Speaker 1: Rain pecked at my hold an erratic best as I
Speaker 1: walked up Franklin Avenue, a boring blue grocery bag, bruising
Speaker 1: my palm and my jacket soaked for along the scenes.
Speaker 1: By the time minion of the Irk barrel bar flickered
Speaker 1: into view, it was Thursday night, which men game night
Speaker 1: for Matt and the rest of the crew. Usually anyway,
Speaker 1: there'd be a big group hunched over settlers with something obscure,
Speaker 1: arguing about Hal's rules, while the bartender threaded between chairs
Speaker 1: with pitchers of something happy. I always liked watching through
Speaker 1: the window, seeing Matt's head bent next to kas on myes,
Speaker 1: hands folded in that deliberate where he had to careful
Speaker 1: with game pieces, careful with everything. To night, I paused
Speaker 1: outside on the sidewalk. The glass was streaky, with rain
Speaker 1: blurring the inside into patches of warm yellow and shifting shadows,
Speaker 1: but I could make out a closter near of the
Speaker 1: tavern's back wall. Someone I squinted was adjustin laugh if
Speaker 1: the head thrown back, and for half second the condensation
Speaker 1: cleared enough for me to spot Matt, unmistakable in his
Speaker 1: thrift store navy's sweater. I thought about waving just out
Speaker 1: of habit. But my phone chirupt as I fished out
Speaker 1: a message from Matt, probably sent half an hour ago,
Speaker 1: just the guys to night, don't wag up, love you.
Speaker 1: I stayed at the text, weigh it. The word felt gentle,
Speaker 1: intentionally and intrusive, like the conversational equivalent of a do
Speaker 1: not disturb sign hung on a hotel knob. It was
Speaker 1: the third time in the last month he'd said something
Speaker 1: like that, always with a soft edge, never at a man,
Speaker 1: but a nudge, like a little invisible barrier. I looked
Speaker 1: back at the window. Cats and tiles glowed on the
Speaker 1: table top, the colors running into each other behind glass,
Speaker 1: the urge to slip inside, just for a minute, to
Speaker 1: say hi, to remind the room I still existed, and
Speaker 1: it fluttered up, fainted and a little embarrassing. I shifted
Speaker 1: the groceries against my thigh. It would be weird, I
Speaker 1: told myself. I was close to all of them, but
Speaker 1: Matt had been oddly insistent lately. I pictured myself dripping
Speaker 1: by the hostess stand, trying to spot familiar faces, as
Speaker 1: someone shuffled over to tell me a little too quietly
Speaker 1: that to night was just the crew. The rain darted
Speaker 1: under my collar. I pulled my jacket clothes and turned away.
Speaker 1: That's when I noticed my Ron just In, coming up
Speaker 1: the street from the opposite direction, arms wrapped around each other,
Speaker 1: their gatesload. As they approached, my smile flickered on too bright,
Speaker 1: and Justin pushed his glasses up, nearly dropping the takeout
Speaker 1: back he carried Hey erin Maya's voice carried over the
Speaker 1: slush of passing cars. Out late, I argue, I smiled,
Speaker 1: tucking my damp hair behind my ear, just picking up
Speaker 1: some stuff from the market. You guys heading out. Justin's
Speaker 1: response was delayed enough to sand off. Yeah, hay yah.
Speaker 1: Early morning tomorrow, they shared a glance, not quite secretive,
Speaker 1: but not inviting me deeper either in the glow of
Speaker 1: the street light, my looked tired or maybe just colder
Speaker 1: than usual. She opened her mouth, then closed it, settling
Speaker 1: for a quick we should do brunch. Soon before they
Speaker 1: hurried past, choe squelching on the wet concrete. I stood
Speaker 1: for a moment, groceries, getting heavier, feeling a wid sense
Speaker 1: of being stuck outside a bubble I used to be
Speaker 1: inside by default. I shook it off. Maybe they were
Speaker 1: just tired, but the echo of their glances clung to
Speaker 1: me as I walked the last block home, jacket damp
Speaker 1: and city lights, skating across puddles. The elevator up to
Speaker 1: our floe was ancient and slow, humming to itself as
Speaker 1: I leaned against the mirror wall. Our building was one
Speaker 1: of those redunwarehouse LOFs, exposed brick squeaky floors, cheap ran
Speaker 1: back when we signed, now prized, fined. I unlocked the
Speaker 1: door and was met by a tangle of cats at
Speaker 1: my feet, the tom smacking at the grocery bag, and
Speaker 1: the smaller one winding herself between my ankles. I collapsed
Speaker 1: a bag on the kitchen table and loaded out milk
Speaker 1: and rawmen and over price berries. For a minute, the
Speaker 1: apartment felt smaller than usual. My reflection pulsed in the
Speaker 1: microwaved door, a little more tired maybe, but mostly just
Speaker 1: wet and hungry. The rain battered the windows. I turned
Speaker 1: on the Playliss. Matt and I had been building for months,
Speaker 1: something upbeat, just to light in the evening. I'd see
Speaker 1: him later. I told myself, this was nothing, just a night,
Speaker 1: just a little in planid distance. But as the cats
Speaker 1: dashed under fruit and passed a boiled on the stove,
Speaker 1: the edges of that feeling lingered, like I glimpsed the
Speaker 1: theater sat that was supposed to be home, and for
Speaker 1: a second saw the seams at the back were only
Speaker 1: the actors ever walked. Matt and I first met in college,
Speaker 1: him hunched over a battered think pad at a coffee
Speaker 1: shop where I spent half my sophomore year designing logos
Speaker 1: for a campus non profit. I had watched him for weeks.
Speaker 1: A blow of hoodies and loose leaf cold notes I broke,
Speaker 1: piercing I found oddly endearing. We kept sharing the same
Speaker 1: table by accident, which became intentional by the time midterms
Speaker 1: rolled around. He liked to Joko taught him to survive
Speaker 1: on coffee, sharp pastries. He taught me python and how
Speaker 1: to clean a French bress. We started slower study date here,
Speaker 1: a casual drink there, than aught. Once it became real,
Speaker 1: I moved into his off campus out of apartment during
Speaker 1: that month when the firdest cap breaking. I remember how
Speaker 1: it felt waking up to Matt making pancakes with you
Speaker 1: Tube Jazon talking about fictional creatures or sci fi scenarios
Speaker 1: as if they were our future. He'd hand me a
Speaker 1: steaming mug. I still saw off from sleep, already deep,
Speaker 1: and thought about who we could become. Were married at
Speaker 1: twenty four in a city garden, ring by friends and
Speaker 1: a smartering of distant relatives. Downtown felt huge back then,
Speaker 1: a place we could get lost in. More important, they
Speaker 1: build something together. The apartment was ours, a cat's were our,
Speaker 1: as the Sunday farmer's market in late night talker runs
Speaker 1: and open mic nights that bled into slow mornings. While
Speaker 1: love forming a mesh of routines that felt unbreakable. There
Speaker 1: was a triviuteine that cycled in and out theme movie nights,
Speaker 1: the furry of new adult joy you only recognize in hindsight.
Speaker 1: We started grouping our friends as age chosen family. Matt
Speaker 1: was the steady corps, always quietly solving for the best
Speaker 1: route home or the right takeout order. He was analytical
Speaker 1: but present, sometimes reserved in crowds, but open with me.
Speaker 1: He had a habit of holding my hand under the table,
Speaker 1: as if reassuring himself I was still there. I was
Speaker 1: the highlighter to his mechanical pencil, noisey, social, prone to
Speaker 1: last minute plans. When I changed jobs last year, jumping
Speaker 1: from a batique design agency to an enhance role at
Speaker 1: the lifestyle brand, it was partly for stability, partly to
Speaker 1: stave off burnout. But the work proved uninspiring and my
Speaker 1: creative dry flagged. Meanwhile, Mas's job at the software startup
Speaker 1: got more demanding, more siloed. Sometimes we landed at drastically
Speaker 1: different energies. We didn't talk about not having kids, not really.
Speaker 1: We'd each lost parents too young and felt wordily superstitious
Speaker 1: about legacy. Our friends filled the space. Meyer and justin
Speaker 1: together since forever, gentle and protective Francesca Razor's shop, who
Speaker 1: once told me she secretly envied my confidence. Kyle, smart
Speaker 1: and rowdy, with a tongue too big for his mouth,
Speaker 1: mirror thoughtful, observant, sometimes reading us stories at parties, game
Speaker 1: night at myer's rooftop, Picnics grew karaoke at bars with
Speaker 1: sticky floors. Our try more consistent than any blood family.
Speaker 1: There was comfort in all of it. I loved coming
Speaker 1: home to Matt running our playlist in the background while
Speaker 1: debating new show pilots or which restaurant had the best
Speaker 1: veggie burger. The cat sprawled everywhere, knocking overboard game boxes.
Speaker 1: Even our bickering was safe about the right way to
Speaker 1: load the dishwasher, or whether pudding ketch upon eggs was
Speaker 1: horrifying or just efficient. Our texts were steady trade to
Speaker 1: silly means, snippets of overheard conversations, secret packs about Coli
Speaker 1: and sick necks, Rainy Friday, just to walk along the river. Lately,
Speaker 1: though I'd felt just a little outside myself, less inspired
Speaker 1: at work, more dependent on the next group event to
Speaker 1: fill the mental quiet. Matt responded by turning inward, throwing
Speaker 1: himself deeper into the endless demands of his code base,
Speaker 1: and when that wasn't enough, escaping to his game nights.
Speaker 1: That was always the thing with Matt. He needed routines,
Speaker 1: escape vowels. I always admired that he was a foundation
Speaker 1: for everyone. If I handled the social glue, Matt handled
Speaker 1: the structure of the calendar, the low level logistics. Nobody
Speaker 1: else saw respected my wild energy, and I respected his patience,
Speaker 1: at least I thought I did. Sometimes, when I let
Speaker 1: myself be self conscious, I wondered if I loved all
Speaker 1: of him of just the security blanket he gave me.
Speaker 1: I'd never have said that out loud. Until recently, any
Speaker 1: gap between us felt temporary, like a face to write out.
Speaker 1: But as I saw it, with my bowl of pasta
Speaker 1: scrolling a timeline now littered with other people's vacation photos,
Speaker 1: I wondered if that was still the case. A week
Speaker 1: after that rainy Thursday night, Matt asked if he could
Speaker 1: do game night just with the crew again. We were
Speaker 1: making dinner pad Thai kits as favorite when he mentioned it,
Speaker 1: of hand, not quite meeting my eyes. It's just been
Speaker 1: a lot at work, he said, stirring needles with a
Speaker 1: little too much force. Sometimes it's nice to have the guys,
Speaker 1: you know. I nodded, masking a flicker of confusion. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it, he glanced up, registering something in my tone.
Speaker 1: You're cool with this, right? The questions done in a
Speaker 1: way shouldn't have I'd never thought twice about drifting and
Speaker 1: were out of game nights. Everyone welcomed me often, the
Speaker 1: crew insisted I show up so it wasn't a total
Speaker 1: sausage fest. I forced a laugh. He sounded like your
Speaker 1: pre clearing a night out with your parole officer. It's fine,
Speaker 1: go decompress, he smiled a little too, even a little
Speaker 1: two rehearsed. After dinner, while Matt loaded the dishwasher. I
Speaker 1: texted my to ask about her new job. She'd been
Speaker 1: promoted at the non profit something worth a little celebration,
Speaker 1: she replied, much later than usual. Her text brief, it's good,
Speaker 1: super busy though, Let's catch up soon, nomoji, no extra details.
Speaker 1: I shrugged it off. Juston had always been the more
Speaker 1: reserved one, but even he usually shared pun laden breakdowns
Speaker 1: from last week's matches, or at least griped about what
Speaker 1: drinks the bar had on tap. I text sed Justin,
Speaker 1: what you guys play last night? He answered an hour later,
Speaker 1: the usual, nothing exciting. Been a long week. How are
Speaker 1: the cats? Deflection in his tone, though maybe I was
Speaker 1: reading too much. Friday after work, I called off at
Speaker 1: home alone, low if I beats on sketch a coprinbook blank.
Speaker 1: When Matt got home, the first thing he did was
Speaker 1: set his phone on the counters greened an as he
Speaker 1: hung up his coat. That had always been a key
Speaker 1: for I need to detect for the night in the
Speaker 1: early day. Only now it looked more like he was
Speaker 1: hiding something, and when it buzzed, he snatched it up
Speaker 1: and turned away, his thumb moving fast as he tapped
Speaker 1: out a response almost too quickly. That night, as we
Speaker 1: watched a slow, beautiful mess of a movie together some
Speaker 1: arts the Indy thing May had recommended, I couldn't help
Speaker 1: but notice Matt's hands sliding to his phone again and again.
Speaker 1: Once I caught a flash of a group chat name
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize roll on Brew, but he flicked it
Speaker 1: away before I could make anything else out. You joining
Speaker 1: for brunch tomorrow, I asked idly. Matt shrugged, I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: might have to catch up on some work. I'll see
Speaker 1: how I feel. It wasn't the answer so much as
Speaker 1: the subdued finality of it. Matt, of all people, never
Speaker 1: bailed on group brunch. The next morning, coffee marked halfway
Speaker 1: to my lips, I caught a weird notification on Matt's phone.
Speaker 1: As it vibrated on the table. It looked like cold
Speaker 1: half a string of X junk, half gibberish, and wedged
Speaker 1: in the middle a hard MODI. I blinked, unsure if
Speaker 1: it was some in Jokiev with the guys but didn't
Speaker 1: have a chance to ask before Mass swept up a
Speaker 1: phone and thumb the screen off. Inside joke, he said,
Speaker 1: as the moment lagged, forcing us something. Kyle started a laugh,
Speaker 1: but it fell out of sink. Kyle and his ridiculous means,
Speaker 1: I swears Brin's half algorithm. At this point, he nodded
Speaker 1: a little too enthusiastically and said exactly. I tried not
Speaker 1: to let it get at me, but it settled behind
Speaker 1: my eyes. I messaged maya brunch this week, I have
Speaker 1: so much gossip. Let's get mimosas she replied after an hour,
Speaker 1: I'd love to, but can we rain check super behind
Speaker 1: on dead lines. I stared at the chat window, thumb
Speaker 1: hovering over the keyboard. My text to her used to
Speaker 1: be peppered with emojis, half sarcastic memes, and instantly reciprocated chaos.
Speaker 1: Now her voice was muted, distant. I resolved stop spiling
Speaker 1: a tendency it had Matt had gently teased me about
Speaker 1: real life didn't revolve around On returned brunch texts, people
Speaker 1: got busy, but at brunch that Sunday something felt off.
Speaker 1: I arrived late. The cats had knocked over mushy rack,
Speaker 1: which somehow became an epic cling up so isolated at
Speaker 1: the end of the table between Francesca and Justin, everyone
Speaker 1: was already half way through their drinks. I listened for
Speaker 1: a minute before joining, taking in the rhythm, usually joking
Speaker 1: complaints about Matt's terribled dice lockomis over caffeinated. Plans for
Speaker 1: the next crew trip filled the air to day. They
Speaker 1: were talking about a new out installation at the river front,
Speaker 1: then switched to office drum, so quickly my teeth out
Speaker 1: from the whiblash. Mayer asked about my job, but as
Speaker 1: soon as I mentioned a new project, she turned to
Speaker 1: Justin and asked about his parents house hunt. Even Francesca,
Speaker 1: usually first to needle me about my hyper organization, seemed distant,
Speaker 1: her gaze searching the tablecloth rather than my face. After
Speaker 1: five minutes, she excused herself to answer a work thing,
Speaker 1: her foe and barely vibrating before she sprinted for the entrance.
Speaker 1: I tried making a joke about our old trivia team no.
Speaker 1: One bit later. Back at home, Matt asked how's brunch
Speaker 1: and seemed genuinely surprised when I said we barely topped
Speaker 1: He kissed my forehead and returned his laptop, giving nothing away.
Speaker 1: A few nights later, I found a pile of board
Speaker 1: game re seats in the laundry, MAT's pants, emptied up
Speaker 1: for a wash, which he'd rarely done himself. They were
Speaker 1: for the oak barrel bond. That's when, as far as
Speaker 1: I knew, he'd been working late, not gaming. The receipts
Speaker 1: were always for two drinks, maybe some fries, not the
Speaker 1: swelling tabs that came from a full group game night,
Speaker 1: definitely not his usual orders. For a moment, I wondered
Speaker 1: if he was covering for someone, maybe Kyle, maybe one
Speaker 1: of the others, or did he just like quiet after
Speaker 1: work on winding alone for a drink with a friend.
Speaker 1: Curiosity naggt I led a simmer. A few days. The
Speaker 1: apartment was tense, mass cycling between hyperfocus coding and moody
Speaker 1: wanderings around a kitchen. It was a Thursday, and I
Speaker 1: picked up cookies from the bakery below my office so
Speaker 1: I could stop by game night. The sky was clear,
Speaker 1: the air finally turning from spring cold to something softer.
Speaker 1: I told myself I'd just pop in see HOI surprised
Speaker 1: the group but when I walked in, the place was
Speaker 1: nothing like the full crowd I expected. It was almost empty,
Speaker 1: only a few strangers at the bar. At a corner table,
Speaker 1: Matt and Kyle sat with a woman I didn't recognize,
Speaker 1: long darcair of sharp eyes, an easy intimate laugh. She
Speaker 1: was sitting beside Matt, gesturing with her glasses. She described
Speaker 1: something her attention fixed on him. Matt saw me as
Speaker 1: I moved toward them, cookies in hand. Instantly, colored drained
Speaker 1: from his face. Elle smile flickered, not quite reaching his eyes.
Speaker 1: Matth stood up so quickly he nearly knocked his chair back,
Speaker 1: stepping between me and the table. Erin, Hey, al, what
Speaker 1: are you doing here? He sounded more startled than pleased.
Speaker 1: I tried for lightness, thought i'd bring treats. This is
Speaker 1: just y three to night. Ah Ye, Matt said, last
Speaker 1: minute change. Everyone else bailed. Erin. This is Becca from
Speaker 1: the Meat Up Cheesaw, new to the group. Actually she
Speaker 1: was just about to head out, right, Becca, The woman smiled,
Speaker 1: smooth as silk. Yeah, I was just calling my ride.
Speaker 1: Nice to meet you. Erin, She stood quickly, collecting her bag.
Speaker 1: Cow mumbled something about meeting the others at the arcade
Speaker 1: and slid away before I could press him. Matt shepherded
Speaker 1: me to the bar, kept up a stream of explanations,
Speaker 1: but his hands were shaking as he arranged the cookies
Speaker 1: on a napkin. On the way home, he was quiet,
Speaker 1: answering questions and clipped sentences that weakened. After a game night,
Speaker 1: I noticed Matt's giggle. Kanda, once she had so weak
Speaker 1: a coordinate errands, was now private. All the events I'd
Speaker 1: known about were gone, were replaced with a lot gray grid.
Speaker 1: Sitting on couch with him Sunday afternoon, scrolling through some
Speaker 1: old photos on my phone, trips, group shots, moments from Bert.
Speaker 1: This Matt sat beside me, only half there at them,
Speaker 1: constantly scrolling his own phone. At first I figured he
Speaker 1: was chatting with Kyle about d and DL orphan next
Speaker 1: week's campaign, but there were small smiles at odd times,
Speaker 1: a kind of distraction that didn't fit with what I'd
Speaker 1: come to know was his geeking out. A few days later,
Speaker 1: I asked over the dregs of a sheer pizzer any
Speaker 1: one new coming to the group lately. That woman beck
Speaker 1: as she seemed cool. Matt's reaction was almost theatrical. Why
Speaker 1: are you suddenly asking all these questions? His jaw tensed
Speaker 1: as he set his water down too hard. I'll blink
Speaker 1: frown off. Sorry, just curious, you've been more involved with
Speaker 1: the group, That's all. He looked at me for a
Speaker 1: long time, sizing me up, as if trying to calculate
Speaker 1: the safest answer. You always get this way when you're
Speaker 1: stressed at work, I laughed, Britle, sure, blame the deadlines.
Speaker 1: The conversation fizzle. Whatever ease existed felt provisional. That night,
Speaker 1: after he'd gone to bed, I sat with my laptop,
Speaker 1: scrolling for pictures, trying to recapture that sense of belonging.
Speaker 1: Matt grunted from the be droom phone, still blowing under
Speaker 1: the blanket. The next week passed in fits and starts.
Speaker 1: Matt alternated between attentive and absent. Every small gesture announced
Speaker 1: the text A distracted smile. Alaft from the other room
Speaker 1: while he tapped out a messager took on new weight
Speaker 1: for me. At work, I snapped at my team over
Speaker 1: a missing file, instantly regretted it, and then apologized twice.
Speaker 1: I couldn't shake the feeling of being invisible. Chin the
Speaker 1: erased by degrees residue of a life i'd once been
Speaker 1: certain of. Saturday morning, an hour after Matt left for
Speaker 1: some bon ascession at the bar, I filled my coffee
Speaker 1: and started cleaning. When I lifted mass laugh up a
Speaker 1: batter gaming device he rarely used for work, and open
Speaker 1: tab flashbery. As I tried to plug it in, he
Speaker 1: googled dry folder marked meat up games corps. When I
Speaker 1: clicked it was locked, password protected. I closed the lid.
Speaker 1: That afternoon, I reached out to the group. May replied
Speaker 1: with exclamation marked apologies, blaming deadlines. J Justin muttered something
Speaker 1: about prepping for a work trip. By now I was
Speaker 1: caught in a feedback loop, running through every conversation from
Speaker 1: the past weeks, looking for evidence of exclusion or worse,
Speaker 1: conspirator oral secrecy. Maybe the group has shifted to maybe
Speaker 1: the new meet up members with their own clique, and
Speaker 1: I'd missed a moment to re establish myself. But if
Speaker 1: that was true, while all the hedging, a quick subject
Speaker 1: changes the half lies my theory adjusted. Perhaps Matt was
Speaker 1: just looking for breathing room and the friends, sensing tension,
Speaker 1: shielded him. That night, I tried laying beside Matt and
Speaker 1: asking directly, is there something wrong? He pulled his gaze
Speaker 1: from his phone. Patience thin but not yet snapped here
Speaker 1: doing the thing again. Over analyzing works just ridiculous. Lately,
Speaker 1: I'm tired. I'd rather not talk everything to death. On
Speaker 1: the one night I get to chill. Defeated, I looked away.
Speaker 1: It hurt that he saw my anxiety as an irritant,
Speaker 1: but I forced myself to believe it. The city outside
Speaker 1: was warm, apartment windows glowing in the street below. We
Speaker 1: lay side by side Matt's breathing evening. As he drifted off,
Speaker 1: I stayed awake, replaying months of conversations, hoping I was
Speaker 1: being paranoid. But paranoia, once invited, never leaves easily. I
Speaker 1: busied myself with design work, picking up extra fruelance gigs,
Speaker 1: but my heart wasn't in it. At lunch, I flicked
Speaker 1: through texts from Francesca, Mirror short in personal responses, group
Speaker 1: chat invitations dried up. Mirror always an observer wrote simply
Speaker 1: help your good Let's get coffee sometime, but even that
Speaker 1: felt tenuous, as if she was testing to see if
Speaker 1: I'd say more. A breakthrough came by accident. I remembered
Speaker 1: MAT's ole. What tablet tucked in the clauses something he
Speaker 1: only used for remote debugging on the rare occasion he
Speaker 1: couldn't access his main rig. I booted it up almost
Speaker 1: outs and mindedly, needing to email myself a copy of
Speaker 1: our lease when the landlord asked for updated contact in
Speaker 1: for As the dusty start up screen flickered on, I
Speaker 1: noticed a chrome proval locked in under Matt's name. I
Speaker 1: clicked impulsively, and for a moment almost forgot why. They
Speaker 1: saw an array of calendar locations, mostly home or work,
Speaker 1: but a few stood out. A wine bar on the
Speaker 1: other side of tan, places that never factored into our routines,
Speaker 1: all in odd overlap with Thursday nights, not the oak barrel,
Speaker 1: not anywhere near the group, but always tagged as board
Speaker 1: game corps. I snapped the tablet shut, he prickling my cheeks.
Speaker 1: I told myself it was nothing, an odd fact of
Speaker 1: his code obsessive mind, maybe a side project he hadn't
Speaker 1: told me about. That night, while Matt showered, as called
Speaker 1: through his photos, nothing out of place, Screenshots of board games,
Speaker 1: A few means from Kyle, A joke shot from justin
Speaker 1: about beer stats, no faces, no group selvies. It felt curated, sterill.
Speaker 1: I tried again, a direct approach over breakfast burritos at
Speaker 1: the cafe down the block. The place bussed with energy,
Speaker 1: sunlight cutting through the window. Matt piked at his EGS
Speaker 1: gaze a million miles away. Are you mad at me?
Speaker 1: I said, finally, unable to keep the tension from my voice.
Speaker 1: Did I do something? Matt loock startled, thensoft. He reached
Speaker 1: across the table took my hands gently between his No,
Speaker 1: of course not. I'm just work's been hard, everyone's on
Speaker 1: edge about layoffsend. Honestly, I didn't want to worry. The
Speaker 1: group's helping me decompress. That's all I know. I've been
Speaker 1: crappy at communicating. I'm sorry. His voice was low, almost broken.
Speaker 1: I wanted to believe him. I did For a while.
Speaker 1: That week, something shifted. Matt made dinner twice, texted from
Speaker 1: work to askame my day was going, suggested we try
Speaker 1: the new movie theater a few blocks over. He made
Speaker 1: it Spotify playlist and sent it to me with a
Speaker 1: dumb jerk about dinner soundtracks for stressy wives. He even
Speaker 1: called my during dinner to check on her ankle, a
Speaker 1: lingering sprain from her last pick up sock again, and
Speaker 1: handed me the phone to say hi, as if re
Speaker 1: establishing a lost ritchel. I let myself relax. Maybe I'd
Speaker 1: blown it out of proportion, projecting my own creative, rough
Speaker 1: and growing isolation on to him. Maybe work's dress was
Speaker 1: slowly passing through and our group was just reconfiguring with
Speaker 1: new faces. For a while, I had almost forgotten about
Speaker 1: Oliver until late on a Thursday, my phone bows with
Speaker 1: a Slack message from Francisca. Hey, can we talk? I
Speaker 1: think you deserve to know something if you want to
Speaker 1: call me if you're up. I stared at the screen
Speaker 1: for a minute, frozen. That's when the egg at the
Speaker 1: center of everything finally started turning to fear. I sat
Speaker 1: on the edge of the bed, Franchiska's message burning in
Speaker 1: my hand as the blue glow of my phone blared
Speaker 1: into the dog room. My mind played tricks, grafting her
Speaker 1: words over every memory from the last few months. I
Speaker 1: tied back, I'm up, Paul, if you want or we
Speaker 1: can meet to morrow. I'm miss you. No answer, not
Speaker 1: right away. I sat the phone down and sure whether
Speaker 1: to dread what she had to say, or hope for
Speaker 1: something terrifying, some way to pin the sake to facts,
Speaker 1: A crisis I could fix, even if only with apologies.
Speaker 1: In the adjacent room, I heard mass vain laugh the
Speaker 1: spill out as he settled into a disco of call.
Speaker 1: He'd been locking in almost every other night lately, and
Speaker 1: while I craved our late night conversations, or even just
Speaker 1: to lie beside him while he could it now every
Speaker 1: sound made me tense. The phone finally vibrated with the
Speaker 1: rush of an incoming call. It was Frantiscs four to
Speaker 1: one of our last rooftop parties, her clutching a bottle
Speaker 1: of rose and half cackling at Ka's Badgeerug's hey, I
Speaker 1: answered quietly, voice catching a hey. She paused, as if
Speaker 1: calibrating my mood. I wasn't sure if I should reach out,
Speaker 1: but I saw you walk past the barrel last. We
Speaker 1: looked like you wanted to come in, but but you
Speaker 1: didn't say hi. My voice came out smaller than I intended.
Speaker 1: She let that an I didn't know how to say guard.
Speaker 1: This sucks because it's not my place, but you should
Speaker 1: know if you want to. I saw something a while back,
Speaker 1: and it's eating at me. I hate feeling like I'm
Speaker 1: lying to you. I not formed in my chest. You
Speaker 1: mean about Matt, I asked, All prudence gone. She inhaled sharply.
Speaker 1: Phone static filled the silence. Yeah, about Matt. Her tone
Speaker 1: was gentler than I expected, almost eternal. You tell me
Speaker 1: what you want to know, and I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: I know. Or if you'd rather not know what I said,
Speaker 1: heart pounding, say it another silence, then softly I saw
Speaker 1: him leaving the fest pocket on the south side. Not
Speaker 1: as usual with beck Att, the one from game night.
Speaker 1: They looked close. I only saw it because I was
Speaker 1: grabbing a late drink with friends from work. This wasn't
Speaker 1: the first time, Honestly, I thought maybe I should mind
Speaker 1: my own business. But he last week he at his
Speaker 1: arm round her shoulders, and it was not I don't know,
Speaker 1: not what I'd expect from him, and not what i'd expect.
Speaker 1: He'd want you to see a rush of heat. Shame, panic,
Speaker 1: humiliation rose in my cheeks. My grip tightened on the phone.
Speaker 1: You sure it was her? I managed, yeh, tall, dark hair,
Speaker 1: bright laugh that laugh. Every one here was first I
Speaker 1: saw them at the crosswalk after they looked comfortable. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: If it was nothing, I wouldn't make it your problem. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I pressed my forehead into my palm, trying not to
Speaker 1: let the tears come just yet. O K, thankye for
Speaker 1: telling me. I tried to keep my voice steady. Did
Speaker 1: you see any one else from the group once? I
Speaker 1: saw Cal the two, but he was inside by himself
Speaker 1: at the bar, just fiddling with his phone. Made me
Speaker 1: wonder if he's in on it. But maybe not just Inn.
Speaker 1: He avoids that side of tal I think Maya knows, though.
Speaker 1: She looked like she was about to say something to
Speaker 1: me at brunch last week. Then did sorry, I'm ramming. No,
Speaker 1: it' tellfault. Really, my throat felt raw. Can I ask?
Speaker 1: What should I do? She exhaled slowly. If it were me,
Speaker 1: I asked him directly, look e, you don't deserve whatever mestheesis,
Speaker 1: But if you need to talk, if you want some
Speaker 1: one to be there when you do, I'm not afraid
Speaker 1: to get in the middle. I managed a weak laugh. Thanks.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know what I want. Whatever it is,
Speaker 1: I've got your back, she paused, Do you want me
Speaker 1: to stay on the line. No, no, I'm okay right now.
Speaker 1: I just thank you, Chess. I mean it. We hung up,
Speaker 1: and I sat in the dark, reapling her words. The
Speaker 1: image of Matt's arm around beckaburned into my mind, alternately
Speaker 1: feeling surreal and all too concrete. I pictured every smile,
Speaker 1: every inside joke between them at the bar, every furtive
Speaker 1: look that might have added up to a thousand possible explanations.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was innocent, Maybe it was nothing ore, Maybe
Speaker 1: I'd been deliberately kept in the dark. I thumbed through
Speaker 1: MAT's old tablet again. This time I looked closer at
Speaker 1: the calendar history, a quiet spasm of determination taking over.
Speaker 1: The up's permissions were old, blessedly unsophisticated by his own
Speaker 1: current standards. Thursday, south side, that's Parker Friday, same location,
Speaker 1: then board game corps. I found three separate Thursdays in
Speaker 1: the past month. My hands trembled. Next came the anxiety
Speaker 1: if he was meeting Becca there, if he lied so easily,
Speaker 1: what else had I missed? How many of our friends
Speaker 1: were helping him keep the secret. I shut the tablet
Speaker 1: and patted into the kitchen. The cats, sensing my agitation,
Speaker 1: kept a nervous distance. When Matt finally came to bed,
Speaker 1: I pretended to be asleep, but ever lymph wronged alive
Speaker 1: with the pressure of what I knew and what I
Speaker 1: couldn't yet prove. In the morning, I wore my best
Speaker 1: neutral face. Matt moved through his routine's pouring coffee, feeding
Speaker 1: the cats, mulling over the day's meetings. For a moment,
Speaker 1: the domestic Ritchell almost come me. I tried to mirror
Speaker 1: his motions, watching for cracks. He looked animated, almost cheerful.
Speaker 1: I thought we could binge the peripheral this weekend if
Speaker 1: you're up for it, he said, Or do the ram
Speaker 1: in to a thing you were talking about? Sure, I said,
Speaker 1: matching his energy. Sounds fun. He leaned over, kissing my temple.
Speaker 1: I fought every impulse to flinch. I spent the rest
Speaker 1: of the morning tobbling between hope and dread. He aided
Speaker 1: to confront him. Was overwhelming at times, but I remembered
Speaker 1: Francesca's advice, ask what I want to know, keep it direct. First.
Speaker 1: I needed to see the group. I message my rawmen
Speaker 1: on me to night. I miss your face, she replied,
Speaker 1: after a pause to Night's tricky helping Justin with some
Speaker 1: work stuff. What about next week? I waited a beat.
Speaker 1: Next week is good? I hope everything's okay. A ten
Speaker 1: minute delay, yes, just busy, can't wait to catch up.
Speaker 1: I put the phone down, frustration blooming in my stomach.
Speaker 1: I thought about texting just In, but the memory of
Speaker 1: his last monoslabor respond stopped me, telling myself I needed
Speaker 1: to take some control. I left the apartment for an
Speaker 1: aimless walk. The city was in full bloom. The air
Speaker 1: vibrated of the weekend time. I went through bookstoors and
Speaker 1: coffee shops, restless energy chewing at me every group of
Speaker 1: friends I saw on Patio's, every laugh, every moment if
Speaker 1: un guarded eaves felt like a rubuke. By the time
Speaker 1: I wandered home, the sky had gone gray. Matt was
Speaker 1: in the shower. A notification blinked on his laptop, open
Speaker 1: on the counter. The urge to look was too strong
Speaker 1: to resist. I glanced over a quickly email, mostly harmless,
Speaker 1: but a chat window flashed into view wollenbrew Before I
Speaker 1: could click away, A privy caught my eye. It means
Speaker 1: something about gamed eyes. A slowly joke followed by a
Speaker 1: private message right below it from Becka, Jey next Thursday,
Speaker 1: can't wait? Maybe earlier? This time, my breath seized. Matt
Speaker 1: always claimed the group chap was open to everyone, but
Speaker 1: why did Becka message him privately through the same thread.
Speaker 1: I closed the lid with trembling fingers. The water stopped.
Speaker 1: I dumped my shoes in the closet and faint deep
Speaker 1: constant treation over a crossword. Madam irged, wrapped in a towel,
Speaker 1: running hands through dampere. Hey, yoge, I forced my eyes
Speaker 1: to folkers. Yeah, just hired too much walking? Want to
Speaker 1: order in? I could get that crazy peta you like?
Speaker 1: He smiled, but I noticed the nervous start of his
Speaker 1: gaze to the laptop, as if making sure it was undisturbed. Sure,
Speaker 1: I said, quietly. We ate in near silence. I watched
Speaker 1: him carefully, looking for anything posture, I contact, stray remarks
Speaker 1: that would explain what was really happening. At one point
Speaker 1: he reached from my hand. I let him hold it,
Speaker 1: but the feeling was muted, muffled by a hundred and
Speaker 1: spoken questions. That night, I took sign tierry in the
Speaker 1: bare bedroom, most ensibly to finish up a deadline. I
Speaker 1: lay on the guest bed, staring at the ceiling fan,
Speaker 1: listening to Matt mumble and laugh with some one on
Speaker 1: discord until late at work the next day, distraction gnawed
Speaker 1: at me. I closed tabs, reopened others, drinking coffee. By
Speaker 1: the hour, I felt brittle, poised to snap. Before noon,
Speaker 1: I found myself writing a message to Mirror, the one
Speaker 1: member of the group who'd seemed genuinely worried. I asked
Speaker 1: flat out if she felt like there was something I
Speaker 1: needed to know about Matt. She replied within minutes, I
Speaker 1: think you should talk to him. I'm not sure what's
Speaker 1: going on, but he hasn't been himselfed. I miss you.
Speaker 1: Let's have lunch my treat, I messaged back or Friday,
Speaker 1: she agreed. Later that afternoon, after another run of four
Speaker 1: small talk with my coworkers, I realized I couldn't keep
Speaker 1: cycling through doubt. I needed answers, but I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: what kind. I wanted a clean confession, a plausible excuse
Speaker 1: I could forgive, even if it was nothing. The damage
Speaker 1: was already racking up in trust in the way the
Speaker 1: group orbited around the secret. No one would spell out
Speaker 1: Thursday evening descended. Mat kissed me goodbye on his way out,
Speaker 1: saying lake came to night, don't wait up, love you.
Speaker 1: The words were almost mechanical, as if he'd been rehearsing
Speaker 1: for weeks. I waited until the cats had curled up
Speaker 1: under the radiator, then grant Matt's old tablet again. My
Speaker 1: hands now saidy. In the browser history, I found the
Speaker 1: now familiar dress vest Parker again to night. He was
Speaker 1: supposed to be at Oat Barrel. But here was the evidence,
Speaker 1: black and white, unambiguous. I'll stung at my throat. I
Speaker 1: paced the living room, clutching my phone. What was the
Speaker 1: worst that could happen? If I went there just to see?
Speaker 1: I hesitated for a long time. If I went and
Speaker 1: it was nothing, I'd be the jealous wife, paranoid and
Speaker 1: self sabotaging. If Francesca was right, if I saw what
Speaker 1: I feared, I'd never be able to convince myself otherwise
Speaker 1: my skin prickled with anticipation. In the end, I didn't go.
Speaker 1: I told myself I needed more than a hunch and
Speaker 1: a haphazard calendar. If I crossed that line, I could
Speaker 1: never uncross it. Instead, I retreated to our bed and
Speaker 1: tried vainly to sleep through the clamor of my thoughts.
Speaker 1: The morning after, Matt was chip or too chipper. He
Speaker 1: made a show of brewing fresh coffee, frying eggs, and
Speaker 1: coconut oil. Feel like hitting the flea market Saturday. He asked,
Speaker 1: if trying to plant us both back into a version
Speaker 1: of our life that had never really existed. I kept
Speaker 1: everything light, agreeing, laughing at the right spots, but inside
Speaker 1: I made a list of receipts, messages, calendar pins, details
Speaker 1: from Francesca. The liss stept growing until it felt like
Speaker 1: a wall. Lunch with mirror was awkward. She looked hired
Speaker 1: Gilditch in the lines around her eyes. We ate rawmen
Speaker 1: in a sweaty little shop by the station. It's everything
Speaker 1: okay between you and Matt, she finally asked, pushing needles
Speaker 1: around with her chopsticks. I don't want to meddle, but
Speaker 1: he hasn't seemed like himself. I let the silence grow.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. He's been distant, secretive. I feel
Speaker 1: like everyone knows something I don't. I promise it's not
Speaker 1: about you, err And she said gently. Sometimes people just
Speaker 1: I don't know, lose track of themselves, fall out step.
Speaker 1: I think he wants to talk to you, but he
Speaker 1: doesn't know how. I all must snapped at that. Talk
Speaker 1: to me about what, but held back. Mayre's tone told
Speaker 1: me she was trying to help, not hide. When I
Speaker 1: got home that night, I found Matt sitting on the
Speaker 1: sofa scrolling on his phone, laughing. He looked up, Hey,
Speaker 1: you're home early. Want to order Chinese? I nodded, Sure,
Speaker 1: sounds good. I wanted to test how far I could
Speaker 1: push before his patient's frayed. After dinner, I sat on
Speaker 1: the couch folding laundry as he watched to Let's Play
Speaker 1: on you Tube, chuckling at inside jokes. His phone buzzed.
Speaker 1: He turned over, face down, maybe not even realizing the
Speaker 1: new reflex. Finally, I couldn't contain myself. Matt, do you
Speaker 1: want to tell me what's really going on? I asked quietly.
Speaker 1: He looks startled, then defensive. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Game night? The schedule, your friends, You've changed, the messages,
Speaker 1: the calendar of the part where I'm the last to
Speaker 1: know everything. My voice shook, he defated, rubbing his hands
Speaker 1: over his face. I told you it's just stress, thy
Speaker 1: works of chiccho. The group helps me on mine, and
Speaker 1: I thought it had helped not to involve you in
Speaker 1: all the drama, that's all. He looks so genuine, so worried.
Speaker 1: I almost apologized for praying, but alarm bells clanned, and
Speaker 1: my mind wouldn't let go of Becca the wine Baugh,
Speaker 1: his secret smiles, Francesca's voice in the dock o K,
Speaker 1: I said, softly, if that's what it is. He seemed
Speaker 1: to relax just a fraction. That night, as he slept
Speaker 1: beside me. A text of Francesca the everything you'd told me.
Speaker 1: Do you have date? Did you see any one else?
Speaker 1: Any photos? I almost hated myself for asking for proof.
Speaker 1: How much more confirmation did I need? She replied in
Speaker 1: the morning. I don't have photos, but here's the date
Speaker 1: I saw them, last Thursday, ten fifteen p m. I
Speaker 1: can get you more if you want. Desperation burned in
Speaker 1: my veins. In a moment of madness, I scrolled back
Speaker 1: through Matt's browsing history, piecing together each suspicious time stamp.
Speaker 1: The evidence formed a lot as too regular to be accidental,
Speaker 1: too secretive to ignore. The group chat too started to
Speaker 1: make more sense, the half jokes, the odd deflections, the
Speaker 1: sudden withdrawal of almost everyone from my orbit. The conspiracy
Speaker 1: wasn't in outrait lies. It was in what wasn't said,
Speaker 1: a shared willingness to close ranks and pretend nothing was wrong.
Speaker 1: Saturday morning, Matney plans to meet with the crew again.
Speaker 1: I asked if I could come. He hesitated, We're probably
Speaker 1: just going to No Doubt for a couple hours. Nothing exciting.
Speaker 1: I miss everyone, I said, quietly. It's like him persona
Speaker 1: non grotta these days. He laughed, a little brittle. It's
Speaker 1: not like that. I just I like having space sometimes,
Speaker 1: I know. I looked him in the eye, daring him
Speaker 1: to blink. If you want me there, invite me. If
Speaker 1: you don't, just say so. He avoided my gaze, heading
Speaker 1: for the door. Next time, he said non committal. The truth,
Speaker 1: when it finally snapped into place, had no dramatic revealed,
Speaker 1: just a slow, movable certainty. Matt was seeing Becker, and
Speaker 1: every excuse or gesture was scaffolding Bill to keep me out,
Speaker 1: to keep their world separate from mine. The sense of
Speaker 1: loss was title endless, a grief for something I'd believe
Speaker 1: was solid, even without photos or confession or evidence worthy
Speaker 1: of a court room, and knew less from any single
Speaker 1: fact than from the totality the architecture of secrets that
Speaker 1: had replaced my marriage. I spent the rest of the
Speaker 1: week and quietly plotting what to do with the knowledge,
Speaker 1: how to hold it without letting it crushed me. I cleaned,
Speaker 1: I drew, I listened to our playlist and tried not
Speaker 1: to hear Matt's favorite tracks as elergies for what was
Speaker 1: ending right in front of me. Sunday night, as the
Speaker 1: sun dipped below the city skyline, Matt came home early,
Speaker 1: hair tousel, a red mark I had never seen on
Speaker 1: his neck, fading in the golden light long day, he said,
Speaker 1: smiling and stepped in for a hug. I forced myself
Speaker 1: to reciprocate, thinking if this is the last time, am
Speaker 1: I suppose to remember the warm or the chill underneath it.
Speaker 1: He held on to me for a second, longer than usual,
Speaker 1: as if trying to anchor himself in the old, safe world.
Speaker 1: I let him, heart hammering. When he left for work Monday,
Speaker 1: I dialed Francesca's number. The weight of certainty was its
Speaker 1: own relief, However, sickening came. We meet after work, I asked,
Speaker 1: Mavo was tight, Of course, she said, without hesitation. The
Speaker 1: day ground passed in slow motion, a haze of meetings,
Speaker 1: e mails, accidental tears in the restroom. At five, I left,
Speaker 1: weaving through city blocks with the raw anticipation of some
Speaker 1: one about to crush through a pane of glass. Francesca
Speaker 1: was waiting in the corner brooth of a dark cafe,
Speaker 1: hands wrapped around a chipmunk. She stood as I entered,
Speaker 1: the warriish in every line of her face. I'm sorry, Eve,
Speaker 1: she said quietly. I really am. I didn't cry, I
Speaker 1: didn't yell. We talked and code measured doses of truth.
Speaker 1: She told me what she seen, how Mad and Becket
Speaker 1: always left together, how the group had started making excuses
Speaker 1: for him, how my his guilt was eating her alive.
Speaker 1: Had none of them knew how to tell me, and
Speaker 1: so instead they all fell silent, hoping I wouldn't notice.
Speaker 1: I thanked her. We hugged tightly, the relief of finally
Speaker 1: naming things draining me to the bone. After Freranchisca left,
Speaker 1: I bought a strong cup of coffee, sat by a
Speaker 1: rain streaked window and watched the city hurry by. So
Speaker 1: much of my world was about to change. I took
Speaker 1: a deep breath in open Matt's old worked tablet, this
Speaker 1: time of purpose. I started compiling locations, chap previews, receipt
Speaker 1: stashing pockets. I found a folder of Screon shuts, nestled
Speaker 1: among a mezophile's jokes, means and accidental capture of a
Speaker 1: private exchange, buried between plants for a meet up game night,
Speaker 1: and snippets a flirt he bound to. I saw it
Speaker 1: can't wait for this weekend, just us from Becha and
Speaker 1: MAT's reply, I wish you didn't have to leave sous
Speaker 1: In last time, I took pictures of what I needed,
Speaker 1: save what mattered. I finally understood it wasn't single eye,
Speaker 1: but a stack of them, wrapped in half. Truce passed
Speaker 1: from mutual friend's lips to nowhere. I sat for a while,
Speaker 1: just me and the hum of the city, letting the
Speaker 1: final pieces settle. I was tied, but no longer afraid.
Speaker 1: Mac came home late, face weary, but eyes oddly and troubled.
Speaker 1: Game night run long Coll's brutal at Caxon bet he is,
Speaker 1: I said, and for the first time, I was the
Speaker 1: one withholding something. He kissed my head and went to shower.
Speaker 1: That night, I started drawing again, nothing complex, just loose
Speaker 1: lines across a blank page. I let the silence expand,
Speaker 1: making room for the ache inside me, shaping it into
Speaker 1: something small enough to carry. One final time. The last
Speaker 1: thing I did before bed was set everything receipts, screen shots,
Speaker 1: one damning chat window side my pillow, as if the
Speaker 1: waight of proof could serve as ballast through the coming storm.
Speaker 1: And then, for the first time in weeks, I slept.
Speaker 1: Matt was up before me, his side of the bed,
Speaker 1: cold and perfectly made as sigh needs. Leapt only lightly,
Speaker 1: if at all. I siphoned through the high windows, clinting
Speaker 1: on the digital clock that blink seven. Too too early
Speaker 1: for a Saturday, too late to pretend I could sleep
Speaker 1: through what was coming. I lay still, facing the pale
Speaker 1: streaks on the ceiling. She twisted around my ankle. The
Speaker 1: cap poured at the door, unbothered by the air of
Speaker 1: siege I carried inside me. I rose quietly, gathering the proof,
Speaker 1: screen shots, receipts, the tablet into a neat pile, as
Speaker 1: if needas could learn control my chest thudded with a
Speaker 1: muted panic, but my hands performed their work with tiny
Speaker 1: surgical precision. From the living room, I heard Matt's muffled
Speaker 1: voice on the phone, probably with one of the guys,
Speaker 1: or the line of that name. Anyway, Several times words
Speaker 1: bled through, Yeah, I no, no is final? Call you after.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell if the call was routine or desperate.
Speaker 1: I left the bedroom door open an inch, tracing his
Speaker 1: footsteps by the soft vibration of floorboards. By the time
Speaker 1: I entered the kitchen, Matt was staring into his mug,
Speaker 1: hands trumboned just enough to spill a drop on the counter.
Speaker 1: He looked up, eyes ringed with red, and mouth slack
Speaker 1: with exhaustion. Couldn't sleep, but he asked, making a brittle,
Speaker 1: attemptic casual No, I replied, dry mout gathering my arm
Speaker 1: or piece by piece, too much in my head. He nodded, gay,
Speaker 1: skating across the counter to the folder in my arms,
Speaker 1: close from last night, hung off a chair, his phone
Speaker 1: face down beside the mug. My voice inched, quiet, fixed.
Speaker 1: I need to talk before anything else happens, and we
Speaker 1: start the weekend pretending something in him recoiled at the finality.
Speaker 1: He hovered on the edge of protiss, then sat, shoulder sagging.
Speaker 1: All right, he said, let's talk. The moment stretched every
Speaker 1: second ladder, with all resentments in the clatter of truth
Speaker 1: that wanted release. The cat's plink their empty bowls. I
Speaker 1: watched him avoid my eyes, his fingers stuttering against the
Speaker 1: ceramic rim. I set the stack on the table. I
Speaker 1: know about Becca. The words cost something, but came out
Speaker 1: delivered and unreturnable. I know everything now, he blanched, mouth
Speaker 1: working for a second. He searched for a place to look,
Speaker 1: as if the right vantage point would offer an escape claws.
Speaker 1: The silence pressed. I pushed the evidence across dates times,
Speaker 1: the trail his own technology had betrayed. Franchiac saw you
Speaker 1: at Fess Parker, at the wine bar, not with Kyle,
Speaker 1: with Becca. I've seen your messages, your calendar. You locked
Speaker 1: me out, even from the fiction you insisted was real.
Speaker 1: He binched the bridge of his nose, prett rattling ere
Speaker 1: and high. But whatever shaped the protest hook, it collapsed
Speaker 1: before it could be named. The house felt suddenly too quiet,
Speaker 1: too exposed. I could hear the elevator gears in the hall,
Speaker 1: and the distant rev of traffic, reminders of something normal
Speaker 1: outside this small, private disaster. He looked at me, face
Speaker 1: crumpled in something like horror, or maybe just relief that
Speaker 1: the burden of our mission had been torn away. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, he whispered, casting the story off her shoulders
Speaker 1: and into mine. Sorry, a word so thin it could
Speaker 1: barely bear the weight it had to carry. I weeded,
Speaker 1: How long my voice was cold even to my ears?
Speaker 1: How long have you been keeping it from me? He
Speaker 1: stared at the mugus of vances might surface in the
Speaker 1: swirl of coffee. It started after last spring, he said.
Speaker 1: We met at one of Karl's other meet ups. He
Speaker 1: brought her for an extra player. We kept talking. I
Speaker 1: thought he flinched at whatd ever thought flushed behind his eyes.
Speaker 1: I thought it was nothing. Then I was unhappy. I
Speaker 1: guess he seemed so far away. I didn't mean a
Speaker 1: god erin. I never meant for it to get this far.
Speaker 1: I listened to his confession, hand unfaded wood, the grain
Speaker 1: cut with a thousand meals, a thousand mornings together. He
Speaker 1: didn't just cheat, I said, voice rising, You let our
Speaker 1: friends protect you. You wrote our life so I would
Speaker 1: never find out. He ran hands through his hair, agony
Speaker 1: cutting through his features. They didn't know everything, not all
Speaker 1: of them. They asked Maya and Justin not to mention Becca.
Speaker 1: I told them I needed space, that things were complicated.
Speaker 1: I swear to you. Caw Baireley said a word. He
Speaker 1: just brought her one time, then didn't get involved. The
Speaker 1: only one who really knew was me. Me and now ye,
Speaker 1: I laugh, a humorless sound. Don't make this about the collusion.
Speaker 1: You cut me out before you even told them to
Speaker 1: stay quiet. He shrank in his seat, gay snapping to
Speaker 1: the window. I was scared you and I god Erin.
Speaker 1: We haven't been right for a while. You know that
Speaker 1: work was hell. You breed us on me, she beck
Speaker 1: as she asked about my code stead late after meet
Speaker 1: ups listened. It was stupid, It was I don't know.
Speaker 1: He trailed off. Grief wheeled in me, raw and enormous.
Speaker 1: Did you ever intend to tell me? Or did you
Speaker 1: just think I'd stay cloalless while you coasted between lives?
Speaker 1: He didn't answer, which was answer enough. I want the truth,
Speaker 1: mat How many times? How long? What did you actually
Speaker 1: feel about hurd about me? He swallowed his knuckles blanched
Speaker 1: as he gripped the table. A few months, Thursday nights,
Speaker 1: Morseley sometimes meet ups after work. I I think I
Speaker 1: convinced myself nobody was getting hurt, that you would prefer
Speaker 1: not to know that I needed to escape. Becka made
Speaker 1: me feel seen, like everything in my life wasn't eve
Speaker 1: a code of failure. Then I'd come home to you
Speaker 1: and I'd feel guilty than ever. But I'd already started lying,
Speaker 1: so I kept going. He rubbed his eyes. But you
Speaker 1: were always Aaron, even after the worst nights, you always
Speaker 1: made room for me. I don't know why I didn't
Speaker 1: just talk to you. The weight of his regret was real,
Speaker 1: but it thought it inside me like a stone. You
Speaker 1: didn't talk to me because you like being two people,
Speaker 1: because you like the power of saying this world as
Speaker 1: mine and this world is ours, and you get neither.
Speaker 1: I had envisioned this moment rage and catharsis a scream
Speaker 1: or a plate throwne, But what happened instead was small
Speaker 1: or colder. I stood, almost as if to stop the
Speaker 1: conversation with my height. You need to leave Matt to day.
Speaker 1: I'll figure out the least and everything else later. But
Speaker 1: you're not staying here tonight. He pressed his palms to
Speaker 1: his eyes, fighting tears. Where am I supposed to go?
Speaker 1: I shrugked. I don't care. Kyle's a hotel, your office,
Speaker 1: I don't care. But you can't stay in this apartment?
Speaker 1: He nodded, broken. Can I at least get my things?
Speaker 1: Feed the cats once before I go? I thought about
Speaker 1: it for a second. I'll feed the cat's pack a
Speaker 1: back go or set up a time for the rest.
Speaker 1: He rose, unstadie. I know I don't deserve another word,
Speaker 1: but I am sorry, genuinely, not just for the affair,
Speaker 1: for turning our friends against you, for letting you feel
Speaker 1: like you were going crazy. His apology washed over me
Speaker 1: with the weight of something all spent. Don't say sorry,
Speaker 1: just go in the kitchen. Mat dutifully packed, moving with
Speaker 1: an efficiency that was almost clinical. His hands shook as
Speaker 1: he picked out clothes, his laptop, his old notebooks, a
Speaker 1: life importable fragments. I hovered near the front door, arm's cross,
Speaker 1: caught between fury and sadness so deep it nearly numbed me.
Speaker 1: The casts watched him with the puzzled patience that only
Speaker 1: animals can muster. Sensing that something important, if incomprehensible, was happening.
Speaker 1: He turned to look at me younger for a moment,
Speaker 1: and he'd ever seen before. Karen, Please tell me, did
Speaker 1: you hate me all along and only realize now? Or
Speaker 1: is to hate something new? I stared back empty. I
Speaker 1: didn't hate you, that's the problem. They trusted you. He
Speaker 1: closed his eyes, nodded, and hoisted his bag. As the
Speaker 1: doorsnick shook behind him. The apartment exhaled, no fanfare, no whale,
Speaker 1: just as shifting of pressure, as the center of our
Speaker 1: shared story eraised itself. I stood there for a long time,
Speaker 1: rooted in the quiet that followed the rescue of movement.
Speaker 1: Suspended in the air, the apartment felt huge, suddenly, a
Speaker 1: cavern of old jokes and now pointless routineans. The truth
Speaker 1: radiated backward, making sense of every side glance, all the silences,
Speaker 1: the nights I'd forced myself not to see clearly. My
Speaker 1: phone vibrated on the countertop, a message from Meya Are
Speaker 1: you okay? Mad just texted, I'm so so sorry. I
Speaker 1: wish I'd been braver. Please let me know if I
Speaker 1: can do anything. For a minute, I thought about deleting
Speaker 1: the whole friend group thread, but left it open, choosing
Speaker 1: silence instead. Francesca said a single heart emoji, no words,
Speaker 1: but that meant more. I let myself cry, not loud,
Speaker 1: not dramatic, but helplessly, a slow mourning for something that
Speaker 1: would never return. By the time the tears dried, my
Speaker 1: neck was stiff and my shirt damp at the collar.
Speaker 1: Evening drifted in slow and colorless shadows stretched across the
Speaker 1: kitchen floor where we'd spend years, burning toast and swaying
Speaker 1: too music while chopping too many onions. I walked to
Speaker 1: the living room, capt trailing numbly behind, and pressed my
Speaker 1: forehead to the cool glass of the window. As sirens
Speaker 1: that could far away. The world outside continued. Oblivious busses
Speaker 1: showed it for intersections. Lights blinked on and off. Neighbours
Speaker 1: walk dogs and children without knowledge of the tiny final apocalypse.
Speaker 1: Two floors above the Toco place, I posted a short
Speaker 1: message to our friend group chat. Hey everyone, I know
Speaker 1: about Matt and Becker. I'm not angry at any of you.
Speaker 1: I just need space for a while. Please don't reach
Speaker 1: out unless they ask. Thanks for being there when you could.
Speaker 1: Within minutes, Fred splintered, some apologies, some condolences, mostly silent,
Speaker 1: so loud it felt like a verdict. I muted the
Speaker 1: channel and plugged my phone and buried it beneath the
Speaker 1: catch cushions. I made a list on the back of
Speaker 1: an old grocery receipt. Canceled the lease renewal, see if
Speaker 1: Francisca can stay over, move the playlist off. The shared
Speaker 1: account called the Landlord Monday. Nothing urgent, all, just small
Speaker 1: reminders that life would continue, fractured but forward. Francisc arrived
Speaker 1: an hour later, a stack of takeout boxes and two
Speaker 1: bottles of red in her hands, as if she had
Speaker 1: been waiting in the wingshole along. She kicked off her shoes,
Speaker 1: breathed the mood, and didn't ask questions. We parked ourselves
Speaker 1: at the kitchen table, where Matt had confess. Now cleared
Speaker 1: and white clean. We ate quietly, food serving as buffer
Speaker 1: and comfort. Eventually she turned on my favorite playlist I
Speaker 1: was no longer just mine and watched me for the
Speaker 1: first signs of collapse. But instead of breaking, I found
Speaker 1: myself growing stiller, every sense, drawing in compact, readying itself
Speaker 1: for what was next. I let Francesca sleep in the
Speaker 1: spare room. Her only requests. Did I not feel alone
Speaker 1: for the first night. I agreed, grateful, even as I
Speaker 1: needed the silence more than company. In the hollow apartment,
Speaker 1: I moved room to room, flicking off lights, testing the
Speaker 1: edges of what I still owned. The city continued to
Speaker 1: churn below. I made tea, waited for the kettle to shriek,
Speaker 1: and listened to the whisper of water folly over leaves.
Speaker 1: I blocked Becka's number after one short, oddly formal apologetic
Speaker 1: message slid into my man read cue, I'm sorry for
Speaker 1: what happened. I never meant to hurt you. I stared
Speaker 1: at it for a moment, then despatch her cleanly, deleting
Speaker 1: everything with her name on it. Before sleep, I drafted
Speaker 1: a curt message to Matt, please co ordinate with me
Speaker 1: by text to pick up the rest of your things.
Speaker 1: I need time, don't just show up. When at last
Speaker 1: the apartment darkened, I lay on my back and bed,
Speaker 1: measuring the distance between one bread and the next, feeling
Speaker 1: for the ages of what was left. All the cat's
Speaker 1: wanted was warmth. They culled beside me. There were the
Speaker 1: misteady prisons in the unfamiliar choire. In the first hour
Speaker 1: of darkness, a part of me waited for something to
Speaker 1: crush in and new regrets, fresh evidence, one lost excuse.
Speaker 1: But all that came was a settling hush, in the
Speaker 1: realization that now, at least each feeling made sense of pain,
Speaker 1: with source a wounded shape. The next morning, the city
Speaker 1: was colored by a sharp, reluctant brightness. Sun streamed through
Speaker 1: the blinds, highlighting every destmote, every stray hair on the
Speaker 1: couch cushion. I padded to the kitchen, half waiting for
Speaker 1: mass form at the coffee press, for the sound of
Speaker 1: his laugh as he scrolled headlines. But only silence greeted me.
Speaker 1: The world, at last was only mine to move through.
Speaker 1: An hour in Francesca, marriage hair, wild faced, puffey, she
Speaker 1: bird more coffee said want me to hang out? Or
Speaker 1: should I give you space? I managed to smile, small, grateful,
Speaker 1: stay for now. I might change my mind. In an hour,
Speaker 1: we sat in companionable silence, our words thin, unnecessary. I
Speaker 1: checked my messages. Maya had sent two more taxapologies, questions,
Speaker 1: offers to talk. I turned them over and read, then
Speaker 1: sat my phone aside for later. Mid afternoon, I composed
Speaker 1: of brief email to the landlord about updating least records.
Speaker 1: I opened the shared playlist with Matt and remade a
Speaker 1: copy under my name, deleting the tracks he'd added, keeping
Speaker 1: the ones that still felt like me. It took only
Speaker 1: a few minutes, but the action was grounding, the smallest
Speaker 1: reclamation of something lost. Matt's name hovered in red text
Speaker 1: for hours until he replied, with bureaucratic precision, I'll come
Speaker 1: by on Tuesday three for the rest. I warn't come
Speaker 1: in unless you're out. I tapped out of confirmation, nothing more,
Speaker 1: no plea, no accusation. Mia left a force mail in
Speaker 1: the late afternoon, her voice shaking. I'm sorry, Eron. I
Speaker 1: should have said something. If you want to talk, I'll
Speaker 1: be here. If not, I understand. I deleted it, not
Speaker 1: in anger, but necessity to keep the data fined by
Speaker 1: what I could handle outside. A thunderstorm rolled in summer
Speaker 1: in the city, hot and ugly, though it shook the
Speaker 1: windows with a kind of clean force. I hadn't realized
Speaker 1: i'd miss. I stood on the balcony, b linking rain
Speaker 1: off my lashes, letting my skinfield scrape clean. By the
Speaker 1: sudden cold as the sky quieted. I noticed the small
Speaker 1: things Matt always handled, piling up the water bill, the
Speaker 1: RSVP to Francisca's next gallery, opening, the weird autopay notification
Speaker 1: flash on our shared email. I wrote them down, one
Speaker 1: at a time, the act of committing them to a
Speaker 1: list oddly soothing. That evening, I assembled every small item
Speaker 1: of his, the favorite hoodie, the battered headphones he never
Speaker 1: let me borrow, the pile of dice and battered board gains.
Speaker 1: I boxed them, neatly labeled with his name, tufed away
Speaker 1: in the co closet for whatever came next. Dinner with
Speaker 1: Francesco was left to hers in silence. She washed me carefully,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't meet her gaze. Each movement was deliberate, rehearse,
Speaker 1: as if I could win myself ordinary by muscle memory. Alone.
Speaker 1: Before bed, I read the old group chat out of habit,
Speaker 1: birthday wishes memes, the scaffolding a friendship that no longer
Speaker 1: made sense. I lingered on photos of parties, poorly framed
Speaker 1: but pat with faces that had once felt essential. They
Speaker 1: didn't hurt, not exactly, more like phantom pain from a
Speaker 1: missing limb, and ache that sut what connection used to live.
Speaker 1: I let the playlists run from my phoneses little speakers
Speaker 1: as I sank onto the couch, feet tucked beneath me.
Speaker 1: The cats gathered clothes and concerned with my termoil, purring
Speaker 1: as if their presence alone could edge against the sharpness
Speaker 1: of loneliness. For the first time in over a month,
Speaker 1: I did not check the time against a schedule arrival
Speaker 1: or a mapped out's story. I couldn't see. There were
Speaker 1: no more secrets to gower, no more rooms out of bounce.
Speaker 1: As the last song bled away, I stood stretched and
Speaker 1: stepped the last of mass things by the door of
Speaker 1: barrier between what had happened and what I'd allow in. Next,
Speaker 1: I returned to the empty living room and flicked off
Speaker 1: the last light, pausing for a heartbeat, feeling the hush settle,
Speaker 1: neither hurtful nor hopeless, just still outside on the street.
Speaker 1: The storm finally deadened, leaving the airwashed clean and tacky
Speaker 1: with the scent of ozon and river rod. I stood
Speaker 1: untethered in the middle of the living room, ribs tight
Speaker 1: beneath my old sleep shirts, steadying myself against the persistent
Speaker 1: low thrum of tension that hadn't eased since Matt walked out.
Speaker 1: The apartment held all our old sounds, ghosts in the pipes,
Speaker 1: the fridge's harm, the tick of the clock we picked
Speaker 1: at a thrift store in our third anniversary. If I
Speaker 1: let my mind splinter, I could almost still hear the
Speaker 1: stacatto of his keys against the ball by the door,
Speaker 1: the deep hum of his laugh when he found one
Speaker 1: of my dumb sketches tucked between instruction buckets for games
Speaker 1: I never quite learned. I wondered from room to room,
Speaker 1: adjusting pillows. I no longer had to share smoothing covers
Speaker 1: that belonged only to me. Now Francesca had l after
Speaker 1: the long hug, her voice low taxed me. If you
Speaker 1: need anything, anything, he she insisted on, leaving the last
Speaker 1: bottle of wine behind, cradled in a kitchen towel, with
Speaker 1: the sad finality of some one who knew there would
Speaker 1: be no party here for a long time. Emails and
Speaker 1: miss coles quietly stacked up on my phone as I
Speaker 1: always slipped past my manager with another project revision mirror again, Karl,
Speaker 1: single gilt ridden message to let me know if you
Speaker 1: want to yell, I deserve it, and one for my
Speaker 1: sister in the city hundreds of miles away. No one
Speaker 1: in this building or on this block could possibly know
Speaker 1: what had fractured two floors above the street. The secrecy
Speaker 1: of it all felt demented, a joke with no punch line.
Speaker 1: That night, as rain retreated from the window glass in
Speaker 1: the wall of returned to the usual city clatter, I
Speaker 1: found myself cleaning compulsively, scrubbing the stove to gleaming, wiping brushelves,
Speaker 1: vacuuming under the rug. Wearemt stray again. Token still surfaced
Speaker 1: at odd angles. I threw laundry in washed towels, started
Speaker 1: a load I'd normally leave for week ends. The apartment
Speaker 1: lost its set of old shirt sweat and cologne. Took
Speaker 1: on something rour, vinegar, detergent lemon oil. Each more taskan
Speaker 1: could me made the shape of silence more bearable. When
Speaker 1: her was a forgettable salad, I barely touched half a
Speaker 1: bagel some cheese. I poured half a glass of the
Speaker 1: wine francisco let, but let it go warm, tasting the
Speaker 1: sharpness before deciding I wasn't in the mood to be
Speaker 1: softened further beyond the walls neighbors moved through leavening routine's, laughter, clatter,
Speaker 1: actual living. For the first time in weeks, the thickness
Speaker 1: pressing it my lungs eased, not relief but simple animal exhaustion.
Speaker 1: At some point, I dragged the recycling down, passing mirror
Speaker 1: in the corridor. She paused, her hands messy with keys
Speaker 1: and mail, eyes rimed with fatigue. The erran, she said,
Speaker 1: voice hushed, Hey, I managed, almost surprised to hear my
Speaker 1: own voice. She wanted to say more, but must have
Speaker 1: seen the edge of my expression. She settled for I'm
Speaker 1: here if you want any time. I nodded, and we
Speaker 1: let the moment end. There. Her footsteps retreated, echoing off
Speaker 1: the concrete floors, and I climbed back up, feeling strangely
Speaker 1: lighter for the honest awkwardness. Back in the apartment, the
Speaker 1: cat's yawned, ocking along the spines of the couch. I
Speaker 1: swept piles of Matt's old D and D manuals into
Speaker 1: a box, still faintly smelling of dust and anis from
Speaker 1: snacks he'd much absent mindedly during long late sessions. I
Speaker 1: paused only once, running my fingers over the indented spine
Speaker 1: of one dog eared burke lading the muscle. Memory of
Speaker 1: our old routines brushed through me. Those nights we'd sit
Speaker 1: together like stangled under blankets, laughing about the arcane rules
Speaker 1: and the way Mat took everything just a notch too seriously.
Speaker 1: But the ache were smaller, now more distant, as if
Speaker 1: a corner of crief had already been cordoned off and labeled.
Speaker 1: I pressed to cover shut, firmly sealed the box and
Speaker 1: set it atop the others by the coat clauset. I
Speaker 1: finally texted frantifica simple thank you, then silence my phone
Speaker 1: for the rest of the night. I'm willing to share
Speaker 1: anything further with the world beyond these walls. I washed
Speaker 1: my face and spoiled my hair from its bun, and
Speaker 1: put on the softest Uglys pajamas I owned. One's Mat
Speaker 1: had always teased me about, claiming they looked like hospital scrubs.
Speaker 1: I lay on the bed feedle and a rush cats
Speaker 1: curled by my knees. I hadn't closed my eyes for
Speaker 1: more than a few minutes before the door buzzer startled me,
Speaker 1: sharp and insistent, harsh and quiet. My heart seized with alarm,
Speaker 1: pulsive feared the dissolved. As soon as I recognized March's
Speaker 1: ship on the security camera screen. Small hunched, clutching his
Speaker 1: over night bag as though it could shield him from
Speaker 1: what he'd set in motion. I let the buzzer ring
Speaker 1: a second time before pressing the intercom. What do you want,
Speaker 1: I asked force iron. He took a second to answer.
Speaker 1: The line crackled. I just saw I left my work
Speaker 1: badge on the hook by the door I needed for
Speaker 1: the office. I'll only be a second, I swear. I
Speaker 1: muted the speaker, considered my options. Part of me wanted
Speaker 1: to scream, to let him stand in the hole until dawn,
Speaker 1: let him feel what exclusion tasted like. What it wasn't falluntry,
Speaker 1: but practicality went out. I wrapped myself at a cardigan,
Speaker 1: checked my reflection, puffy brow eyed, honest, and went to
Speaker 1: the door with mechanical care. I cracked at three inches.
Speaker 1: Matt stood in the hallway, shadows pulling under his eyes,
Speaker 1: hair flattened by rain and sweat, mouth working like he
Speaker 1: was still rehearsing his lines. He looked diminish, even smaller
Speaker 1: than in the kitchen this morning. I handed him the
Speaker 1: badge in silence, letting the strap dangle from my finger tips.
Speaker 1: Thank you, he said, voice barely above a whisper. Don't
Speaker 1: come back like this again, Matt, I said, steady, Text
Speaker 1: me for what you need, No more surprises. He nodded,
Speaker 1: unable to meet my eyes. I'm sorry. I mean it
Speaker 1: for me or for you, I asked, and didn't wait
Speaker 1: for an answer. I closed the doors quietly as I
Speaker 1: could stand alone again. My muscles buzzed a cocktail of
Speaker 1: adrenaline and delayed rage, but it faded more quickly than
Speaker 1: I expected. The apartment finally felt truly mine, defensible, honest,
Speaker 1: ending where I decided it ended. I let the night pass, uneventfully,
Speaker 1: drifting in and out of thin sleep, dream shot through
Speaker 1: with images of rain blowed street lights, the silent brunch tables,
Speaker 1: board game covers, half impacked. At first light, I woke
Speaker 1: to the meuded city. HUM rolled over and grabbed musketch,
Speaker 1: but not for work, not for deadlines, but for myself.
Speaker 1: My hand moved slow and umberhears drawing nothing in particular
Speaker 1: at a cat's paw, an empty mug, a faint swill
Speaker 1: that looked like city lights. From above, it was the
Speaker 1: first mark I'd made in weeks that felt and filter.
Speaker 1: Nothing to prove, no one to please. The act was small,
Speaker 1: but it was exactly enough. By noon, Francesca had taxed
Speaker 1: it again, checking in my sent another apology, her words
Speaker 1: looping on the same tangle of gilt and infusion. If
Speaker 1: you ever want to talk, I miss you. I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry for everything I didn't say. I left it unread.
Speaker 1: I spent the afternoon at the window, watching the rainfall restart,
Speaker 1: city and sky blurring into a watercolor. For once, I
Speaker 1: let myself be still in the center of all these endings.
Speaker 1: No need to tidy upper pane for someone else's comfort,
Speaker 1: no performance of recovery required. Tuesday came faster than I
Speaker 1: thought possible. Matt texted to arrange the pickup cres bloodless,
Speaker 1: I gathered all his boxes by the door before lunch,
Speaker 1: swept the last of his things from the bathroom through
Speaker 1: his towel, and with the next load of laundry, out
Speaker 1: of habit. When the clock structory, I left for the cafe,
Speaker 1: cross the street, trembling but upright, unwaited until Francesca conferred
Speaker 1: vit tags that Matt had come and gone In fifteen
Speaker 1: silent minutes, I returned home to a vestibule that smelled
Speaker 1: of fresh rain. The cats wound around my ankles, searching
Speaker 1: for food. I may be just reassurance. The pile was gone.
Speaker 1: All that remained was the echo of his steps on
Speaker 1: the floor, the faint chemical residue of all cologne in
Speaker 1: the entryway. One last email from Matt hovered in my inbox,
Speaker 1: a list of digital accounts to change, a formal note
Speaker 1: about the lead. Ah, let me know if you need
Speaker 1: anything else. That I deleted before finishing. In the hours after,
Speaker 1: adrenaline gave way to something quieter and deeply unfamiliar, a
Speaker 1: clarity that was not relieved so much as the lifting
Speaker 1: of weight from a long times muscle. I moved through
Speaker 1: the apartment, opening windows to let the scent of summer
Speaker 1: rain and street dust in, letting it scrub out the
Speaker 1: last in seine corners. I opened our old playlists, still
Speaker 1: resting on my phone, and let it play while I tidied,
Speaker 1: folding nearly laundered towels, rearranging the books on the shelf.
Speaker 1: However I wanted. There was no need for negotiation, no expectation,
Speaker 1: just whatever I preferred, just the world as I chose
Speaker 1: to shape it. Now, I put away the sketchbokropoored myself
Speaker 1: a fresh glass of water, and stood for a long
Speaker 1: time at the window as the playlist's cycled to some
Speaker 1: Days seen in the song we'd first danced to in
Speaker 1: this apartment, back when the rooms were brand new, and
Speaker 1: the word forever still sparkled behind every promise. As the
Speaker 1: song faded out, I turned away from the glass, Eddy present,
Speaker 1: and walked slowly through the living room, each step quiet
Speaker 1: in the hush that followed, every surface in sound mine
Speaker 1: and only mine at last, And that is the end.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, and I will see you in
Speaker 1: the next one.