reset button on our life.
Speaker 1: This year, it was circled and read on my desk calendar.
Speaker 1: Three weeks ago, Nina had flipped through her phone, comparing Airbnbs,
Speaker 1: proposing ambitious side trips, a cold lake swim, sunrise hikes,
Speaker 1: a road detour for an unexplored antique store. We'll unplug,
Speaker 1: she said, dragging out the word, like monks with moleskins.
Speaker 1: All of that now seemed as old as cave paintings.
Speaker 1: I woke Friday to her shoes already gone from the hall.
Speaker 1: In the studio, a mug with a top of green
Speaker 1: paint floated in cold coffee. I glanced at my calendar
Speaker 1: and smiled. It was finally retreat weekend. I texted her,
Speaker 1: breakfast at Blue Bench, pre-retreat carbs. The answer didn't come
Speaker 1: until nearly noon, while I was out buying groceries for
Speaker 1: the trip. Can't, sorry, scrap everything, major commission deadline just
Speaker 1: came and I can't leave town, can we move the trip?
Speaker 1: At first I thought it was a jerk, an overblown Mr.
Speaker 1: Rick before a surprise. Then I realized her message was
Speaker 1: missing any flourish, just bare facts. When I called needing
Speaker 1: to hear a note of my apology she sounded tired,
Speaker 1: voice tight and a little hollow. Which commission came through?
Speaker 1: I asked trying to keep it neutral. There had been
Speaker 1: a couple promising conversations about city installations, but nothing that
Speaker 1: should have materialized this fast. There was a pause barely
Speaker 1: two seconds, but I heard it. They'll be opening a proposal, sorry.
Speaker 1: They want the concert sketches by Monday. It's ridiculous, but
Speaker 1: it's big. I tried to call the cabin, but couldn't
Speaker 1: reach anyone. I said, it's fine, swallowing the old disappointment
Speaker 1: that used to knock me off my rails. She sounded breathless, apologetic,
Speaker 1: but strangely impersonal, like a colleague excusing herself from a meeting.
Speaker 1: I wanted to tug the phone away, shake it, and
Speaker 1: listen for static in her words. You sure you're okay?
Speaker 1: I asked, almost laughing, to make it light. You were
Speaker 1: so excited last week. Yeah, but that was before this
Speaker 1: fire drill. I'll make it up to you, promise. I
Speaker 1: walked to the window and watched a market bustle on
Speaker 1: the street. We can do something next month. Just don't
Speaker 1: burn yourself out. She made a muffled noise. I won't, promise.
Speaker 1: Gotta get to a meeting. Love you. I let her go,
Speaker 1: staring at my muted reflection in the glass. Nina, forgetting
Speaker 1: the one weekend she herself had gushed about. I told
Speaker 1: myself that creative locks make people selfish, even reckless. I
Speaker 1: headed into the afternoon staff with familiar errands, laundry, billing,
Speaker 1: an overdue lunch with a mutual friend to cling into
Speaker 1: the idea that none of this was out of character.
Speaker 1: But lying on my back at midnight, staring at the
Speaker 1: ceiling fan's lazy orbit, I replayed her voice. The clipped
Speaker 1: way she pronounced concept sketches. The pause before were alpinate
Speaker 1: that sounded like a stone skipping water. Over breakfast, I'd
Speaker 1: found a pack of cigarettes, half-empty, sticking out of her
Speaker 1: workbag Nina, who hated smoking, who'd always mocked the destructive
Speaker 1: side effects of urban vice. Had she started bumbling her
Speaker 1: own references? Was there a new inside joke at the
Speaker 1: collective I wasn't in on? It's staggering how quickly trust
Speaker 1: can start to feel like a fragile, dangerous thing. Saturday,
Speaker 1: I decided to reset the narrative. If Nina had become
Speaker 1: so lost in her new project that she'd forgotten our
Speaker 1: one annual escape, maybe it was on me to meet
Speaker 1: her where she lived. To be the supportive partner, not
Speaker 1: the suspicious husband. Around dusk, I walked the six blocks
Speaker 1: to the warehouse on Halley, the new site for her collective,
Speaker 1: a decommissioned tire factory with plank windows and handmade metal signage.
Speaker 1: I texted, bringing you fuel, and bought two gold cheese
Speaker 1: sandwiches and a bag of lemon seltzers at a corner cafe.
Speaker 1: I pushed through the heavy steel door. The back hall
Speaker 1: was strangely quiet for a Saturday, not only the hum
Speaker 1: of the ventilation and a flicker from the other end.
Speaker 1: I almost turned around, certain she'd be with friends in
Speaker 1: the rear studio where the sculptors worked. But the main
Speaker 1: room was empty. A faint smell, not quite cigarettes, more dusty,
Speaker 1: metallic con in the air. A single spotlight hit an
Speaker 1: unfinished canvas left abandoned near the window, but there was
Speaker 1: no sign of Nina or anyone else. I drifted through
Speaker 1: the sprawl of paint tubes and unwashed mugs, the communal
Speaker 1: table littered with sketch pens and half-eaten pizza, but it
Speaker 1: was as if the place had been deserted in a hurry.
Speaker 1: At her usual cubicle, I found a mess of pencil stubs,
Speaker 1: her mock-up for the Albina project, and a cryptic list
Speaker 1: of first names on the margin, D.S. Caro, me. I waited,
Speaker 1: eating half my grilled cheese, then texted again a surprise ambush.
Speaker 1: I brought dinner, but got no reply. After 45 minutes,
Speaker 1: I finally left the food in a hasty note and
Speaker 1: walked home. She texted near 10.45, sorry. Just left to
Speaker 1: get photos. Sorry I missed you. Did you eat? I
Speaker 1: replied with an emoji and tried to swallow the hard
Speaker 1: stone of letdown. I told myself it was just one
Speaker 1: more weird byproduct of a creative person's work cycle. What
Speaker 1: had Martin said at the gallery? That new crowd, huh?
Speaker 1: Sunday I cleaned the kitchen and found one of Nina's
Speaker 1: plastic folders gaping open in the studio. A credit card
Speaker 1: statement meant for the shredder had wedged itself between a
Speaker 1: batch of mail. The top line caught my eye. Bella
Speaker 1: Knott Friday. One item. $ 184. 50. My breath snagged. Bella Knott
Speaker 1: was almost cartoonishly romantic. Dark walnut booths. Live jazz. Legendary
Speaker 1: first chocolate souffle. We'd been there on our third anniversary
Speaker 1: in one of our more solvent years. She hadn't been
Speaker 1: home until close to three at night. I'd been asleep
Speaker 1: leaving the story at Killer Progress at the studio. Don't
Speaker 1: wait up. Who had she taken out for champagne and
Speaker 1: soufflé at 1 a.m.? I set the statement aside, sickened
Speaker 1: by my own curiosity. Monday, Martin called to see if
Speaker 1: I'd be joining his critique circle this week. I hesitated
Speaker 1: a second too long, and he filled the silence. By
Speaker 1: the way, I saw Nina late last night. Actually, she
Speaker 1: and that new guy from her collective, what's his name? Daniel, right?
Speaker 1: They were at the bar across from the Halley Warehouse.
Speaker 1: Looked deep in debate. You working on a collaboration together now?
Speaker 1: I felt the back of my scalp tingle. No, just her.
Speaker 1: Daniel's the new sculptor. How late was this? Oh, nearly one.
Speaker 1: I wasn't drinking. If that's what you're asking, he joked. Anyway,
Speaker 1: she looked intense, happy, not the kind of happy you
Speaker 1: get from budget revisions. I made some noise agreement surprise.
Speaker 1: Martin's call ended politely. At night, Nina came home long
Speaker 1: after midnight. I was pretending to sleep but heard her
Speaker 1: set down a portfolio with a tire plunk. She moved
Speaker 1: in practice quiet, but I heard the exhale as she
Speaker 1: sat on the bed's edge. Not quite a sob, not
Speaker 1: quite a sigh. Morning revealed an odd artifact to sketch,
Speaker 1: tossed half under her mug, unlike any of her recent work.
Speaker 1: It was rough, done in long, rapid lines, the kind
Speaker 1: she only made embracing moments of inspiration. At first, it
Speaker 1: was just a figure crouched awkwardly at a table, hands
Speaker 1: large and square. But the angle the facial features, the thick,
Speaker 1: sweep of dark hair looked uncannily like the downhill I'd
Speaker 1: seen around the collector's posts. Above the sketch, her usual
Speaker 1: signature flourishes, but no date or title. I left it
Speaker 1: out to see if she'd mention it, but she cleared
Speaker 1: it away before breakfast with barely a glance. What began
Speaker 1: as mild irritation the last weekend, the odd hours fused
Speaker 1: with sleeping suspicion. She was showering at night now, always
Speaker 1: locking the bathroom door. Her studio at home became off-limits.
Speaker 1: She'd rather not have anyone's energy in there while she prepped.
Speaker 1: She skipped our shared Saturday run to the market, a
Speaker 1: ritual she never let go for anything but deadlines or hangovers.
Speaker 1: Her phone, once left on counters and coffee tables, was
Speaker 1: now never out of her reach. Notification silence, always turned
Speaker 1: face down. Small acts, but when lined up, they felt pointed, orchestrated.
Speaker 1: On Tuesday night, I interrupted her as she was leaving.
Speaker 1: You need anything from the store? I asked. She hesitated,
Speaker 1: jacket already on. I'm good, don't wait up. There was
Speaker 1: something hollow in her gaze, not guilt, exactly, but an
Speaker 1: urgency edged with apology. After she left, I scrolled through
Speaker 1: our photo library, searching for images we used to take
Speaker 1: her propped on the gallery's ladders, us at the retreat
Speaker 1: making shadow puppets on the cabin walls. In the last month,
Speaker 1: we appeared together almost nowhere. What remained was abstract, a
Speaker 1: close-up of her palette, a photo of Rain on a window,
Speaker 1: a shot of Daniel at a sculptor's wheel, reposted to
Speaker 1: Nina's stories. At dinner with our friend Kenzie, I floated
Speaker 1: the concern obliquely, speaking in generalities, Nina's running on empty,
Speaker 1: maybe burning up with all this collective stuff. Kenzie gave
Speaker 1: an ambiguous frown. That's the scene, well, everyone stretched, that
Speaker 1: Daniel guy, he's done a number on the dynamic, though,
Speaker 1: don't love his stuff, but the women are obsessed. I
Speaker 1: changed the subject. then excuse myself early, unable to hide
Speaker 1: my strain. The next week, the elastic in our conversation
Speaker 1: stretched thin. Our laughter, once rapid-fire and crowded within jokes,
Speaker 1: faded away, humour faltered, replaced by quick updates and reminders
Speaker 1: about bills or mutual clients. Sometimes, she'd return radiant, flinging
Speaker 1: herself on the bed with snatches of energy, only to
Speaker 1: fall into eerie silence the very next night. Other times,
Speaker 1: she'd erupt into critiques, her own process, the collective's stubborn admin,
Speaker 1: even the city's changing gallery seen them withdraw abruptly, as
Speaker 1: if she'd revealed too much. Our friends started noticing. A
Speaker 1: few called for dinner, but Nina begged off. At a
Speaker 1: group opening, she stayed for less than half an hour,
Speaker 1: glancing at her phone, whispering with Daniel before heading out
Speaker 1: to prep a proposal. Needing clarity, I pressed lightly everything
Speaker 1: okay at the collective, and she'd wave it off. Artists
Speaker 1: are just chaos. Well, I'm hiding the only functional wave. Mid-July,
Speaker 1: we flipped through finances for a pending home repair. I
Speaker 1: noticed several life charges centered on the area near Daniel's
Speaker 1: apartment downtown late weeknights. When I asked, she looked at
Speaker 1: her cuticles. We were out for reference shots. Daniel has
Speaker 1: this camera guy, not really my gig, but the light
Speaker 1: was better than at the warehouse. Okay, I said, jotting
Speaker 1: figures into her spreadsheet. At another friend's dinner party, Nina
Speaker 1: talked about new breakthroughs in collaborative work, but left Daniel's
Speaker 1: name out altogether. Only after I thanked her for hanging
Speaker 1: through her, how much did she lean in and confess,
Speaker 1: sometimes I wish the whole scene would disappear for a week,
Speaker 1: just us, just old times. Her smile was watery. I
Speaker 1: squeezed her hand and tried not to drown in the
Speaker 1: southern wave of nostalgia. The next evening, Nina brought home
Speaker 1: a new painting, huge, wild, all sharp contrasts, magnetic energy.
Speaker 1: It earned her a string of gushing DMs from local critics.
Speaker 1: That's you in this, she said, laying a hand on
Speaker 1: my shoulder, all stability in the storm. Another attempt at connection.
Speaker 1: Another rush of hope. But by dawn, I found myself
Speaker 1: staring at yet another document, the collective's latest PR email,
Speaker 1: with Nina's name featured alongside Daniel's in an upcoming duo show. Martin,
Speaker 1: during a Saturday studio visit, so idled up with a
Speaker 1: conspiratorial grin. He's seen these two at work, well, electric.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying the rest of us should be jealous,
Speaker 1: but damn. I tried to laugh along, burning up with
Speaker 1: an anger even I couldn't fully name. I had never
Speaker 1: considered myself as suspicious. But I was now catching shadows
Speaker 1: out of the corner of my vision answers a moment
Speaker 1: too slow of small stories that appeared and disappeared like
Speaker 1: old foam bits, flashes of accusations I dismiss out of
Speaker 1: both shame and hope. Things reached a breaking point on
Speaker 1: the Saturday after the cancelled retreat. We were sitting on
Speaker 1: the stoop, coffee warming in mismatched mugs, when she glanced
Speaker 1: sideways at me, her knee bouncing. Hey, she said, would
Speaker 1: you hate me if I turned down lunch with your
Speaker 1: folks next week? I just need more time at the studio.
Speaker 1: There's a new round of grants, and Daniel wants me
Speaker 1: to review his proposal. He's not very strong at that
Speaker 1: admin stuff. It was a narrow excuse, bundled with honest details.
Speaker 1: I mustered a grin. Will you ever bring him around
Speaker 1: for dinner so he can beg for mercy himself? She
Speaker 1: laughed too loud, then gave my arm a quick squeeze. Maybe,
Speaker 1: if he survives Friday nights in Seoul. She wanted me
Speaker 1: to believe she was just overworked. I called my mother
Speaker 1: our only living parent close by and handled the conversation.
Speaker 1: I found myself describing Nina's business in obsessive detail, padding
Speaker 1: the lie with anecdotes about past deadlines, half remembering when
Speaker 1: those were real. That night, the exhaustion in my chest
Speaker 1: became something new. I wasn't sure if I was being jealous, protective,
Speaker 1: or simply desperate to hold on. I questioned my mutual friends,
Speaker 1: not bluntly, but with calculated hints. People shrugged, offered nothing. Kenzie,
Speaker 1: soft for the normal, asked, You two still good? She
Speaker 1: seems somewhere else. I covered. Just creative burnout. What hurt
Speaker 1: the most, I realized, was the wall building up between us.
Speaker 1: I used to be able to joke my way through
Speaker 1: her restless spells, coax her back with old stories. This time,
Speaker 1: she orbited out of reach, leaving only brief flashes of
Speaker 1: intimacy before withdrawing completely. The following Friday, I took a chance.
Speaker 1: I showed up to the Halley warehouse again, this time
Speaker 1: with no announcement, just a brown bag full of her
Speaker 1: favorite bagels and some vitamin drink small tokens of care,
Speaker 1: or maybe my own silent plea. Lights came from the
Speaker 1: offices out front. I heard voices, hurrs, daniels, and a
Speaker 1: third I didn't know. Their laughter was low, private, not
Speaker 1: the wild volume she used in the old days, but
Speaker 1: edged with rigged excitement. I thought about knocking, saw in
Speaker 1: my mind her startled face, but didn't. Instead... Retreating to
Speaker 1: a corner, I watched from the parking lot as the
Speaker 1: trio emerged, arms looped across shoulders in lopsided hugs. Nina
Speaker 1: looked both exhausted and absolutely alive, a flush cutting across
Speaker 1: her cheeks, a looseness in her limbs I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: in weeks. Daniel peeled away, his bag slung over his shoulder.
Speaker 1: He caught my gaze for half a second but nodded
Speaker 1: through me, not picking up who I was. Nina didn't
Speaker 1: see me. She climbed into the back of her rideshare
Speaker 1: with the other woman, pulling her scarf over her face,
Speaker 1: fingers flying over her phone. At home, she greeted me
Speaker 1: with quick, distracted affection. Sorry I bailed. I just got swamped.
Speaker 1: Daniel needed to call in pizza and we crashed till
Speaker 1: nearly midnight. Don't wait up for me, okay? This time,
Speaker 1: when she disappeared into her studio, locking the door, I
Speaker 1: stood in the hallway thinking about the cracks forming. Her
Speaker 1: ongoing disconnection, skipping our Saturday walks, missing Sunday breakfast became routine.
Speaker 1: Her side of the bed was cool more often than not,
Speaker 1: her laughter half in frequency, her urgency now solely devoted
Speaker 1: to someone or something else. I'd ask when she was
Speaker 1: coming home. She'd answer with a shout of apologies. It
Speaker 1: was the credit card bill that wouldn't leave my mind.
Speaker 1: Bella not. The lift receipts to Daniel Block. All parentheses
Speaker 1: details that might have added up to nothing until, layered
Speaker 1: on top of each other, they began to feel damning.
Speaker 1: One afternoon, I rifled through the bag she'd left carelessly
Speaker 1: open on the kitchen table, hoping to find her house keys.
Speaker 1: Stuffed in a side pocket was a receipt. Café Nocturne.
Speaker 1: Large red scroll circling a note. Perfect night, N. Nocturne
Speaker 1: was an old haunted dim lights, nobody watching, a place
Speaker 1: where you could be both seen and lost. The date
Speaker 1: stamp was the previous Thursday, when she'd claimed to be
Speaker 1: locked in composition hell, seeing no one. I replaced everything carefully,
Speaker 1: but part of me wanted her to find that I'd looked.
Speaker 1: On the same day, I overheard her singing to herself
Speaker 1: in her studio music, melody, and familiar lyrics. I stood
Speaker 1: at the closed door, listening to her run-through stanzas with
Speaker 1: aching sweetness. When I checked, that song was from a
Speaker 1: playlist Daniel had shared in a recent public post about
Speaker 1: music for late-night creation. Coincidence? Or intimacy in open daylight?
Speaker 1: Unable to stop myself, I looked for any clue online.
Speaker 1: A collective's group shot swelled every week. Nina was tagged
Speaker 1: at events I'd barely known about, always next to Daniel,
Speaker 1: sometimes with a hand on his shoulder, sometimes laughing open, loose,
Speaker 1: alive in ways I hadn't seen at home in too long.
Speaker 1: My own entries in her story, even my work, faded out.
Speaker 1: Nobody tagged me in anything outside mutual group dinners anymore.
Speaker 1: I hated that small, childish ache when I realized it,
Speaker 1: but there it was, she was constructing a world I
Speaker 1: wasn't invited into. The next time she tried to chat
Speaker 1: across the breakfast table, the talk was all schedules and bills,
Speaker 1: nothing about her. I wanted to reach out to force
Speaker 1: the moment, to ask Point Blank who she was with,
Speaker 1: why her art looked suddenly, beautifully dangerous, why she'd pulled
Speaker 1: the plug on not just our retreat, but on us.
Speaker 1: But I didn't. Instead, I offered oatmeal, choked down the
Speaker 1: urge to pick a fight, and silently memorized every time
Speaker 1: she blinked or shifted in her seat. Searching for reassurance,
Speaker 1: I invited Kenzie to our apartment. She navigated the visit carefully.
Speaker 1: After two glasses of wine, I tried again. Anina seems
Speaker 1: happy with her new group, right? Kenzie looked away. Yeah, happy. Armanix,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to tell, but, I mean, didn't you
Speaker 1: want her to fly a little wider? Her smile was weary. Sorry, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this is just an artist flu. We never really
Speaker 1: do routine, do we? That night, checking her phone as
Speaker 1: it lay face down for once, I watched her from
Speaker 1: the whole shoulders hunched over the glowing screen, them moving
Speaker 1: in a steady rhythm. I returned to the studio and
Speaker 1: found one of her sketches, this time two figures, the
Speaker 1: edges blurred. One profile rendered in more detail than she'd
Speaker 1: ever used for herself or me. A powerful jaw, a
Speaker 1: sharp nose. Daniel's face, unmistakable now I'd seen his photos
Speaker 1: on her new collective's website. The figure's hands covered its
Speaker 1: own mouth, as if stifling either a laugh or a secret.
Speaker 1: What was I supposed to do with that? Sunday morning,
Speaker 1: after another night apart, I tripped over a phrase she'd
Speaker 1: left in the margins of her journal, Boundary equals Breakthrough, Cosvius, Witness.
Speaker 1: I stared at it. reluctant to ascribe it meaning. Was
Speaker 1: it a note to herself about technique? About us? Was
Speaker 1: I now reading clues into everything, like a jealous schoolboy?
Speaker 1: That week, she was out even later. She started missing
Speaker 1: meals altogether, cold-brewing her coffee but forgetting it halfway through.
Speaker 1: Our cat, Sable, prowled her studio door, scratching for entry. Frustrated, scared, lonely,
Speaker 1: I tried to give her space, berating myself every time
Speaker 1: I ached for her attention. But I saw the new
Speaker 1: piece taking shape in her workspace wild, dangerous. full of
Speaker 1: muscles and implied touch, more sensual than anything she'd drawn
Speaker 1: since college. In the bottom left corner, a singular D.
Speaker 1: No title, no signature beside it. The emotional wedge between
Speaker 1: us grew real, formless as fog, but colder each day.
Speaker 1: One Thursday, Martin called with a sort of casual cruelty
Speaker 1: that only old friends can manage. Saw your wife at
Speaker 1: cafe nocturne last night. She looked happier than I've seen
Speaker 1: her in ages with that new sculptor guy from her collective.
Speaker 1: Did you two finally meet him together? I could barely reply.
Speaker 1: It was just something at the gallery, I mumbled, feeling
Speaker 1: my skin go hot. Martin didn't notice the tremor in
Speaker 1: my voice. Well, he seems cool, but damn, while she
Speaker 1: was glowing last night, makes me want to quit ceramics
Speaker 1: and try whatever brain juice they're on. After that call,
Speaker 1: I sat in the kitchen, hands folded around a mug
Speaker 1: long gone cold. Less than twelve hours earlier, Nina had
Speaker 1: stumbled in, pale, smelling of red wine, slipping wordless under
Speaker 1: the covers and turning away when I tried to hold her.
Speaker 1: All the lines she'd spun for me dissolved in that moment.
Speaker 1: Daniel was unavoidable. The dinners, the sketches, her episodes of
Speaker 1: euphoria and silence, the way even her art was suddenly
Speaker 1: talking to me in a language I'd never been meant
Speaker 1: to learn. I'd once considered myself rational, skeptical only when
Speaker 1: logic demanded it. But now, paranoia and hope live side
Speaker 1: by side, twisting together every time I had her key
Speaker 1: in the lock or her footsteps on the stairs. Bread
Speaker 1: forced me to keep up appearances, but trust was fraying.
Speaker 1: That evening, I decided to stop fighting in the dark.
Speaker 1: I began organizing what I knew. Not to ambush her,
Speaker 1: but to regain my center. I stuck receipts, checked gallery dates,
Speaker 1: lined up the phone records we shared and nothing over it.
Speaker 1: Just gaps, contradictions, double bookings. Roger rubs that match Daniel's apartment.
Speaker 1: The final, most damning blow landed by accident. While prepping
Speaker 1: for a shared client conference call, Nina left her work
Speaker 1: tablet charging at the kitchen counter as she dashed into
Speaker 1: the bathroom. I heard the vain ping messengers till pop-up bubble.
Speaker 1: Without a real plan, I go and set the screen.
Speaker 1: The thread was open, a message from Daniel, last night
Speaker 1: was magic, you challenge me in ways I can't explain,
Speaker 1: hope you can sneak back later, don't sleep just yet.
Speaker 1: Her reply, seconds before it can't, too much at stake,
Speaker 1: later maybe, you know how it is. I snapped the
Speaker 1: cover closed. I put both hands to my chest, gripping
Speaker 1: the edge of the kitchen island. Ten minutes later, Nina emerged,
Speaker 1: all brisk energy in false cheer, and snatched the tablet up,
Speaker 1: checking the lock screen before pressing it tight to her chest.
Speaker 1: She met my eyes with an unreadable expression, then said,
Speaker 1: Don't forget, I have an early call, don't wait up
Speaker 1: for me tonight. I wanted to ask whose call. I
Speaker 1: wanted to scream, or just cry. But I just nodded,
Speaker 1: forced my lips into some semblance of a smile, and said,
Speaker 1: Good luck. She paused, almost said something, then turned away.
Speaker 1: After she left, I went room to room, touching the
Speaker 1: objects we'd accumulated over years of life. The vase she'd
Speaker 1: bought on our trip to the coast, a battered spatula
Speaker 1: from our first apartment, the string of photo booth shots
Speaker 1: from our fourth anniversary. I'll echo Chambers now. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just her body I'd lost. It was the story of
Speaker 1: our partnership, the foundation of trust we'd built detail by
Speaker 1: painstaking detail. The territory of our relationship was now unrecognizable,
Speaker 1: fissured by secrets, with new geography forming in the space
Speaker 1: she now shared with Daniel. I trusted her with everything.
Speaker 1: But the story wasn't hers anymore. And I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: of where my part in it would end. I tried
Speaker 1: not to move. I tried not to collapse. Instead, I
Speaker 1: set the kettle back on its base, letting the clank
Speaker 1: of metal stand in for everything I wasn't willing to say.
Speaker 1: The apartment was silent, but for the hum of the
Speaker 1: old fridge and the distant rattle of skateboard wheels out
Speaker 1: on chambers. I forced myself to breathe like nothing had changed,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know what else to do. The word
Speaker 1: magic echoed through my mind, refracting off old memories, years
Speaker 1: of shared work, hundreds of private jokes, the thousand small
Speaker 1: kindnesses and sly glances that made a marriage. Now, a
Speaker 1: new word had crept in magic, but not for me.
Speaker 1: Magic for someone else. I was passed like rain sliding
Speaker 1: down foggy glass. I paced through my old sketchbook, sometimes comfort,
Speaker 1: sometimes penance, but my lines had lost the looseness Nina
Speaker 1: always drew out of me. I stared at what I'd
Speaker 1: made and saw only evidence of friction. At some point,
Speaker 1: my phone buzzed. Kenzie again is still on for Thursday's
Speaker 1: show at Chroma. I dropped it face down, not ready
Speaker 1: to answer. That night, Nina didn't come home until nearly two.
Speaker 1: I heard the insulated thud of her boots, the careful
Speaker 1: undressing outside the bathroom, the quiet rinse and toothbrush, the
Speaker 1: slow inching of our bedroom door. Had she visited Den
Speaker 1: after the call, after her message? Every question became a
Speaker 1: lead weight. I made myself smile when she slid under
Speaker 1: the covers, cold feet pressing into my shins. I pretended
Speaker 1: I was asleep. At dawn, her hand was sprawled over
Speaker 1: my chest, heavy and thoughtless. For a second, the urge
Speaker 1: to hold her was stronger than my suspicion, but I resisted,
Speaker 1: staring up at nothing, feeling measured inside of Chosen. By
Speaker 1: late morning, I'd returned to the desk, organizing files for
Speaker 1: tomorrow's pitch, finding no focus. I kept returning to the
Speaker 1: pile of evidence, each grab heavier than the last receipts,
Speaker 1: unexplained times, her melancholy warmth. I misloved that, didn't vibrate
Speaker 1: with suspicion. Nina emerged from her studio around noon, hair messy,
Speaker 1: lit shiny from biting. She hovered in the doorway. Did
Speaker 1: you eat? She asked. No apology, no warmth. Not yet.
Speaker 1: I paused, sensing a riptide deciding not to jump in
Speaker 1: just yet. Want to go out for lunch, or walk
Speaker 1: to Marceline's? She hesitated. I should stay close, Dinah wants
Speaker 1: to try welding the new frame and the ventilation's only
Speaker 1: good if we starve early. That name, in her casual voice,
Speaker 1: proved she was done hiding at least that much. If
Speaker 1: there was going to be a lie, maybe it wasn't
Speaker 1: so much about the person, but about the depth. I nodded,
Speaker 1: picking out a fake smile, my throat suddenly dry. Have fun,
Speaker 1: I said, almost meaning it. She studied me a bit
Speaker 1: too long, then went to stuff a snack in her bag.
Speaker 1: I caught her reflection in the hallway mirror, adjusting the loose,
Speaker 1: pain-flexed scarf I'd given her last winter and saw something
Speaker 1: a flicker of shame, or perhaps some familiarity. I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell anymore. As the door shut and her steps faded
Speaker 1: down the stairs, I made a choice. I was tired
Speaker 1: of being the passive object orbiting her gravitational field. I
Speaker 1: threw on a jacket and left the apartment a few
Speaker 1: minutes later, walking the long way, crossing through the chilly
Speaker 1: shade of the alleys just to avoid the market where
Speaker 1: we'd so often wandered together. I headed for Halle, keeping
Speaker 1: my explanation ready in my head, dropping off the portfolio
Speaker 1: she'd left behind, just a partner being thoughtful. I rehearsed
Speaker 1: it over and over, certain it would be enough. But
Speaker 1: when I reached the warehouse, the front doors were propped open,
Speaker 1: music pulsing faintly, a 90s playlist, something nostalgic, the kind
Speaker 1: of thing we'd have rolled our eyes at. Artists started
Speaker 1: in and out, some I recognized from group shows and mixers,
Speaker 1: other strangers with paint-streaked hands and knowing glances. A woman
Speaker 1: with a pixie cut and violet blue roots a shout
Speaker 1: out to Nina's old tintacote me lingering outside the metalworks studio.
Speaker 1: Can I help? I'm just dropping off Nina's portfolio. She
Speaker 1: left it at home. She grinned. I was flicking over me.
Speaker 1: You will, right? Heard a lot about you. Nina's inside
Speaker 1: with Daniel. Shows pieces are almost done. She's on fire
Speaker 1: this month. For a moment, I didn't move. My throat tightened.
Speaker 1: Can I adjust it? I gestured down the hall. Sure,
Speaker 1: go through. Don't step on the cables. We're rearranging before
Speaker 1: they install. I found them in the painting bay. Nina
Speaker 1: hunched over a half-painted panel, Daniel standing nearby, sleeves rolled
Speaker 1: to the elbow, arms marked with faint burns or pigment.
Speaker 1: They were oblivious to me at first. Daniel was saying
Speaker 1: something about light source and shadow, gesturing at the stretched canvas.
Speaker 1: Nina nodded then, without looking up, replied, but too many
Speaker 1: rules and I lose the drift, let it be ugly
Speaker 1: for a minute. They were close side by side, their
Speaker 1: energy twined but not physically touching. Then Daniel stepped sideways,
Speaker 1: brushing his knuckles over her shoulder as he reached for
Speaker 1: a rag. It was a fraction of a touch, but
Speaker 1: ghosts of something lingered in it, practiced, familiar, and concerned
Speaker 1: about being seen. Nina, seeing me in the doorway, froze
Speaker 1: half a true stroke. Hey, she called, a bit too bright.
Speaker 1: What are you, did you need something? I held up
Speaker 1: the portfolio, masking my attention with a wry smile. He
Speaker 1: left this by the charger, figured you'd want it back.
Speaker 1: Daniel grinned easily. Well, finally meet the man whose shelf
Speaker 1: joinery everyone raves about, didn't know he'd lure you into
Speaker 1: the madness. I took a step farther in, every nerve raw.
Speaker 1: Nice to finally meet you in daylight, I hear your
Speaker 1: installs giving the wiring guys a nightmare. He laughed. If
Speaker 1: it isn't, it's not art, Nina's keeping everyone honest about that.
Speaker 1: I handed her the portfolio, her fingers grazed mine, barely
Speaker 1: a squeeze. She assessed my face, cautious, maybe worried I'd overstep.
Speaker 1: Thanks for bringing it, sorry about last night. By the way,
Speaker 1: just lost track of time. I shrugged, scanning the workspace.
Speaker 1: There were several collaborative pieces, large mixed media panels leaning
Speaker 1: against the wall. Labels with both their names affixed to
Speaker 1: the back. Some post-it notes in her handwriting, a quick
Speaker 1: visual language I half understood. I nodded toward one, not
Speaker 1: trusting myself to read the subtext. These for the duo show?
Speaker 1: I asked Daniel. He nodded, pleased, ready to expound a
Speaker 1: banana cut in. We're pushing boundaries, or pushing luck, not
Speaker 1: sure yet. Daniel grinned at her then at me. Boundaries, definitely,
Speaker 1: you should come to the preview, well, I know partners
Speaker 1: get bored, but this one's got teeth. I nodded, mild
Speaker 1: feeling invisible, then turned to leave, too tense to find
Speaker 1: a reason to linger without giving my own game away.
Speaker 1: Don't let me interrupt your groove. Nina repacked her supplies,
Speaker 1: eyes flicking between Daniel and me. As I slept away,
Speaker 1: I heard her say, in a lower voice, he's just
Speaker 1: making sure I eat, he's good at that. Back outside,
Speaker 1: city air-tasted metallic and sour. I walked quickly, filled with
Speaker 1: the urge to flee, aware I'd seen what I needed,
Speaker 1: the truth living in the physical comfort, the conspirator's language,
Speaker 1: how he touched her without thinking. But I hadn't said anything.
Speaker 1: I hadn't made a scene. I wasn't ready to cross
Speaker 1: that line. That night, I lay beside her, pretending again
Speaker 1: to sleep. Nina got ready slowly, applying face cream, listening
Speaker 1: to a podcast about artist frauds in the 1970s. She
Speaker 1: clicked off her lamp and settled in just on the
Speaker 1: edge of my reach. A few minutes later, she let
Speaker 1: out an exhale that bordered on a sigh. It's pretty late.
Speaker 1: Thanks for dropping off my stuff. No problem, I said,
Speaker 1: voice thick in the dark. You looked tense. Everything's okay.
Speaker 1: You know, I get weird when work eats up. For
Speaker 1: the first time, I didn't instantly reassure her. Instead, I
Speaker 1: let it be silent. She rolled onto her side, away
Speaker 1: from me. It's just a crazy couple of weeks. I swollowed. Sure.
Speaker 1: She was asleep minutes later, or at least miming the part. Soon,
Speaker 1: even the little normal things cracked. Two weeks passed. She'd
Speaker 1: slip out after breakfast, always ahead of me, her phone
Speaker 1: glued to her palm. She skipped Chroma's Thursday event. I
Speaker 1: went alone. I accepted the sideways looks from our community,
Speaker 1: manufactured stories about deadlines and creative temperaments with deadlines. That
Speaker 1: last bit always drew out patient nods from other artists
Speaker 1: everyone's encountered a period of unhealthy absorption before. Martin, at
Speaker 1: the gallery bar near closing, leaned in as he collected
Speaker 1: his tablet and keys. She okay, Will? Cards close to
Speaker 1: the vest these days. You know everyone's watching your duo, right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's just pushing herself harder. Sometimes I guess I'm just
Speaker 1: background noise. Martin's expression shifted to sympathy mixed with mild skepticism.
Speaker 1: Just don't let the hustle crowd you guys out when
Speaker 1: you two are on. You're my favorite team in the scene.
Speaker 1: The word team rang hollow. I tried to take comfort,
Speaker 1: but I felt the fissure deepen. One day, a mutual friend, Mira,
Speaker 1: looped me into a group chat about an upcoming collaborative mural,
Speaker 1: assumed I knew all the logistics. Nina's got the major segments,
Speaker 1: block out Daniel's handling supplies. I figure you guys will
Speaker 1: coordinate the launch text. I've linked it to my phone
Speaker 1: for a long time. It wasn't just the late nights anymore.
Speaker 1: It was the way people now saw us as co-workers
Speaker 1: or cohabitants, not as partners. Nina was running hours, meetings,
Speaker 1: whole collaborations, without reference to the shared life we'd once
Speaker 1: anchored together. A week after I found the message between
Speaker 1: Daniel and Nina, she returned home in a different mood
Speaker 1: of bullion. Radiant. She flung a handful of postcards on
Speaker 1: the table, print samples from her newest commission. We'll look
Speaker 1: at the registration on this color. Can you believe it?
Speaker 1: I finally nailed it. Even Daniel was impressed. We actually...
Speaker 1: She stopped herself. I tried to match her brightness, but
Speaker 1: she glanced at my face, her smile caught on the
Speaker 1: rim of anxiety. It's beautiful, I said, holding one up
Speaker 1: to the light. She reached for my hand, a rare
Speaker 1: move lately, and pressed the glossy card between my fingers.
Speaker 1: You always know how to set me straight when I
Speaker 1: start alienating everyone, thank you for that. Her tone was
Speaker 1: almost pleading. I recognized the gesture, a peace offering, a
Speaker 1: signal for closeness. For a moment, I wanted to accept it,
Speaker 1: to reset everything and let trust reinstate itself like water
Speaker 1: returning to its level. So I squeezed her hand. You're
Speaker 1: killing it, don't let deadlines eat you alive. She laughed,
Speaker 1: wiping away a glistening tear. You really are the same one.
Speaker 1: That night, she opened a bottle of Old Vine Red,
Speaker 1: telling stories of her reckless grad school roommates, joking about
Speaker 1: what I'd look like with a mustache. We reminisced. Our
Speaker 1: joking rhythms returned. For a few hours, our relationships slid
Speaker 1: into its former shape familiar, alive, and suspicious. She nestled
Speaker 1: closer in bed, tracing patterns over my chest. We've been
Speaker 1: doing this for six years, she whispered, and you put
Speaker 1: up with all the moods. I know I've been difficult.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I've been so consumed. Some piece of me
Speaker 1: melted at her apology. I almost let go of the mess,
Speaker 1: almost trusted her narrative, almost accepted I'd built something out
Speaker 1: of proportion. Maybe she really was consumed. Maybe I was.
Speaker 1: For a little while, I let myself believe in the
Speaker 1: old rhythm, warmth, laughter, a sex life that that felt
Speaker 1: freshly real. As if the city's tension and the conversations
Speaker 1: I'd collected all belonged to someone else. In the morning,
Speaker 1: she made coffee before I woke. I heard her humming
Speaker 1: in the kitchen's off-top-beat old slystone. She set a cup
Speaker 1: near my hand, kissed my temple, and whispered, Chin up, partner.
Speaker 1: When she left, I noticed she'd laid out a new
Speaker 1: paint example for me, labelled in her neat lettering, Momentum
Speaker 1: for Will. For a day, my hope returned. But less
Speaker 1: than twenty-four hours passed before Martin's message scorched a hole
Speaker 1: straight through it. Saw your wife at Café Nocturne last night.
Speaker 1: She looked happier than I've seen her in ages, with
Speaker 1: that new sculptor guy. Did you two finally meet him together? No, Martin.
Speaker 1: I hadn't. I read the text three times, its optimism bludgeoning.
Speaker 1: She was at Nocturne at midnight while our little renaissance
Speaker 1: fluttered inside me like a light-hole badly. Had she already
Speaker 1: left for Daniel's arms after apologizing in mine? I didn't answer, Martin,
Speaker 1: just sat at our kitchen table as the old, hard
Speaker 1: grief settled heavily on my shoulders. Everywhere, her presence pressed in,
Speaker 1: our notebooks, her unfinished sketches, her keys looping from a
Speaker 1: lanyard we'd gotten in Santa Fe. And now, in every direction,
Speaker 1: her absence. For the next week, I moved through life
Speaker 1: like a ghost, existing beside her, waiting for whatever confrontation
Speaker 1: or collapse was coming. My behavior changed. Two eye-track details.
Speaker 1: Noted her absences with cautionary precision. The way she carefully
Speaker 1: met my eyes or very pointedly avoided them. Our tax
Speaker 1: exchanges became more shallow. Reminders about bills. Little jokes about
Speaker 1: the cat. Nina, for her part, became more frenetic in
Speaker 1: her daily routines. Burst of energy in the studio. Rushed
Speaker 1: showers before dinner. Sudden walks at dusk. Always with her
Speaker 1: phone and earbuds. Always unreachable. When I tried to block
Speaker 1: out time to cook together. An old ritual. She'd apologize
Speaker 1: in advance for being overscheduled. Next week. Promise. Always next week.
Speaker 1: By mid-August, the cats started shunning her, curling beside my pillow,
Speaker 1: regarding Nina's wild scent and fast movements with her knees.
Speaker 1: I envied that animal's certainty, no questions, only instinct. Even
Speaker 1: my own friends started keeping their distance, unsure what stories
Speaker 1: to believe. One evening, sipping bourbon alone, I drifted through
Speaker 1: our old digital photos. I found videos from years past
Speaker 1: to dance breaks in the kitchen, Nina toiling half-dress, flour
Speaker 1: on her cheeks. I couldn't remember the last time we'd
Speaker 1: done anything that's simply joyful. And message pinged, Kenzie, again.
Speaker 1: You doing okay? Well, drink soon. My fingers hovered over
Speaker 1: the keyboard, but the word stuck inside me. How could
Speaker 1: I unload so many months of uncertainty in a text reply? Later,
Speaker 1: while rinsing a late dinner plate, I saw her new
Speaker 1: sketchbook line open on the corner of her closed laptop.
Speaker 1: Careful this time, I leafed through, heart pounding as if
Speaker 1: I was stealing. Several pages in, I found drawings sharper
Speaker 1: and more intimate than before. Not just figures, but looks, gestures,
Speaker 1: a pair of hands entwined with another's, bodies in proximity
Speaker 1: that was explicitly not mine and hers. In the margins,
Speaker 1: notes written in hurried scroll, safe equals dead, in need risk,
Speaker 1: a Daniel's line equals permission to break rules. Some pieces
Speaker 1: were labeled, others not. One portrait of profile I now
Speaker 1: recognized without doubt caught my eye. The jaw, the wildness,
Speaker 1: the unfamiliar tenderness in her pencil. I heard water running
Speaker 1: in the bathroom. My pulse fluttered. I carefully closed the sketchbook,
Speaker 1: replaced it to the millimeter. I stood for a while
Speaker 1: in the cool kitchen, at war with my own hope
Speaker 1: and dread. I settled on a plan. I would ask
Speaker 1: Martin outright, not fishing, no pretense. I texted him, need
Speaker 1: to talk, in person. He replied, tonight or tomorrow, hope
Speaker 1: you're okay. We met at Chroma Cafe just before closing. Martin,
Speaker 1: lean and restless as ever, leaned across the table, nourishing
Speaker 1: a short espresso. I need you to be straight with me,
Speaker 1: I said, voice lower than usual. You've seen Nina and
Speaker 1: Daniel around the collective, what's it look like to you?
Speaker 1: He hesitated, fidgeting. with his chip cup. Well, I've tried
Speaker 1: not to get mixed up in other people's stuff. Martin, please.
Speaker 1: The last word grated. He finally looked me in the eye.
Speaker 1: I don't know the details, but yeah, it's been obvious
Speaker 1: to more people lately. They're close. Maybe too close. At first,
Speaker 1: I thought you all were collaborating, but... His shoulders lifted
Speaker 1: in a muscle memory of helplessness. You asked, I'm sorry, man.
Speaker 1: I nodded, staring at the chip table. He started to
Speaker 1: say more, then stopped, swallowing the words. I thanked him, sincerely,
Speaker 1: but I barely heard myself. The walk home was numb.
Speaker 1: My mind rehearsed possibilities as if there were still hope
Speaker 1: in one of them. Maybe it was all overblown. Maybe
Speaker 1: Nina would come home and confess only to creative obsession,
Speaker 1: not romantic betrayal. Maybe Daniel was just a catalyst for
Speaker 1: her work. But there was no innocence left in the narrative.
Speaker 1: Not for me. By the time I climbed up building stairs,
Speaker 1: I knew there was only one thing left. I had
Speaker 1: to ask her directly, pull out the receipts, assemble everything
Speaker 1: I'd avoided facing at once. The next days were too quiet. Nina,
Speaker 1: perhaps sent in my mood, watched me sideline, avoiding arguments,
Speaker 1: thanking me for every small thing. Thanks for washing up.
Speaker 1: Thanks for getting the groceries. Thanks for keeping the world turning.
Speaker 1: Each thanks another nail in the box of our old intimacy.
Speaker 1: She grew distant even as her outgrew more volatile. Our apartment,
Speaker 1: once humming with creative tension, grew reverent and nearly silent.
Speaker 1: Then one evening before dinner, she lingered over her easel,
Speaker 1: left music playing melancholic. My Nikki, the sort she'd always
Speaker 1: said pulls you inside out. I watched her through the doorframe,
Speaker 1: saw her body slacken, heard her voice fall into a quiet,
Speaker 1: wordless hum. Without turning, she said, You look tired, are
Speaker 1: you okay? I nearly lied, almost let her off the hook.
Speaker 1: But the fatigue in her voice did something new to mine.
Speaker 1: I said, I'd like to talk after you finish, all
Speaker 1: the way through this time. She nodded, jaw-tight, as if
Speaker 1: she'd already heard the verdict. Nia Dervos ate much that night.
Speaker 1: I waited, gathering the artifacts, receipts, times, the sketch, two
Speaker 1: dozen questions. My heart ached not only with rage and humiliation,
Speaker 1: but with the loss already moving in to fill the
Speaker 1: growing space between us. I didn't know if I'd ever
Speaker 1: see her as the woman I'd built my life with again.
Speaker 1: But I did know the next hours would finally, and undeniably,
Speaker 1: change whatever remained. I stood in the hush, my back
Speaker 1: pressed against the narrow kitchen wall, the sound of Nina's
Speaker 1: brushes tapping, water jars drifting out from her studio as
Speaker 1: if none of it, none of us, really had changed.
Speaker 1: My fingers idled across the frayed seams of her rissi,
Speaker 1: My tongue flicked against the roof of my mouth, brittle
Speaker 1: with dread. I shuffled the artifact stack again, as if
Speaker 1: by rearranging the evidence left right. Bella knocked, Faye knocked
Speaker 1: her into the sketch with Daniel's unmistakable profile. I'd unlocked
Speaker 1: some other reality. But outside the closed studio door, the
Speaker 1: air tasted sharp. Any hope that I might shrink the
Speaker 1: betrayal or find a cleaner boundary between work and love
Speaker 1: was gone. I heard Nina's chest scrape against the hardwood familiar,
Speaker 1: but tonight it sounded like a warning. She emerged, paint-spotted
Speaker 1: on her forearms, hair piled high in an entropy only
Speaker 1: she could pull off. Her gaze scanned the countertop, found
Speaker 1: my tiny pile of her forgotten proof, and tracked up
Speaker 1: to my face. She hesitated, then leaned against the opposite counter,
Speaker 1: arms folded, holding herself as if bracing for a blow.
Speaker 1: Do you want to? She began, eyes darting somewhere past
Speaker 1: my shoulder. We need to talk, I said, feeling my
Speaker 1: voice land flat, almost businesslike. About everything, not just the
Speaker 1: work stuff. A breath flinched from her chest, shallow. She
Speaker 1: tapped her thumbnail against her elbow, rhythm uneven. Bokeh. But
Speaker 1: she didn't move closer. I gestured to the kitchen table
Speaker 1: our old negotiation battlefield, then picked up the pile, edges
Speaker 1: neat and damning, and laid each slip and sketch face
Speaker 1: up in the glare of the single pendant lamp. I
Speaker 1: want to hear what's real. A silence stretched. In it,
Speaker 1: I could feel the history between us weeks of doubt
Speaker 1: balanced by years of trust humming just out of sight.
Speaker 1: She sat opposite. The lamp lit half her face, the
Speaker 1: other half pocketed chatter. I know what you're thinking, she
Speaker 1: finally said, voice brittle. At least, I think I do.
Speaker 1: I waited, arms folded, heart jackknifing between fury and desperate longing.
Speaker 1: Her gaze fixed on the receipts. You've clearly, what do
Speaker 1: you think happened? She asked, as if inviting me to
Speaker 1: narrate my own undoing. I slid the bell and not
Speaker 1: receive forward. We with Daniel, or does this belong to
Speaker 1: some story I haven't made up in my head yet?
Speaker 1: She looked up, eyes pinched and shining. Daniel and I,
Speaker 1: we went out after a show. Yes, just him and me.
Speaker 1: Just dinner? I asked each word Latin. He was late.
Speaker 1: After a studio session, we were talking through a piece,
Speaker 1: one he said was blocked, and a She trailed off,
Speaker 1: the practice justification beginning to unravel. I set the sketch
Speaker 1: on top of the pile, Daniel's angular jaw and sharp pencil.
Speaker 1: In the essay? She flinched actual fear, or just surprised
Speaker 1: that I'd found the drawing, I couldn't tell. Her mouth twisted,
Speaker 1: then settled into something brittle. Art gets under your skin. Well,
Speaker 1: sometimes that's all it is. I've watched you stay up
Speaker 1: whole weeks for a project, I said, voice trembling. You
Speaker 1: never locked me out. Never did this. If it's just art,
Speaker 1: why did our entire life get cut up with excuses?
Speaker 1: Her eyes flooded but didn't spill. Because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to hurt you, she whispered and looked away. Something snapped
Speaker 1: in the room, an inaudible pop, the point where we
Speaker 1: both knew there was no heading back to earlier, smaller hurts.
Speaker 1: She set her jaw, fiddled with a ring on her finger.
Speaker 1: It's not just Danielle, she said. It's what I am
Speaker 1: when I'm there, the collective it made me feel necessary,
Speaker 1: knew I got swept up. It started as just God, well,
Speaker 1: I was so hungry to feel alive again. She ran
Speaker 1: the heel of her hand against her brow, the motion
Speaker 1: half scrub, half shield. Daniel's part of it, yes, but
Speaker 1: more than that, I wanted to believe I could go
Speaker 1: somewhere you weren't always the first. I heard myself say,
Speaker 1: was it an affair, or just creative cheating? Her laugh
Speaker 1: choked short. Both. Does that make sense? I didn't plan it.
Speaker 1: He got under my skin. I kept telling myself it
Speaker 1: was justified if it made the work better, if I
Speaker 1: could keep our marriage safe from the mess. And you
Speaker 1: ended up wanting the mess, I said. For a while,
Speaker 1: all we heard was the hum of the fridge, a
Speaker 1: squeak as I shifted my chair. I keep thinking, I said,
Speaker 1: about all the times you said we'd outlast the cliche,
Speaker 1: that trust was everything. She wiped her eyes, still not
Speaker 1: looking fully at me. I wanted to live up to that,
Speaker 1: but I kept resenting everything that made us strong. Maybe
Speaker 1: I am broken, maybe I just burned for safe and
Speaker 1: landed in reckless, I don't know. Did you love him?
Speaker 1: The question, small and plain, startled even me. She shook
Speaker 1: her head, biting her lips so hard the skin paled. No,
Speaker 1: not how I love you, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: that matters anymore. Her face crumpled then, all at once
Speaker 1: with regret, grief, panic that the scaffolding was about to collapse.
Speaker 1: I was so afraid of breaking us, but the more
Speaker 1: I lied, the worse it became. Even while I hated myself,
Speaker 1: I couldn't stop. He pushed me to try things I'd
Speaker 1: never risked before. He made the work matter again, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't let you see any of it because it
Speaker 1: would have destroyed you, or hell, destroyed the idea of
Speaker 1: us as perfect. We were never perfect. I just thought
Speaker 1: we were honest. That stopped her for a moment. Then
Speaker 1: in a long, trembling exhale, she simply said, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I nodded, feeling my own chest cave. I know. We
Speaker 1: sat in that fragile, deadlocked quiet, the reality of our
Speaker 1: end finally pushing its way into every shadow of the room.
Speaker 1: After we dragged ourselves out of that kitchen, or maybe
Speaker 1: just surrendered, things moved fast. Nina packed a duffel in
Speaker 1: the bedroom, the noise of Hannah's rattling in the closet
Speaker 1: suddenly louder than anything else in our whole life together.
Speaker 1: I hovered in the hallway, not wanting to watch but
Speaker 1: unable to look away, every item she handled a tally
Speaker 1: of grief. A toothbrush, pulled clean from her shared mug.
Speaker 1: A stack of jeans folded so tightly, they seemed vacuum-packed.
Speaker 1: She avoided my gaze, focusing only on the necessity of leaving.
Speaker 1: Where will you go? I managed, my throat tight. She
Speaker 1: zipped up the bag and pressed her hands to her eyes.
Speaker 1: Sarah said I could crash with her, just for a
Speaker 1: few days. After that, I don't know. Some are quiet.
Speaker 1: I need, I need space. It occurred to me that
Speaker 1: we were already talking like ex-roommates, avoiding the rawness of
Speaker 1: newly split lovers. When she swept through the studio to
Speaker 1: grab supplies, she lingered on the threshold of moment, gazing
Speaker 1: at our shelf of trophies hers and mine, the lopsided
Speaker 1: cake top, the glass tile from our first benefit night,
Speaker 1: a dried paintbrush. She touched each one so lightly, it
Speaker 1: seemed more like asking permission and claiming them. You want anything?
Speaker 1: She asks. Not quite, stay. I shook my head. She
Speaker 1: nodded and kept moving, grabbing only her battered sketchbook and
Speaker 1: a worn leather pencil case she'd had since school. Texts
Speaker 1: began to buzz as the story filtered out, Kenzie checked in,
Speaker 1: Martin sent a question mark, and in the group chat,
Speaker 1: a blurry line broke our once-balanced dual responses. I sent
Speaker 1: Kenzie a private, I'm fine, give her space. I ignored
Speaker 1: Martin's call, listening to my own breath count down to
Speaker 1: zero as the new reality descended. Nina paused in the door,
Speaker 1: everything she owned stuffed in a single bag. I'll text
Speaker 1: when I land, don't do anything dumb, and take care
Speaker 1: of the plants. It was almost funny. We stood facing
Speaker 1: each other, neither coming closer, unwilling to offer any more
Speaker 1: lines of comfort that could only be lies. Her eyes flickered,
Speaker 1: rend red. If she wanted to say, I love you,
Speaker 1: she stopped herself. We both knew the words would decay
Speaker 1: before dawn. Outside, a right chair waited. She slung the
Speaker 1: back over her shoulder, stepped into the hallway, closed the
Speaker 1: door quietly behind her. A new quiet took hold in
Speaker 1: the apartment, the unsound of survival, the hush of something
Speaker 1: erased but not replaced. I found myself walking from room
Speaker 1: to room, touching things we'd both left fingerprints on, tracing
Speaker 1: her absence as if it could be shaped into meaning.
Speaker 1: The cat prowls wrong-footed, utterly confused. I tried to offer affection,
Speaker 1: but Sable only wandered along the base words, mewing occasionally.
Speaker 1: I started to gather Nina's things from our shared studio,
Speaker 1: her work, once too loud to ignore, now threaded against
Speaker 1: my chest. Each print, each in-progress canvas, each sketch would
Speaker 1: bristle with betrayal and brilliant, impossible to separate. I stacked
Speaker 1: them carefully by the front door, pausing over a blank
Speaker 1: notebook that carried our old retreat sticker of our past
Speaker 1: self still intact etched in a cartoon outline. The messages
Speaker 1: continued to clients, collaborators, family. I gave short, honest responses,
Speaker 1: Nina staying with a friend, we're sorting things out, please
Speaker 1: give us both space. Numbers and routines pressed in. There
Speaker 1: was the rent to split, contract renewals to communicate, clients
Speaker 1: awaiting joint design packages. For the first time, not as partners,
Speaker 1: but competitors were strangers. We started a spate of messages.
Speaker 1: Who keeps the studio lease? Can you pay the August utilities?
Speaker 1: Will you tell the Ainslie committee you're working solo now,
Speaker 1: or should I? Bureaucracy filled the space where apologies used
Speaker 1: to live. Even the apartment felt alien, the studio hollowed
Speaker 1: of warmth, our bookshelves now littered with half-gaps. I found
Speaker 1: myself cleaning out the fridge, unable to bear the sight
Speaker 1: of her kombucha bottles and hand-cut ginger. The silent swell,
Speaker 1: broken only by the ping of another friend trying to
Speaker 1: read the wind before choosing sides. That week, Our little
Speaker 1: corner of the city's art world splintered, some quick to
Speaker 1: express loyalty, others writing those two sides to everything, laying
Speaker 1: our defences like curators choosing which story to foreground. Every
Speaker 1: message reminded me how far we had drifted not just
Speaker 1: from each other, but from the life we'd once claimed
Speaker 1: as invincible. In a fit of restlessness, I wandered past
Speaker 1: Nina's gallery the night before her show. Through the window,
Speaker 1: her new paintings brave air, bloodier hung in the gallery's
Speaker 1: best light, surrounded by smartly dressed crowds. Critics clustered at
Speaker 1: the entrance for a sprite with praise. They'd all missed
Speaker 1: the funerals happening offstage. I stood in the blue-lit sidewalk
Speaker 1: and studied her name alongside Daniel's on the program, the
Speaker 1: print crisp and unyielding. She had made it her new direction,
Speaker 1: the talk of the city. I didn't know whether to
Speaker 1: feel proud, jealous, or simply absent from my former life.
Speaker 1: Back home, I sat at the workbench, reviewing the inboxes,
Speaker 1: the unanswered messages, the stale food, the echoing rooms. I wanted,
Speaker 1: more than anything, to replay the last months with a
Speaker 1: sharper eye to snatch away my own hope before it
Speaker 1: had gotten so ragged. But every memory now had scaffolding.
Speaker 1: Nothing stood alone. I found myself staring at the unsent
Speaker 1: message I'd written her, a strain of words that meant
Speaker 1: nothing and everything. Are you happy? Was any of it real?
Speaker 1: My thumb hovered above delete, pause, send. Instead, I moved
Speaker 1: to the wall, took down our last joint project, an
Speaker 1: abstract tangle hun over the couch, painted in winter light.
Speaker 1: I held it in my hands, the weight both familiar
Speaker 1: and final, then propped it in the closet, out of
Speaker 1: sight at last. I deleted the unsent message, flicked off
Speaker 1: the apartment lights, and closed the studio door. Then the
Speaker 1: hush returned, vast and sure as an emptied page. Only
Speaker 1: the faint trace of turpentine and lavender marked where our
Speaker 1: history had lived moments before. The hush felt stripped of
Speaker 1: possibility now, not so much a blank canvas as a
Speaker 1: wall scrub bear. I wandered the apartment, passing doors that
Speaker 1: stayed open while initiative closed, letting the edges of the
Speaker 1: aftershock carry me to stale places our tiny dining alcove,
Speaker 1: the bathroom with her hairbrush still tangled in the drawer,
Speaker 1: the closet with a single dress out of place. I
Speaker 1: avoided our studio, where her absence lingered in a different register,
Speaker 1: and tried to focus on the ordinary, water for the cat.
Speaker 1: rinsing a mug, replying to work email and clip phrases.
Speaker 1: Everything took double the effort. The air was different, sticky
Speaker 1: and slow, weighed down by loss in a kind of
Speaker 1: desperate clarity. First full day alone, I tried to hold
Speaker 1: the pattern of domesticity, but Nina's trace has cropped up everywhere.
Speaker 1: Her slip is tucked under the radiator, the half-empty bottle
Speaker 1: of linseed oil crouched by my own paints, a citrus
Speaker 1: candle warped on the window so useless now but too
Speaker 1: evocative to discard. Without warning, the apartment would lurch with
Speaker 1: her memory, the slap of water against her brushes, a
Speaker 1: devious laugh echoing off the tile. I missed, disproportionately, her
Speaker 1: aggravating little rituals, how she'd sing off-key while sorting the recycling,
Speaker 1: dangle questions into the air at midnight, lay out her
Speaker 1: day's batch of half-solved problems while I chart vegetables for dinner.
Speaker 1: In her absence, the leftover spaces in our life glared
Speaker 1: at me, challenging my fantasy that I was the steady one,
Speaker 1: immune to collapse. The city outside spun on, oblivious trash
Speaker 1: trucks groaned before dawn, bosses hissed late arrivals, gallery announcements
Speaker 1: stacked into my inbox with her name gleaming among the notables.
Speaker 1: Rumors in our circle multiplied, I caught pieces drifting in
Speaker 1: from group chats, mutual acquaintances, awkward attempts at empathy. Let's
Speaker 1: grab a drink, Kenzie texted. Or just sit, you don't
Speaker 1: have to talk. I knew some friends were protective of
Speaker 1: Nina others quietly on my side, or simply drifting, unwilling
Speaker 1: to take stock. I was surprised at how little I
Speaker 1: cared about their calculations. There are still practical things to
Speaker 1: address Nina's plans already drooping, bills that wouldn't split themselves,
Speaker 1: supplies needed for next week's mural project. The partnership was
Speaker 1: broken but the corpse of logistics lingered on. Work offered
Speaker 1: a brief shield, yet my mind revolted, spinning back and
Speaker 1: forth between numb activity and jags of restless anger. I
Speaker 1: caught myself digging through old emails, searching for clues did
Speaker 1: the tone shift three months ago, six. Was there any
Speaker 1: note in her messages that had signaled what would come?
Speaker 1: My own pattern has disgusted me, but I kept looking,
Speaker 1: unsure what I was hoping to find, a warning, an excuse,
Speaker 1: and a poison goodbye. On the second day, Sarah texted polite, formal,
Speaker 1: Nina settling in. She says she's grateful for your understanding.
Speaker 1: Please let me know if you need anything picked up.
Speaker 1: The detachment's done in a specific, surgical way. Nina's voice,
Speaker 1: so recently bound to mine in late-night jokes and combative tenderness,
Speaker 1: had been delegated to proxy in less than 48 hours.
Speaker 1: At night, I sat in the living room's blue shadow,
Speaker 1: the ambient city glow perking through blinds, and scrolled absently
Speaker 1: across a page of pending projects. We used to compare
Speaker 1: notes at this hour, each of us sifting through minor
Speaker 1: disasters until one or both of us surrendered to sleep.
Speaker 1: Now the quiet spun itself upward, gathering context as threads anger, regret,
Speaker 1: moments of rummaging into something blunter and harder. I called
Speaker 1: my mother out of habit, almost for advice and tried
Speaker 1: to sound fine. Parents, as a rule, ask about fault
Speaker 1: and outcome. She surprised me by only listening, murmuring, whatever
Speaker 1: is true now, well, it doesn't have to be true forever.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if it was comfort or simply the
Speaker 1: only gentle thing left to say. While I stubbed through
Speaker 1: my week, the art world continued its slow churn. A
Speaker 1: group show I'd signed onto Montségur sent a press request
Speaker 1: with a chipper question about my collaborative approach. Part of
Speaker 1: me wanted to withdraw entirely, another part ashamed, kept up appearances,
Speaker 1: replying with the minimal effort required not to be forgotten.
Speaker 1: Some afternoons I found myself walking past familiar haunts coffee shops,
Speaker 1: thrift stores, aisles where we'd hunted reference textures for years,
Speaker 1: dodging reminders that all those places now contained a version
Speaker 1: of us that no longer existed. I pictured Nina in
Speaker 1: Sarah's living room, sketching furiously, or maybe out with Daniel,
Speaker 1: whittling down the new work, already assembling the next chapter
Speaker 1: as I limped through the prologue of claps. Three days
Speaker 1: after Nina left, a package arrived for her courier tube
Speaker 1: of specialty canvas she'd ordered last week. For a moment,
Speaker 1: I considered texting, updating her, rehearsing the civility we'd sworn
Speaker 1: to maintain even in retreat. I set the tube by
Speaker 1: the door instead, unmessaged, unsure whether to offer anything, afraid
Speaker 1: any new thread might become an inadvertent suture. I wanted
Speaker 1: to hate her, or at least pity myself, but what
Speaker 1: arrived was far more shapeless, an emptiness that clung and
Speaker 1: a relief too raw to indulge. The nights bled together,
Speaker 1: all sensation flattened by exhaustion. Sometimes I found myself narrating
Speaker 1: conversations in my head that I might throw at Daniel
Speaker 1: in a bar, sharp monologues she'd counter, impossible arguments that,
Speaker 1: even in fantasy, never seemed to end well for any
Speaker 1: of us. I supposed, with a bitter edge, that the
Speaker 1: difference between a confrontation and an ending is mostly the
Speaker 1: silence that follows. Day forward, the city pressed on, relentless
Speaker 1: and uninvested. News of Nina's calorie success spread quickly to
Speaker 1: photos of her T-bones, catchlet, eyes unguarded, making the rounds online.
Speaker 1: Critics gushing about her new collection's unprecedented ferocity and vulnerability.
Speaker 1: I tried not to look but found myself hanging on
Speaker 1: every pixel, passing for signs of joy for the cost
Speaker 1: of what she'd chosen. I did not contact her. Instead,
Speaker 1: I picked up projects we'd set aside for months, forced
Speaker 1: myself to inventory materials, draft invoices, pay the electric bill.
Speaker 1: At intervals, I'd look up and find some mislaid fragment
Speaker 1: of our years together, a library book, a pair of
Speaker 1: mismatched socks, a monk with her chipped band logo sitting
Speaker 1: in the open, unclaimed. With mechanical coldness, I collected them,
Speaker 1: silently cataloguing which parts of her life she'd left behind
Speaker 1: and wondering whether she'd done so as a signal or
Speaker 1: through carelessness. Meanwhile, the collective churned forward. Mutual friends relayed tidbits,
Speaker 1: Daniel's latest piece almost finished, Nina leading critiques, our fundaries
Speaker 1: are rumoured for early fall. Gossip thickened as some claimed
Speaker 1: I'd driven her away with jealousy, others invented stories about
Speaker 1: Daniel as a homewrecker. At openings, I caught people watching me,
Speaker 1: some with gentle commiseration, others furtive with curiosity. I fielded
Speaker 1: it all with small nods, never offering a clear narrative,
Speaker 1: unwilling to be either victim or villain. A week after
Speaker 1: her departure, I finally answered Kenzie's message just a simple,
Speaker 1: let's meet at Tremont. We sat at the bar, a
Speaker 1: safe remove from our old booth. She bought the first drink,
Speaker 1: not pressing, just rolling her ice in the glass while
Speaker 1: the city thumped along outside. After half an hour of
Speaker 1: talking around everything at work, mortgage rates, the relative merits
Speaker 1: of acrylic versus oil, she looked up and fixed me
Speaker 1: with a steady gaze. She called, you know, said not
Speaker 1: to blame you, said she'd done something, she can't walk back.
Speaker 1: I said the right, steady in my voice. Do you?
Speaker 1: I asked. Kenzie shrugged. I think she did what she needed.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean it had to happen this way. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're waiting for me to make her wrong or you're right,
Speaker 1: I won't. I just want you to know you're not invisible.
Speaker 1: The remark landed, a relief I hadn't expected. We talked
Speaker 1: a while longer about the shifting sands of circles and alliances,
Speaker 1: the silent fallout that dogged partnerships with both names hung
Speaker 1: on gallery walls. She joked, gently, that whoever got custody
Speaker 1: of Sable was the real winner in all this. By
Speaker 1: the time I walked home, the air had changed heavier,
Speaker 1: or perhaps only less hopeful. I felt myself receding into
Speaker 1: the background of my life, uncertain if this was grief-settling
Speaker 1: or just the new shape of solitude. That night, as
Speaker 1: I closed out leftover emails, a message from Nina appeared short, cautious. Hi,
Speaker 1: is it alright if I come get a few things tomorrow?
Speaker 1: Let me know when works. The tone was clinical, careful
Speaker 1: to leave no emotional handholds. I stared at the screen,
Speaker 1: the cursor blinking like a dull clock, and resisted the
Speaker 1: urge to launch into a catalogue of feeling. Instead, I typed,
Speaker 1: tomorrow afternoon is fine, I'll be in the studio. She replied, thanks,
Speaker 1: and nothing more. I wanted to believe that meant she
Speaker 1: was hurting too, but the truth-out-truth was probably more complicated.
Speaker 1: The next afternoon, I left the canvas tube and a
Speaker 1: tidy stack of her things by the door. I swept
Speaker 1: our shared spaces, unsure whether I wanted to catch her
Speaker 1: in the act of moving out or to avoid her altogether.
Speaker 1: In the end, I retreated to the studio, headphones on,
Speaker 1: pretending to work, ears pricked with a shuffle and metallic
Speaker 1: thunk of her key in the lock. When it came,
Speaker 1: I sat paralyzed, listening to her movements. She was quick, deliberate, efficient,
Speaker 1: no pauses heavy enough for regret, no searching for lost artifacts.
Speaker 1: I heard her open a cupboard, then the closet, footsteps
Speaker 1: balanced and quiet. There was a brief clatter as she
Speaker 1: gathered her brushes, the zip of her favorite supply case,
Speaker 1: the slow exhale released into the hollow room. Under it all,
Speaker 1: the city's loopholes carried on. The cat didn't appear. I
Speaker 1: waited and waited for the floor to creak for her
Speaker 1: to approach the studio, but she never did. After ten minutes,
Speaker 1: the door closed softly, and I was alone again, the
Speaker 1: air sliced into cleaner lines. Each day carved away more
Speaker 1: of the old scaffolding. Our shared finances were dealt with
Speaker 1: over impersonal texts. A final transfer landed in my account,
Speaker 1: her name never more than an icon on a screen.
Speaker 1: The client who called asked only about deadlines. If anyone
Speaker 1: noticed or cared that our dynamic duo had fracture, they
Speaker 1: said nothing. In a lull, I sorted through the last
Speaker 1: of our folder folders unable to erase, unwilling to display.
Speaker 1: I copied them to a drive and shoved it deep
Speaker 1: in a drawer, neither funeral nor preservation. Memories, now tools
Speaker 1: of suspension, proof once, artifact now. Nothing either of us
Speaker 1: could deploy without wounding further. One early morning, a text
Speaker 1: from Daniel appeared in the group chat. He posted a
Speaker 1: cryptic invitation to Nina's upcoming joint show, signing off with
Speaker 1: an accidental flourish that echoed how she used to tag
Speaker 1: me casual and sad jerks only we had shared. For
Speaker 1: a flare-hot moment, the urge to reply, to respond with
Speaker 1: acid or mockery, walled with the part of me that
Speaker 1: wanted to grant her this new, unencumbered start. I didn't respond.
Speaker 1: There was nothing for me there. By evening, it was
Speaker 1: muscle memory to occupy rooms she'd left stamped to fill
Speaker 1: cupboards she'd once organized to fit myself into a narrower,
Speaker 1: more private life. I learned the sound of silence is
Speaker 1: more than absence. It was, in time, a kind of honesty, unbroken, unvarnished,
Speaker 1: the inverse of all the quiet lies we told before.
Speaker 1: There were moments, in the closing weeks of summer, when
Speaker 1: I'd hear her name in a crowd or glimpse her
Speaker 1: hair out a passing cyclist, and for a split second
Speaker 1: I'd expect to know, need our old banter, some antidote
Speaker 1: to mourning that was so specifically our own. But then
Speaker 1: the feeling would slip, replaced by a colder, cleaner understanding.
Speaker 1: No one was coming home. Our partnership, unmoved by decision
Speaker 1: and by deed, was finished unfinished in the way only
Speaker 1: real endings are. I let myself feel all of it
Speaker 1: now anger, longing, pride in her, a flash of derision
Speaker 1: for my own naivete, a sick ache for everything that
Speaker 1: would not be recaptured or even truly explained. The gallery
Speaker 1: post with his smiling, her email thread full of exuberance,
Speaker 1: the knowing glances from mutual friends all of it stung,
Speaker 1: but not as much as recognizing my own face in
Speaker 1: the mirror was changing, leaner, harder, not quite resigned but
Speaker 1: somewhere beyond hope. In the early hours, When city noise ebbed,
Speaker 1: I'd walked to our old fire escape, mug in hand,
Speaker 1: breathing in the chill and searching the windows across chambers
Speaker 1: for any flicker of life that resembled what we'd once built.
Speaker 1: I didn't find it. A week later, the joint lease expired,
Speaker 1: we agreed by text to each sign away claims to
Speaker 1: the apartment at the year's end, neither wishing to hover
Speaker 1: in the stale air. I took only what was strictly mine,
Speaker 1: leaving the detritus of collaboration a ladder with her paint
Speaker 1: still marking the rungs the battered dropcourt annotated with our
Speaker 1: last round of jokes. I didn't tell her about the
Speaker 1: bulk of it, didn't ask if she wanted to say
Speaker 1: goodbye to the space. On our original anniversary, I woke
Speaker 1: remembering our tradition, the Wild River Drive, the stop for
Speaker 1: espresso in a gas station off of Minas 7, the
Speaker 1: early morning dive off the cabin's rickety dock. I found
Speaker 1: that memory shop within the present, a pang in a
Speaker 1: place that felt surgical. I let myself sit with it
Speaker 1: for a minute, then stood, opened the window, and let
Speaker 1: the humid city air in. By then, the last practicalities
Speaker 1: were all but settled. We left each other's names off
Speaker 1: forwarding addresses. She texted confirmation that the lease paperwork was filed.
Speaker 1: was nothing more of the shape of a last message
Speaker 1: formed in my mind as something simple, definitive, not a plea,
Speaker 1: not a wish, not a story. I typed it out, stared,
Speaker 1: and erased it. Instead, I took our last remaining joint project,
Speaker 1: the mural-sized sketch we'd begun the winter before, rolled onto
Speaker 1: my work table, and brought it to the alley behind
Speaker 1: the studio. I propped it against the graffiti-stained wall, took
Speaker 1: a step back, and let the city's morning light hit
Speaker 1: the lines. I stood there a long moment, tracing every brushstroke,
Speaker 1: every false start, every mark that was a wrestling match
Speaker 1: or a compromise or a joke. Then I walked away,
Speaker 1: leaving it there, not destroyed, not displayed, but surrendered, the
Speaker 1: shape of collaboration surviving only as a memory. Back in
Speaker 1: the apartment, I closed the blinds, bowed down the studio lamps,
Speaker 1: and locked the door. My phone was silent, the inbox quiet,
Speaker 1: no more requests, no further arrangements required. In the hush,
Speaker 1: I found not peace, not forgiveness, but the grain of
Speaker 1: something honest, an ending that was not clean, not cruel,
Speaker 1: just unchaired. And when I turned out the light, the
Speaker 1: room still, empty of names, empty of stories, quiet enough
Speaker 1: to begin not again, but simply forward. And that is
Speaker 1: the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see
Speaker 1: you in the next one.