Speaker 1: I always used to mark the beginning of spring by
Speaker 1: our monthly out as brunched, the sun just warm enough
Speaker 1: to bother. Picking out one of the brighter shirts, Lina said,
Speaker 1: suited me the anticipation of old jerks, new canvasses, and
Speaker 1: flaky pastries. It was the closest thing to a calendar
Speaker 1: we used in our drifting city wandering life. On the
Speaker 1: third Sunday rain o shine, we'd show up together, like
Speaker 1: everyone expected. I'd sketch in my little black book, she
Speaker 1: fieled invitations from half the table, and we'd always leave last,
Speaker 1: winding our way back home with half coal course as
Speaker 1: we saved for midnight. That morning, the city was soaked
Speaker 1: with improbable warmth, sunlight streaming through our kitchen like someone
Speaker 1: had lifted a film off the windows. Lina was ahead
Speaker 1: of it, already up, moving briskly from the laundry basket
Speaker 1: to the sink, Jean's roll to the ankle, heron and
Speaker 1: tidy twist. Usually by then she'd be reminding me not
Speaker 1: to dawdle, poking fun at my morning painter routine. Instead,
Speaker 1: she seemed to shrink from my presents, folding a T
Speaker 1: shirt she'd hemm from me by hand last fall and
Speaker 1: moving it from one pile to the next unnecessarily. I
Speaker 1: hovered by the coffee machine, watching you coming to day.
Speaker 1: I told Terry, you might have new gossip. I expected
Speaker 1: the easy, derisive laughed from her, the one with the
Speaker 1: huff in it. She didn't look up. Maybe skip this one,
Speaker 1: she said, too bright. Honestly, Matt, it's not you've seene
Speaker 1: any more, love. I was half way through grim before
Speaker 1: I've realized, she meant it. Come on, you're the one
Speaker 1: who drags me when I get hammet. Why? She shrugged,
Speaker 1: folding another shirt. Her eyes, usually quick to find mine,
Speaker 1: stayed fixed on a distant spot just above my left shoulder.
Speaker 1: Her foam lit up beside her. She checked it, hesitated,
Speaker 1: thum something quickly. I've got this gallery client early meeting.
Speaker 1: Claudia wants me sharp. Don't wait up, Claudia doesn't dwe
Speaker 1: week ends, I said, only lightly teasing. She gave a quick,
Speaker 1: fluttery smile, then the kind of practice kiss that doesn't linger.
Speaker 1: Clients don't sleep any more. Apparently. She shoved a notebook
Speaker 1: into her bag, gathered a scarf, and was half way
Speaker 1: out the door. It all took maybe thirty seconds. But
Speaker 1: I stood there after the click of the door, the
Speaker 1: half filled much heavy in my hand. The silence felt different,
Speaker 1: not angry, silence, just expected, as if an answer should appear.
Speaker 1: Had I forgotten an argument? Had she? What was it?
Speaker 1: Something in me that I miss vestering some lint in
Speaker 1: the partnership we'd always thought was self cleaning. I drank
Speaker 1: my coffee coal, telling myself i'd laugh about it later.
Speaker 1: Maybe I would have, if the sense of being quietly
Speaker 1: pushed aside hadn't stuck turning everything else that day to
Speaker 1: have to taste. The truth is, I never used to
Speaker 1: worry much about Lena. Not like that we were two
Speaker 1: branches twisting around each other for a decade should anchor
Speaker 1: me when my unpredictable frielance life started Kreenane, I dragged
Speaker 1: her to jazz knights and lay courtage shows when the
Speaker 1: gallery scene wore her patients thin. We met when I
Speaker 1: was just a guy sketching at the back of a
Speaker 1: gallery showing off postcomic realism and she was curating her
Speaker 1: first group shore. I still remember the electric thrill of
Speaker 1: her lecture to a gaggle students pointed whitty, the rare
Speaker 1: sort of incisive that made you want her approval. She
Speaker 1: came up to me, tucked her hair behind her ear,
Speaker 1: and as if we'd met before, told me I needed
Speaker 1: to put my best piece up for an next time.
Speaker 1: If you can't stand behind it, nobody else will you know?
Speaker 1: I wanted her to see everything after that. Those first
Speaker 1: years blowed into late night walks when the city was
Speaker 1: still a mystery, each of us plotting out routes to
Speaker 1: new murals or pop up shows. We hosted pietees of
Speaker 1: fuel brainstorms in our concrete shoe box of an apartment,
Speaker 1: our kitchen table covered in paint, receipts and tangled power chords,
Speaker 1: always some once half finished beer sweating into an art book.
Speaker 1: People knew to expect us as a p same side
Speaker 1: of the gallery, always rooting for the other. The city
Speaker 1: was full of gissma and chaos. I freelanced for anyone
Speaker 1: with enough money to pay. Lena's persistence landed her the
Speaker 1: assistant direct a job at Claudia's gallery at pillow of
Speaker 1: the downtown scene. She wore confidence the way a warping stains,
Speaker 1: like it was a second skin, but wasn't free to
Speaker 1: show offer us softer edges to me, her dorky taste
Speaker 1: in midmnuts, two thousands playlists, her habit of jeweling, strange
Speaker 1: little monsters, and the margins of paperwork. What kept us
Speaker 1: going were the small things. The city walks. The monthly
Speaker 1: artist brunch arguing over his playlist was actually good background noise,
Speaker 1: easy trash talk that never stunned late night debates that
Speaker 1: ended with both of us clowning through a dance off
Speaker 1: on bread bar rugs. We take turns being the voice
Speaker 1: of reason whenever one of us hit a wall, her
Speaker 1: suthing my panic, when a commission fell through, me nudging
Speaker 1: her back to earth. When galluy politics got toxic. Even
Speaker 1: on broke weeks, we still found a way to split
Speaker 1: a bottle of wine and make a dinner out of
Speaker 1: left over cheese. Our friends joked through a one argument
Speaker 1: away from starting a co op. Lena and I could
Speaker 1: bicker without drawing blood, critique each other's were cashly, and
Speaker 1: then swought playlists two hours later. What made it work
Speaker 1: with the assumption, sometimes unconscious, that no one else really
Speaker 1: got us this way. Other couples mounted down in public
Speaker 1: or split off at parties, we'd be the ones locking
Speaker 1: eyes from across a room, sharing a private signal or
Speaker 1: inside joke. Even with our unfreelance hours and late gallery knights,
Speaker 1: it always felt like, at the core we were on
Speaker 1: the same team. That's why when Lena's restlessness first started
Speaker 1: showing at the seams, I wanted to chalk it up
Speaker 1: to a rough patch, some new exhibit, stress or secret project.
Speaker 1: We each had careers that abed and flowed, and sometimes
Speaker 1: the city felt like it only rewarded people willing to
Speaker 1: burn themselves out. But something started gnawing at me all
Speaker 1: the same, not just that word Sunday, but the days after.
Speaker 1: As our little rituals began cracking apart, she stopped sharing
Speaker 1: the messer of stories from her day, coming home with
Speaker 1: nothing but clipper caps and anoying artist new install fuss,
Speaker 1: long line for coffee, you know how it is. When
Speaker 1: she did talk, it was in short, distracted burrs, her
Speaker 1: attention half captured by her phone or half finished email.
Speaker 1: Once I caught her texting with the phone face down
Speaker 1: when I entered the room, her body tensing. She'd leave
Speaker 1: for her study under the predens of just a work crisis,
Speaker 1: even after dinner, whispering into the phone with the door
Speaker 1: crack just enough to feel closed. Lena's gallery drama had
Speaker 1: always been a soap opera. She kept me co starring
Speaker 1: in back stopping colleagues, unhinged galleries, redless buyers with oddtics.
Speaker 1: But suddenly stories dried up. If I asked about an
Speaker 1: art as she used to vent about, she'd wive me off.
Speaker 1: It's not important. You know how boring Claudie gets. More
Speaker 1: than once, she all but shut down discussion. If I
Speaker 1: mention going to an opening together, honestly, it'll be all
Speaker 1: fifteen minute networking and cheap white wine. He'd hate it, babe.
Speaker 1: Next one. Maybe it all would have been easier to
Speaker 1: swallow if her absences came of matching exhaustion. But she'd
Speaker 1: arrive home late, cheeks flushed, eyes cluttering, not the drained wirably,
Speaker 1: and I'd expect after a night of gallery teterras, she'd
Speaker 1: breathe by me Mmber that she was dying for a
Speaker 1: shower and disappear into the steam without pausing to trade
Speaker 1: the dese sketches like weird for years. Once, while she
Speaker 1: was piling up dishes in the kitchen, her phone buzzed.
Speaker 1: I checked the time. Midnight, She left it on the counter, locked,
Speaker 1: but the preview glord for a second a message from
Speaker 1: workund not Claudia's name. I checked her contacts for years
Speaker 1: out of idle curiosity, ending with half a strain of
Speaker 1: emoji's victory and a times down. But we've passed any
Speaker 1: client dinner. When she saw me glancing at the screen,
Speaker 1: Lena hustled over, palm down, smiled, just a hair too tight.
Speaker 1: Just Claudia, as she said, sends memes now when she's tipsy.
Speaker 1: Don't ask. Then she pocketed the phone like she just
Speaker 1: swiped a valuable trinket. We'd always been the couple who
Speaker 1: kept nothing locked away, not passwords, not private hangouts. But
Speaker 1: now she carried her phone with her everywhere, even into
Speaker 1: the bathroom, even to bed, keeping the screen tilted away
Speaker 1: from me. I found myself making excuses for the distance.
Speaker 1: It's a cruel thing. The more someone you love withdrawals,
Speaker 1: the more you want to take the blame yourself. I
Speaker 1: told myself, I've been working too much. Two entangled in
Speaker 1: commissions that cut into our catch time. There were weeks
Speaker 1: said barely noticed. If she got home before or after midnight,
Speaker 1: I'd start screen until my eyes crossed, then collapse in
Speaker 1: a heap. Maybe she was only keeping pace, pushing twelve
Speaker 1: hour days to keep Claudia happy, networking for her independent
Speaker 1: curation dreams. But the hollow feeling wouldn't leave. I lay
Speaker 1: beside her some nights, our body separated by an imaginary
Speaker 1: line down the sheets. She slept with her back tightly curved,
Speaker 1: never reaching from a hand like she always had. When
Speaker 1: she drifted off. On one of those nights, I started
Speaker 1: to think about who actually got to see her smile now.
Speaker 1: The weirdness only grew more visible now that I was
Speaker 1: looking for it. Overheard snatches of conversations, muted laughter from
Speaker 1: behind the study door. I'd step out to fetch something
Speaker 1: from the bowdgear and come back to fine linimid conversation
Speaker 1: on the fern, voice low and soft in a way
Speaker 1: I'd only ever have for close friends. She'd snap upright,
Speaker 1: say just a mirror gallery stuff and pivotal question about groceries.
Speaker 1: We always had a cold. If you're stuck, call me install.
Speaker 1: Now she'd never ask me to lend a hand or
Speaker 1: brainswim her way out of a jam, instead emerging from
Speaker 1: long phone calls with the glazed of someone who'd been
Speaker 1: far away. I kept rationalizing there was always a reason
Speaker 1: not to push, the exhaustion. They need to let her
Speaker 1: handle her own stress, the idea that pressing her would
Speaker 1: make me seem like some jealous sit comediot. Then little
Speaker 1: things started to add up. One evening, I glanced at
Speaker 1: our joint bank account while paying for groceries. Nothing huge
Speaker 1: at first, just oddities, a string of cafe charges and
Speaker 1: neighbor has Lena never mentioned visiting often late in the evening.
Speaker 1: I shrugged him. Maybe she started holding offsete meetings to
Speaker 1: avoid gallery chaos. But then I saw receipts for bars.
Speaker 1: I recognized Edgar's for One, a favorite hunt for the
Speaker 1: city's younger crowd, and a midnight stomping ground for some
Speaker 1: of the hungriest, most ambitious artists. Lena had always rolled
Speaker 1: her eyes at the scene, calling it posturing for people
Speaker 1: under thirty. New there were cocktail and newber charges there,
Speaker 1: sometimes two or three in a week. Some nights, she
Speaker 1: tell me she was staying late to rearrange in our
Speaker 1: coming show. Yet the cab seats clocked in long after
Speaker 1: the galley's lights wet. Our friends, too, began quietly digging
Speaker 1: in their own little shovels. Sarah, who co hosted half
Speaker 1: our pop ups, texted me made mischief at the US
Speaker 1: gallery night. Lena dropped by for a sec. Hope you
Speaker 1: both o K. Haven't seen you together for ages. I
Speaker 1: blinked at the message for half an hour before answering
Speaker 1: I hadn't even known there was a gallery night. She
Speaker 1: told me she'd be working late on a grand proposal.
Speaker 1: A few days later, after I'd sent Lena Dumman to
Speaker 1: cheer her up, she responded hours later with only thumbs up.
Speaker 1: I checked her social media that night. Lately, her posts
Speaker 1: were all work stories, mostly back stage at the gallery drinks,
Speaker 1: candid flashes of new art group selfies. One caught my
Speaker 1: eye crowd at a dim lit bar, Lena's hair wild
Speaker 1: in a way I hadn't seen since the early days,
Speaker 1: and in the foreground a guy I didn't recognize, arms
Speaker 1: slung loose over her chair, tag said work her catch
Speaker 1: all for public posts by the way they leaned in
Speaker 1: laughing at something private, said offen Aka tried to shake
Speaker 1: off as nothing. By the next weekend, Lina's absences became
Speaker 1: a joke to our circle, except, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: not everyone found it so harmless. At brunch with Sarah
Speaker 1: and a mirror, they traded glances over Mimosa's Lina's really
Speaker 1: jumped into the new scene. Hah, Sarah said, always with
Speaker 1: that paint. What's his name? Marco? I tried to laugh along,
Speaker 1: but both of them watched me out of the corners
Speaker 1: of their eyes, measuring my reaction. I went home merrily
Speaker 1: to brunch as dry in my throat. Around the apartment,
Speaker 1: the changes became impossible to ignore. Lena style shifted. She
Speaker 1: had always been bled when the mood hit warver boise,
Speaker 1: but now there was a new curated edge, flashy unker
Speaker 1: or streepa with more jewelry, bolder lipstick for gallery days.
Speaker 1: When I mention it trying for playful. Is this for
Speaker 1: branding or for clined intimidation? She shrug not unkindly. Claudia
Speaker 1: wants us to step it up. Apparently it gets noticed.
Speaker 1: Other habits turned upside down. The Friday night date we'd
Speaker 1: kept alive since Gard's school was suddenly too much after
Speaker 1: a long week, as she'd urged me to hang with
Speaker 1: my studio friends instead. Afterward, scrolling half heartedly through Instagram,
Speaker 1: I'd see her tagged in a crowded bar, laughing with
Speaker 1: an all new crew. Every caption tagged work. Sometimes there
Speaker 1: was a partial glimpse of the same man, Marco, raising
Speaker 1: a glass beside her. Our intimacy had windled, even the
Speaker 1: casual affection fading. When I tried to cull against her
Speaker 1: on the couch or trace lines down her arm the
Speaker 1: way I used to when we wanted to check in,
Speaker 1: she flinched almost imperceptibly, then lean away it, scrolling furiously
Speaker 1: to email, like she couldn't risk a conversation. Even the
Speaker 1: pop up shows supposed to be our shared stage became awkward.
Speaker 1: Lena would introduce me with a polite smile of Matt's
Speaker 1: got a new series next month, you should check it out,
Speaker 1: and then excuse herself, orbiting a way faster than she'd
Speaker 1: ever needed it before, as if I was a guest,
Speaker 1: or worse in the way. Once I overheard her on
Speaker 1: a zoom call through the thin walls, her voice softer lilting,
Speaker 1: don't worry, yes me too soon. I couldn't catch the rest.
Speaker 1: When I pressed my ear against the door. The conversation
Speaker 1: ended with abrupt silence and a shuffling of papers. Mutual
Speaker 1: friends stopped by less, but now when we ran into them,
Speaker 1: there was awkwardness in the way. They commented on our absence.
Speaker 1: A mirror once asked, you guys still do city walks together?
Speaker 1: Lena keeps saying she's always working late, but we see
Speaker 1: her out law. Sarah, at another brunch, fidgeted with her
Speaker 1: jewelry and added that Marco guy, he's like everywhere with her.
Speaker 1: Hope you don't mind, but people have noticed. Not that
Speaker 1: it's any of our business. She trailed off, read creeping
Speaker 1: up her cheeks. I kept swerving between suspicion and self doubt.
Speaker 1: Was I jealous because she had a new friend? Was
Speaker 1: I just threatened by the clubby art world being older,
Speaker 1: more settle, and, let's be honest, maybe just a bit
Speaker 1: less dazzing Lately? I hated how easily that explanation fit.
Speaker 1: The clincher came when the next artist brunch rolled round.
Speaker 1: I prepped for it, needing some flicker of normalcy, pulled
Speaker 1: out a black shirt Lena had insisted made me look
Speaker 1: like a brooding French our critic, the one she'd made
Speaker 1: fun of because of the tiny bleached bottom the hem
Speaker 1: I expected her to announce her own plans, maybe promised
Speaker 1: to meet me after instead. She almost seemed annoyed when
Speaker 1: I brought it up. I really can't this time, she said,
Speaker 1: over shoppening her eyeliner. Can you not make a thing
Speaker 1: of it? I need all day to prep for cudyus event.
Speaker 1: I shrugged, Lena, I've always gone. People will notice if
Speaker 1: you're there by yourself. She stopped, brush boised in the air,
Speaker 1: expression shuttered. Can you just go without me? Or don't?
Speaker 1: It's really not your crowd these days. She grew out
Speaker 1: her phone and started typing furiously, refusing to meet my eyes.
Speaker 1: I left her there the ear I should call her bluff,
Speaker 1: battling the fear that by bushing out wide in the gap.
Speaker 1: Walking into the brunch felt different, this time, a friction
Speaker 1: under muskin. The usual jokes were quieter, the glances a
Speaker 1: little too curious. Near the espresso cart, someone Joel, an
Speaker 1: acquaintance whose sense of timing is always off, approached, eyebrows high.
Speaker 1: Didn't expect to see you here to day? Man? What
Speaker 1: I tried to play a call though my face burned.
Speaker 1: He shrugged, cryptic. I just thought, never mind. He moved off,
Speaker 1: leaving the implication hanging heavy in the air. I wanted
Speaker 1: to shake it off and enjoy the familiar swirl of conversation,
Speaker 1: but there were other looks, people pausing in mid sentence
Speaker 1: as I passed. No one said anything direct. I suppose
Speaker 1: that's a kindness of the city until it isn't. I
Speaker 1: lasted less than an hour before ducking out the course.
Speaker 1: I grabbed for Lena's sweating in my hand the hole
Speaker 1: walk home. Not long after lena station intervention of her own.
Speaker 1: One night, late and careful, she poured us both glasses
Speaker 1: of wine in all bottle I'd been saving, and told me,
Speaker 1: I need you to understand, I'm just in a tough patch.
Speaker 1: Matt Claudy's new expectations are impossible. The late night new people.
Speaker 1: I know, it's been weird. She squeezed my hand, her
Speaker 1: grip at once desperate and remote. I'm sorry, I'm not myself.
Speaker 1: I was trying not to drag you into the politics.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to protect it from all this mess.
Speaker 1: She made her voice shake just a little. I feel
Speaker 1: like I am treading water, and if I talk about it,
Speaker 1: I'll start hate in the whole scene. So please just
Speaker 1: hand on. I don't want us to become one of
Speaker 1: those couples that loses the thread. I blinked, relief and embarrassment,
Speaker 1: both fighting for space in my chest. It made sense
Speaker 1: the pressure she described, the need to keep up appearances,
Speaker 1: especially under Claudia's famous passive regression. Lena hated looking weak
Speaker 1: to any one, and maybe it was true. Maybe she
Speaker 1: just climbed up to keep her stress from poisoning our quiet.
Speaker 1: She apologized for being distant, promised we'd reset, suggested a
Speaker 1: week end up state, just us hiking and no fawns.
Speaker 1: That night, the tension ebbed for the first time in weeks.
Speaker 1: She let her hand linger on my chest as we
Speaker 1: fell asleep. In the morning, we talked about driving out,
Speaker 1: finding the old trails we used to get lost on.
Speaker 1: For a few days, I felt something like hope and
Speaker 1: held desperately to it, even as a part of me
Speaker 1: remained weary. But as our trip approached, Leana back out
Speaker 1: of the last possible hour crisis at the gallery, she said,
Speaker 1: foam pressed to her ear suitcase and opened at the
Speaker 1: foot of the bed. Claudius got me running point for
Speaker 1: an event to night. Can't leave her hanging. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Next weekend for sure O K. She darted for a
Speaker 1: quick kiss, but barely met my eyes. I spent the
Speaker 1: night in swirling whiskey and half watching TV. Near midnight,
Speaker 1: scrolling through stories from our circle, I saw Lena smile,
Speaker 1: light up my phone, posing with a group at a
Speaker 1: gleaming new gallery dinner, arm loop loosely around Mark out
Speaker 1: or face pressed close to us in a way that
Speaker 1: felt like a private language. The caption read hash gallery
Speaker 1: found hashed teamwork, no mention of me, not a single
Speaker 1: other face I knew well enough to text. The next morning,
Speaker 1: I scrolled through my contacts thum pausing on a mutual
Speaker 1: friend who'd been at the dinner. I typed, deleted, typed again.
Speaker 1: Finally I sent a careful message, Hey, was Lena at
Speaker 1: Claudia's thing last night? She said it was Vike only
Speaker 1: didn't want to bother her, but the reply took nearly
Speaker 1: an hour. Finally, Yes, she was there with Marco all night.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to say they were close. Sorry, Matt.
Speaker 1: My chest high and as the words set in, but
Speaker 1: I still clung to the need for proof. I hadn't
Speaker 1: stock lean as phone for years, not even out of
Speaker 1: Pannoi I trusted her. Now, I remembered that we'd enabled
Speaker 1: location sharing once years ago, after a missing wallet crisis.
Speaker 1: I opened the app, not sure what I was hoping
Speaker 1: to see. The dots didn't lie. Her phone had been
Speaker 1: at Marco's loft on more than one night. She claimed
Speaker 1: to be late at work. Still I tried to tell
Speaker 1: myself there was a rational explanation. Maybe it was a group,
Speaker 1: maybe she'd needed a ride home. But as the days mounted,
Speaker 1: the pattern repeated. I scoured our apartment out of nerves,
Speaker 1: as if expecting to find an old sketch shed made
Speaker 1: for me still talk somewhere near her socks. Instead, behind
Speaker 1: stack of dusty out reference books, I found a slim,
Speaker 1: battered sketch, but when I hadn't seen in years, I
Speaker 1: flipped it open. There in Leana's neat pencil lines, intimate,
Speaker 1: unguarded drawings of Marco's face, hands, even as unremarkable green
Speaker 1: trainers annotated in Lena's playful handwriting, M dance is better
Speaker 1: than he paints, don't tell him. And in one crowded page,
Speaker 1: the faces press cooast together, a soft laugh on her lips.
Speaker 1: Only I had believed was mine to see. I sat
Speaker 1: on the paint stained floor, but trembling in my hands.
Speaker 1: The images were too detailed, too familiar, for the theory
Speaker 1: of innocent friendship to hold up any longer. I rationed
Speaker 1: the pain, tried to stack it up the way i'd
Speaker 1: organize an illustration, shadows first, then lines than color, hoping
Speaker 1: it might surrender to logic, or, failing that, disintegrate under
Speaker 1: its own way. Still, I was nauseated at the idea
Speaker 1: of confronting her, afraid that if I blundered in, I'd
Speaker 1: be the architect of my own humiliation. So I tried
Speaker 1: another route. I reached out to em Lena's closest confidant,
Speaker 1: sending the most careful text I've ever written. A mirror
Speaker 1: is if something I should know. I keep thinking I'm
Speaker 1: making something out of nothing, but I feel crazy lately.
Speaker 1: Does Lena? Is she happy with me? She called, after
Speaker 1: a long silence, her voice low, cautious, mat eyed. It's
Speaker 1: not my place. She's your wife. You should talk to her.
Speaker 1: If people get tangled up sometimes don't believe everything on Instagram.
Speaker 1: I press my own voice, brittle a miror please. I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to trap her. I just want the truth.
Speaker 1: A pause then a sigh. She's been distant. I worry
Speaker 1: she was in over her head. That's all I can say,
Speaker 1: the wrong kind of confirmation. The days blurred. Lena came
Speaker 1: home late, wrapped in music and exhaustion. When I tried
Speaker 1: to meet her gaze to ask her how she was
Speaker 1: should deflect, to complain about Claudia, bring up some trivial
Speaker 1: gallery politics, law of accuisitions, about me, hiding in no
Speaker 1: salgic routines, anything to keep the focus off her. Once
Speaker 1: she accused me of being jealous, of not respecting her grind.
Speaker 1: Not everyone can cut mat Maybe you're just afraid I'll
Speaker 1: up grow you, she said, her voice so sharp I
Speaker 1: almost missed a fear in. I didn't say what I
Speaker 1: was really thinking that I'd have preferred anything to this
Speaker 1: low to solve. I'd have taken anger, anything but this steady,
Speaker 1: careful distance. One evening, long after midnight, Lena stumbled into
Speaker 1: the bedroom, cheeked, upping from some night air at the
Speaker 1: scent of tobacco on her clothes. I waited until she
Speaker 1: dropped her beckoned as gently as I could ask the
Speaker 1: only question that still mattered, Are you in love with him?
Speaker 1: She froze half way into her robe. When she turned,
Speaker 1: her mouth was open, but nothing came out. The silence,
Speaker 1: carved as sharp as any answer, was all it took
Speaker 1: for the pieces to rearrange themselves. I watched her face shock,
Speaker 1: then something like defeat, then careful calculation, guilt failed behind
Speaker 1: practiced exhaustion. But she said nothing, not yet, and for me,
Speaker 1: that was its own kind of answer. She dropped her
Speaker 1: eyes to the carpet and tattened the belt on her rope,
Speaker 1: like she was shielding herself from something cold. With the
Speaker 1: Knarcavenius prick Apartment could offer. I hated myself for the
Speaker 1: tremor in my voice, for how Smollett made me feel
Speaker 1: like a kid hearing his parents argue from the top
Speaker 1: of the stairs. She tried an old trick, dismissal, with
Speaker 1: just enough contempt to break my momentum. Matt, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I told you these people are friends, colleagues and trying
Speaker 1: to build something real, and you're inventing problems that are
Speaker 1: there something cracked behind the surface. I could sense it
Speaker 1: her reluctance, a kind of exhaustive resignation. We both seen
Speaker 1: the aftermath enough in other couples, improbable infidelities brought endings,
Speaker 1: someone quietly moving out past midnight while the others slept
Speaker 1: on the couch stand. Every muscle in her jaw was clenched,
Speaker 1: working beneath her skin. I let the silence hand for once.
Speaker 1: She didn't meet it with a joke orried reflection. Instead,
Speaker 1: she pushed past me into the baff for him, shutting
Speaker 1: the door with a muted click that didn't quite become
Speaker 1: a slam. What a rush from the tap, The sound
Speaker 1: of the shy hissing like static between us. I stood
Speaker 1: in the hallway, rubbing my eyes, shoving the sketch, but
Speaker 1: under a pile of linins, just out of her sight.
Speaker 1: My hand felt numb from clutching it. For a long moment,
Speaker 1: I just listened to the rasp and sigh of plumbing
Speaker 1: my wife, hiding a world away through a single door.
Speaker 1: Sleep is pointless. Instead, I scrolled through months of Lina's
Speaker 1: photo feeds, clicking through the gallery accounts, Marco's profile, anything
Speaker 1: publicly targeted with Claudia's events. It was an old city trick,
Speaker 1: sweething through the web of acquaintances, partiless comment threats. In
Speaker 1: some Lina appeared radiant and kinetic, reading strangers In more
Speaker 1: than a few Marco and Lena shared a frame, never
Speaker 1: quite alone, but always close, always mid laughter. The others
Speaker 1: in the crowd blurred faces. I didn't know, as if
Speaker 1: the lens had chosen the two of them by accident.
Speaker 1: There were comments from mutuals that barely registered to tiny likes,
Speaker 1: lazy fire, emoji's endless inside jokes that now felt like code.
Speaker 1: Marco commented on one of Lina's pults, best ie in
Speaker 1: the city, when's our next adventure? Heart, paint brush, lightning Bolt.
Speaker 1: I couldn't help myself. I clicked deeper troll in his stories,
Speaker 1: even as tagged photos. I found one from a week ago,
Speaker 1: a sketch pinned on his fridge, on mistakably Lina's handwritings
Speaker 1: called along the border, the same style as in the
Speaker 1: Secret Sketch Book. In the morning, I try to act normal.
Speaker 1: I make coffee, claddened pans, try to oxtrate some semblance
Speaker 1: of routine, toast two eggs morning edition. LINI emerred dressed
Speaker 1: for the gallery, make up, sharp peer, pul daye. I
Speaker 1: searched her for coup's redness in her eyes, a hint
Speaker 1: of remorse, but she was unreadable, brisk and composed. Over breakfast,
Speaker 1: I tried to reach for the soft ground again. Want
Speaker 1: to get dumplings after work? Haven't done that loop in
Speaker 1: a while? Just us, or we could stay in of
Speaker 1: one of our old playlist nights. She didn't look up
Speaker 1: from her phone. Can't to night this in install. Claudia's
Speaker 1: new feature piece came in late, and I have to
Speaker 1: negotiate the lighting with the artist. He want me to
Speaker 1: swing by. I could help hang No, she said, too quickly,
Speaker 1: then softer. There'll be too many people and I'll be
Speaker 1: in work mode another time. O kay. I watched her
Speaker 1: thumb fly over the screen, giving too much of herself
Speaker 1: to some one on the other side. I wondered if
Speaker 1: Marko was waiting for an answer in real time. Did
Speaker 1: you ever think, I said, picking at my toes, that
Speaker 1: may be all this new energy you're pouring out. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's for some one else, She laughed, a brittle, humorless sound.
Speaker 1: You can't even accept that I'm succeeding without making it
Speaker 1: about you. That's not I started, but she was already standing,
Speaker 1: grabbing her back and austration. She practiced to avoid fights
Speaker 1: at the door she paused, looking both older and somehow removed.
Speaker 1: Don't wait up, she said, and the click of the
Speaker 1: dead ball echoed. I let go of the pretense, finally,
Speaker 1: that things would write themselves. I stopped pretending. I didn't
Speaker 1: care who she messaged at night, or why she always
Speaker 1: left the window open on Marka's profile. The next days blowed.
Speaker 1: I tried to lose myself in work. Took on a
Speaker 1: children's book cover her publisher. I didn't even like sketch
Speaker 1: storyboards until my hand ached. When I couldn't focus, I
Speaker 1: wondered the neighborhood, passing CAFs with Leana's name still on overseats.
Speaker 1: I chat the faces inside, scanning for a flash of
Speaker 1: her hair, the edge of her laughter. Returning home, the
Speaker 1: place felt more and more like a careful stage set.
Speaker 1: Lena's mug's abandoned on the counter, her pain stained shoes
Speaker 1: neatly aligned by the door, as if arrange for show only.
Speaker 1: The air was different, thick with things, and said, a
Speaker 1: few evenings later, I came in from the dilly to
Speaker 1: find her at the kitchen table, hunched over phone, clutched
Speaker 1: so tight a knuckles paled. She looked up clearly startled,
Speaker 1: you are home early, it did, I said, quietly, that's
Speaker 1: not burly Lena. She exhaled, sharply, not quite a sigh,
Speaker 1: just a rough day. Claudia moved up the opening. I'm behind.
Speaker 1: I put the groceries away. I could help if you want.
Speaker 1: She shook her head. Doesn't translate. It's mostly admin, not
Speaker 1: the fun stuff. I tried again, desperate for any trace
Speaker 1: of us. Want to walk to the river, get some air,
Speaker 1: see if we can find that old taco cot. She
Speaker 1: shook her head, smile apologetic, I'm white. Really maybe tomorrow,
Speaker 1: maybe tomorrow, I repeat it. I didn't sound convincing, even
Speaker 1: to myself. After she went to bed, telling me she
Speaker 1: was exhausted, but then scrolling for another hour in darkness,
Speaker 1: I wandered through the apartment, fixing little things. I collected
Speaker 1: the trash, saw, did laundry, clean a coffee mug with
Speaker 1: her lipsick stained, still clinging to the rim. Then I
Speaker 1: found her sketchwork again, almost by accident, I had shoved
Speaker 1: it under the linens carelessly. For a minute, I debated
Speaker 1: putting it back, pretending none of this had happened. Instead,
Speaker 1: I sat on the cool tile of the bathroom and
Speaker 1: foot through it, one slow page at a time. On
Speaker 1: one sheet, a scene unmistakably populated the familiar outline of
Speaker 1: Marko's cloth sundrenched window. On the next, faint pencil letters,
Speaker 1: He listens, he dares me, he is electric, am Maya.
Speaker 1: The sentence trailed, ending with the chaotic, nervous mudge. I
Speaker 1: rubbed my eyes and closed the book. There was no
Speaker 1: anger left in that moment, just a low, humming dreadlike
Speaker 1: waiting for a doctor to call with news you already suspect.
Speaker 1: As the silence thickened in the days that followed, even
Speaker 1: our friends seemed to orbit differently. Sarah called her voice
Speaker 1: full of sidelong worry. You're on Lena coming to morrow's opening.
Speaker 1: You are overdue for a night out. Matt, Seriously, I'm
Speaker 1: getting texts fatigue from both of you. I hesitated, then lied,
Speaker 1: We'll try. She swamped, you know how. It is the
Speaker 1: night of the opening. Lena dressed in a billowing candy
Speaker 1: collar coat, document tubs slung across her back, more flambiant
Speaker 1: than usual. But I'd stop commenting on her fashion weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Don't wait up, she said, keys jangling could be a
Speaker 1: late one, I watched the gray dusk swallow her form
Speaker 1: on the street below. Half an hour later I got
Speaker 1: a text from a mirror at you coming. Lena just arrived.
Speaker 1: Places round to bring your grumpy face. We miss it.
Speaker 1: I stared at the phone, something crawling under my skin.
Speaker 1: Lena hadn't mentioned Amera going, hadn't even said she was
Speaker 1: meeting anyone. On impulse, I pulled on my coat and
Speaker 1: slipped out the warp to the gallery was a blare
Speaker 1: head let smemring into phosphorescent some wet pavement. The event
Speaker 1: hummed with heat and conversation. When I arrived. From across
Speaker 1: the room, I spotted Lena made conversation with Marco. Heads
Speaker 1: bent close. Her hand touched his forearm as she laughed,
Speaker 1: an old gesture I knew intimately he said something. She
Speaker 1: touched the necklace at her throat and nervous, take one
Speaker 1: I'd always found endearing, and then caught sight of me
Speaker 1: over his shoulder. Her face didn't register surprise, only a
Speaker 1: flash of something annoyance maybe, or calculation. She disentangled herself,
Speaker 1: wound her way to me. Didn't expect you, she said,
Speaker 1: effect cheerful for the benefit of evestroping colleagues. I thought
Speaker 1: we might catch up, I said, I searching hers. He
Speaker 1: didn't mention a mirror was here. Oh, she texted last minute.
Speaker 1: Lena's eyes flickered to the group behind us, her fingers
Speaker 1: already toying with her phone. He wanted a drink, she said,
Speaker 1: eager to move me to the bar, away from Marco
Speaker 1: and the crowd. When I hesitated, she took my arm,
Speaker 1: led me to a far corner, and launched into hollow
Speaker 1: band to remember that awful white wine we drank here
Speaker 1: two years ago. This dell serve it? Can you believe?
Speaker 1: The stream of chatter was expertly neutral, giving nothing away.
Speaker 1: After ten minutes, she was itching to leave my side.
Speaker 1: She excused herself to find Claudia, then spent the rest
Speaker 1: of the night drifting from one cluster to another, always
Speaker 1: careful to maintain a distance, returning only to check that
Speaker 1: I still existed in the periphery. Amir joined me by
Speaker 1: the drinks, you oka, she asked. She offered a sympathetic smile.
Speaker 1: When that almost broke me. Who's Marco? I set careful
Speaker 1: to keep my voice even, She looks sartled, then retreated
Speaker 1: just to pain her be never well. Lately Claudia thinks
Speaker 1: he's the new thing? Is he friends with Lena? A
Speaker 1: Mayor's gazed ordered from me to Lena, then back. They
Speaker 1: are working together new and stall Marco's intent in what way?
Speaker 1: She shrugged, but her tone was meaningful. He's chasing a
Speaker 1: law can get inside people's heads, She squeezed my arm.
Speaker 1: Don't read too much into the insta stories, though k
Speaker 1: I nodded, but kept watching Lena the whole rest of
Speaker 1: the night. When I finally left alone, of course, I
Speaker 1: saw Mark, her and Lena smoking outside the gallery has
Speaker 1: bent close, sharing something private, the laughter drifting into the
Speaker 1: night strong in a way nothing else had. The next day,
Speaker 1: I expected Lena off with some reassurance, some minor reinvestment. Instead,
Speaker 1: she barely mentioned the previous night. Crowded, relentless, glad I
Speaker 1: caught right home with Claudia, she said, dropping her coat
Speaker 1: over a chair and immediately pulling out her laptop. She
Speaker 1: barely noticed me standing in the middle of the room
Speaker 1: holding our favorite mac Hers poluceramic chipped at the lip.
Speaker 1: That night, I found the fortitude for confrontation, even if
Speaker 1: only a minus skirmish. We sat on opposite ends of
Speaker 1: the sofa, misketching ghostly outlines over an old Comet panel,
Speaker 1: her tapping away at new emails. Lena, I said, more
Speaker 1: quietly than I meant to, I saw you with Marco
Speaker 1: last night. She didn't stop tying, he's the new headline artist, Matt.
Speaker 1: That's not what I mean. She finally looked up, exasperation
Speaker 1: coloring her features. Then what do you mean? Why is
Speaker 1: it so easy for you to talk to every one
Speaker 1: else and not me? Why doesn't anyone even know if
Speaker 1: we're still together? She looked genuinely stricken, then defensive. I
Speaker 1: can't be the same person with every one. I need
Speaker 1: space to work, Matt. You act like every smile on
Speaker 1: Instagram as a coded message? Is it? The words hung
Speaker 1: between us, heavy as wet laundry? Because I know what
Speaker 1: I see and I know what's missing here? She stood up,
Speaker 1: arms crossed. I'm not doing this, Matt, And with that
Speaker 1: she fled to the bedroom, closing the door gently, as
Speaker 1: if even her anger had grown tired. We didn't speak
Speaker 1: the rest of the night. By then, the foundation of
Speaker 1: suspicion had become routine. I knew I was losing her
Speaker 1: slow slip piece by piece, the Lena I'd loved for
Speaker 1: a decade was now someone hesitant with her own memories,
Speaker 1: were writing little details until I almost believed I'd imagine them.
Speaker 1: The least renewaled notice arrived the following morning, buried in
Speaker 1: a pile of mail. It was the first time in
Speaker 1: years I hesitated to sign without asking her. I left
Speaker 1: it on the counter, tempted to ask if she wanted
Speaker 1: to keep this place, if she still saw herself here
Speaker 1: with me. I didn't dare. I skipped the next gallery
Speaker 1: opening on purpose, making up an illustration deadline. When Lena noticed,
Speaker 1: she made no protest, if anything, she seemed relieved by
Speaker 1: my absence. Late that night, unable to sleep, I checked
Speaker 1: her location out of spite, Marco's address again. When she
Speaker 1: returned after two in the morning, she didn't bother with excuses,
Speaker 1: just slip quietly into bed, moving with the care of
Speaker 1: some one used to hiding. The pain was sharp. Now
Speaker 1: impossible to ignore her, and it made me reckless. I
Speaker 1: started asking more openly. One night, when she finished a
Speaker 1: tense phone call in the kitchen and return flushed and vague.
Speaker 1: I press who was that? She shot back, just Gallo religistics.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't get it. Walk me through it, I said,
Speaker 1: let me try to get it. She leveled a gaze
Speaker 1: at me, both pitying and contemptuous. This is exactly why
Speaker 1: I can't talk about work with you any more. Everything's
Speaker 1: some kind of accusation because you're never here. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what you want any more. Maybe I want
Speaker 1: a life that isn't so predictable, Matt. The rest of
Speaker 1: the night passed in silence that made muskinich. There were
Speaker 1: moments still when I'd catch glimpses of the old le
Speaker 1: neur raigrin a comment only i'd understand. Once, walking through
Speaker 1: the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, she handed me half
Speaker 1: a bagel without comment, an old habit from our studio days.
Speaker 1: Then she caught herself almost finch and retreated to her study.
Speaker 1: It became a twisted comfort, catching her in automatic gestures,
Speaker 1: realizing how much of our life had become choreography. It hurt,
Speaker 1: but at least it was honest. A few mornings later,
Speaker 1: I found the painting she'd been working on all month,
Speaker 1: half concealed in the corner of her study. I looked
Speaker 1: at it, searching for recognition. The shadowed figure at the
Speaker 1: center was Marko's face, impossible to misinterpret now, Lena using
Speaker 1: strokes only she employed when working on some one she
Speaker 1: cared about. The brushwork was intimate intent, Marko as she
Speaker 1: saw him, not as the world did. That's when I
Speaker 1: knew there was nothing left of our original story to save.
Speaker 1: I waited for her to get home that night, have
Speaker 1: rained so Thursday, with thunder muttering in the clouds. When
Speaker 1: she walked through the door, umbrella dropping, I took my
Speaker 1: place at the kitchen table, the sketch book on the
Speaker 1: wood between us. She set down her bag, seeing it.
Speaker 1: Instantly our eyes met across that battered cover. I found these,
Speaker 1: I said, my voice steady than I felt. Want to
Speaker 1: explain them? Or should I guess? Her face shifted a defiance, defeat,
Speaker 1: exhaustion blooming in sequence. She regarded me for a long time.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, she whispered, and then the smallest, saddest thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to talk about it. A lightning
Speaker 1: crack split the silence outside. I waited because I needed
Speaker 1: her to speak, to unravel this last knoight, to finally
Speaker 1: say it out loud, But instead she just slid down
Speaker 1: the wall, sitting on the cool kitchen floor, silent as
Speaker 1: the city around us. I sat beside her, the gap
Speaker 1: tween us wider than the miles we'd walked together, wondering
Speaker 1: how two people who built everything together now had nothing
Speaker 1: left off of its silence. We sat there, Lena on
Speaker 1: the kitchen four hawking her knees, me and the cold
Speaker 1: gap between torn routine and the choked outline of who
Speaker 1: we used to be. Rain tattooed the windows above us,
Speaker 1: a vane traffic come of a city moving on indifferent.
Speaker 1: Her eyes were swollen but dry, fixed on the baseboards.
Speaker 1: I felt both weightless and lad in a clarity. Lays
Speaker 1: with nausea, as though fever had broken, but left me
Speaker 1: shivering in its place. After a minute, she spoke, voice
Speaker 1: flat and tire. I didn't want this, not like this,
Speaker 1: she whispered. I let the sketchbook rest between us on
Speaker 1: the tiles, as pages fanned open, prove neither of us
Speaker 1: needed any more. Some part of me wanted her to
Speaker 1: lunch for it, destroy anything, to fight for what remained.
Speaker 1: She just let it be. Did you ever think you
Speaker 1: could talk to me? I asked, not moving all of it,
Speaker 1: but about Maco about how you felt before. She shook
Speaker 1: her head minutely, like I had asked if it was raining.
Speaker 1: I thought if I named it out loud, it would
Speaker 1: all end, Lina said. I traced a crack in the
Speaker 1: laminate with my thumb, grounding myself. My jaw ached, clutching
Speaker 1: against the surge of questions, Why him? Why like this?
Speaker 1: Why wasn't I enough? They filled up the space instead
Speaker 1: of speech. We're just stuck, Matt, she said, finally raising
Speaker 1: her gaze to meet mine. I haven't been myself for months.
Speaker 1: I tried coming back to OZ, but I'd already gone
Speaker 1: too far, gone too far. I flinched, though I'd known
Speaker 1: it before, she said. There was a strange relief to
Speaker 1: the honest words, as awful as they were. I nodded,
Speaker 1: my whole body throbbing with the urge to shout or
Speaker 1: splitter through something, but nothing came. She wiped her eyes
Speaker 1: with the cuff of her sleeve. I still care about you,
Speaker 1: but I can't undo it. I could barely swallow past
Speaker 1: the taste in my mouth. I stood, knees popping and
Speaker 1: turned on the kettle, an absurd automatic gesture, but anything
Speaker 1: to keep my hands working. The hiss of water was
Speaker 1: the only punctuation in the room. She stood too, brushing
Speaker 1: herself off, shoulders up as room with red. I need space,
Speaker 1: she said, not quite meeting my gaze. I should stay
Speaker 1: somewhere else to night. I let out breath. I hadn't
Speaker 1: realized I'd been holding yea, I said, voice raw. Maybe
Speaker 1: we both need some air. She disappeared into the bedroom
Speaker 1: the merging minutes later with a hastily packed overnight bag,
Speaker 1: hair pulled into a messy bahn rinkoat on. She moved quietly,
Speaker 1: keeping her steps light, as if noise might rickchet and
Speaker 1: break us for good. I watched her coal of wright chair,
Speaker 1: watched her zip her purse, steal one last look around
Speaker 1: at everything we'd bolt. She lingered by the gallery while
Speaker 1: her frame thesis, my first published illustration, all polaroids. Her
Speaker 1: hand touched one crooked frame. She straightened it by habit,
Speaker 1: then caught herself let it alone. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to say goodbye to you, she said at the door,
Speaker 1: for so lo I almas missed it. I swallowed, hands
Speaker 1: in my pockets. Don't this isn't good bye. A car
Speaker 1: horn sounded on the street below. Lena heated her back,
Speaker 1: opened the door and hesitated. I could see she wanted
Speaker 1: me to chase her, to fight, but all I gave
Speaker 1: her was a nod. She slipped out into the bomby damp.
Speaker 1: Nothing left between us but o routine's turn brittle. The
Speaker 1: apartment contracted in her absence. Every corner seemed emptier for
Speaker 1: her not being there. I wandered the rooms, to stepping
Speaker 1: over piles of sketch books and shoes we meant to
Speaker 1: give away. I tried to sleep, but instead stood sentry
Speaker 1: at the kitchen counter, staring at the little objects Lena
Speaker 1: had left, a clip gallery badge, a lidst can touch
Speaker 1: since winter them up with a chi toot on the handle.
Speaker 1: My sunrise had barely moved. I had no temper for
Speaker 1: this kind of lost, nothing but what had seen in
Speaker 1: other peoples and levelings, in bad novels about infidelity and heartbreak,
Speaker 1: the scenes we'd both mock when watching old movies. It
Speaker 1: all looked different from the inside. Messages trickled and from
Speaker 1: friends who picked up the undercurrent. I'm you, recall voice
Speaker 1: full of sleep and worry. I'm sorry, Matt. I tried
Speaker 1: to stay out of it. Do ye need anything. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I answer, I don't think I even know
Speaker 1: what I want might now. She offered a couch, which
Speaker 1: I declined, I'll reach out if I need escape. After
Speaker 1: Mr hung up, I looked around the apartment as though
Speaker 1: I'd never seen it before. How many knights had Lena
Speaker 1: and her Crown friends into this narrow living room? How
Speaker 1: many times had we argued over art music, the ripe
Speaker 1: frame for a piece. The walls now just reflected silence,
Speaker 1: pinpricks of old thumbtack holes. Every object was invested with memory,
Speaker 1: her slipper under the bed, the old scarf I had
Speaker 1: borrowed Adam finnitem Peter boxes from our accidental tradition of
Speaker 1: Thursday bat movie nights. That afternoon, the rain faded, leaving
Speaker 1: patches of sunlight on the warp floor boards. I watched
Speaker 1: dust motes drift in the late light, feeling both exposed
Speaker 1: and hollow. I texted Sarah, don't want to talk, but
Speaker 1: thought you should know Lena and I are not okay.
Speaker 1: Her response was immediate and gentle, whatever you need let
Speaker 1: us know. The city outside turned on, and I floated
Speaker 1: through the next hours, functioning just enough to brew tea
Speaker 1: answer a half hearted email from a publisher at leak
Speaker 1: half an attempt at messaging Lena. It grew harder by
Speaker 1: the day to hold on to the wishful version of events.
Speaker 1: Van was any illusion that this was a simple misunderstanding,
Speaker 1: a rough patch, or not oral cliche. The silence after
Speaker 1: Lena left made plain how empty the structure of daily
Speaker 1: life could feel when the habits of intimacy had been
Speaker 1: hollowed out. What's more, the consequences of Lina's absence had
Speaker 1: a gravity of their own. She didn't come back that
Speaker 1: night or the next. Phone remains stubbornly neutral, no new notifications,
Speaker 1: no miscalls from her sleep was useless. I wandered my
Speaker 1: test buzzing without rage and shame, and the gridiac of
Speaker 1: heaven nowhere honest to put my hands. Even my studio,
Speaker 1: usually a nest of creativity, felt deserted. Her critique, her
Speaker 1: thumb print nowhere to be found. The next morning, the
Speaker 1: artist brunch group chap pained with plans for the next gathering,
Speaker 1: no mention of me Orlina. It was as if some
Speaker 1: one had silently unfeted our names from the usual banter.
Speaker 1: I felt, at most in the accusatory silence, Friends who
Speaker 1: weren't sure how to ask, who noticed my absence but
Speaker 1: avoided prying. Late afternoon, knocks at my door. It was
Speaker 1: Sarah Stoop, two coffees in hand. You haven't responded to
Speaker 1: any one for days, man, don't make me guilty into existing.
Speaker 1: I let her in, only to realize how unused the
Speaker 1: social gives in me had become. She scanned the apartment
Speaker 1: as gentle, do you need to talk or just sit?
Speaker 1: I managed to shrug. I don't know how to talk
Speaker 1: about it, but she's gone. That's real. Sarah sat beside me,
Speaker 1: not demanding anything, just offering steady presents. After y a while,
Speaker 1: I found myself telling her the barest shape of what
Speaker 1: had happened. The sketchbook, the late nights, the undoing of
Speaker 1: habit after a habit. She nodded, lips pressed. Then you
Speaker 1: didn't do this, Matt, Please remember that. The simplest things,
Speaker 1: her saying my name, filling the silence with want, felt radical.
Speaker 1: I tried to thank her, but didn't trust my voice.
Speaker 1: Do you know where she's staying, Sarah asked? I shook
Speaker 1: my head. Maybe a mirror's maybe Marco's guess I'll find
Speaker 1: out soon enough. Sarah didn't ask more. She just squeezed
Speaker 1: my arm. Let us know what you need, O, K.
Speaker 1: Don't hold up forever. We're not picking sides. As evening settled,
Speaker 1: my head began to pound with the effort of containing
Speaker 1: all the unset I made dinner and ate automatically, half
Speaker 1: tasting what was on my fork. The table felt lopsided
Speaker 1: with only my plate and cup. Later that night I
Speaker 1: heard from CODYA the infanmous gallery directive virus tilted a
Speaker 1: professional email. She wanted to clarify expectations and professional boundaries
Speaker 1: for read Lena too, ensure no awkwardness bled into work commitments.
Speaker 1: It landed with a thud. Even now professional overlapp was
Speaker 1: being managed. Now my work so woven through the gallery crowd,
Speaker 1: threatened by the aftershocks of my personal disaster, A day
Speaker 1: bled into another. Packets of nerves frayed inside me. Every
Speaker 1: time I entered a room, I half expected Lena to
Speaker 1: fill the doorway. Some new apology queued up, ready to
Speaker 1: rethread the fabric. She didn't come. The joint account began
Speaker 1: to dry up, not dramatically, but enough to signal the
Speaker 1: impersonal beginning of the end, Lina moving her direct deposit
Speaker 1: charges for moving services, odd receipts for storage and gallery
Speaker 1: supply runs, and neighborhers we never lived in together. With
Speaker 1: every notification, the last pieces of our joint life split apart,
Speaker 1: pixel by pixel. The next problem was physical, the lease.
Speaker 1: The landlord texted reminders about renewal, hinting at rising rent.
Speaker 1: I stared at the notice on the fridge and knew
Speaker 1: I couldn't keep the place alone, not on my freelance cycles.
Speaker 1: I called Lena, first out of responsibility, then out of desperation.
Speaker 1: No answer. I tried a message, we need to talk
Speaker 1: about the apartment please. The reader seclinted back an hour later,
Speaker 1: but nothing follow For two days, I walked through the
Speaker 1: Museum of Life, sorting belongings, wondering how to split everything
Speaker 1: that wasn't just sirs but us, the art on the
Speaker 1: wall's books with inscriptions, mugs we bought us, inside jokes
Speaker 1: at thrift sharps, every object and negotiation. I was too
Speaker 1: tired to start. Finally, late one evening, my phone lit
Speaker 1: up with Lena's name. Can we meet? I'll come back
Speaker 1: to night. It's time to talk about all of it.
Speaker 1: Something like dreadnumb me more than anticipation. I barely tidy
Speaker 1: at the place, unwilling to stage the ruins for her return.
Speaker 1: She arrived around ten, hair dump from a quick show
Speaker 1: of Somewhere Else. Anne's johned in her jacket pockets. She
Speaker 1: looked small than I remembered, her shoulders drawn in, eyes heavy,
Speaker 1: not with tears, but with the effort of holding up
Speaker 1: her part. In this final scene. We didn't use a
Speaker 1: living room or the gallery wall. We stood across from
Speaker 1: each other at the kitchen counter, the space where we'd
Speaker 1: made midnight toast and slow coffee. She started, Matt, I'm
Speaker 1: not running any more. I know you hate me. I
Speaker 1: get it, but I can't keep hiding. I want to
Speaker 1: talk it through, even if you never forgive me. I
Speaker 1: tried to find my anger and came up empty, just
Speaker 1: an exhausted clarity. But just tell me the truth, I said.
Speaker 1: I can take it, she breathed, in, shaky and agan.
Speaker 1: It started as a work thing, she said, all those
Speaker 1: late nights, the pressure, it was real. At first, I
Speaker 1: was hanging on by threads, trying to keep up. Marko
Speaker 1: came in as a collaborator, and I liked how he
Speaker 1: saw me. I liked who I became around him. At
Speaker 1: first it was art, then it was more. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to believe it was happening even when it was.
Speaker 1: I kept thinking i'd pull back stop after one hor
Speaker 1: vorse broke, but every time I tried, I felt stuck
Speaker 1: with you, felt like we were just horbiting, existing side
Speaker 1: by side. I needed some one to see me, see
Speaker 1: me as new, even if it's selfish. The word hung
Speaker 1: in the kitchen's yellow light. Was any of it real?
Speaker 1: With him? I asked not to hurt her, just because
Speaker 1: I had to know what I was up against. Maybe,
Speaker 1: she said tears in her eyes, but not like with you.
Speaker 1: That's finished now, I know that, mam. I just didn't
Speaker 1: want to let go. Before I was sure it was dead.
Speaker 1: I felt an animal noise twist in my chest, but
Speaker 1: it never escaped. I just nodded, letting the moment pass.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you talk to me? You know I'd have
Speaker 1: listened even if you were miserable. She wept her cheek
Speaker 1: with the back of her hand, because admitting it would
Speaker 1: have meant admitting I wasn't happy anymore, and I was
Speaker 1: afraid you'd look at me and see a failure, some
Speaker 1: one who'd piqued God. I was so fucking scared. I
Speaker 1: lean on the countertop to keep from shaking. So what now?
Speaker 1: We split the art, the rent, the word about the
Speaker 1: break up guests passed through the grape vine. She winced.
Speaker 1: I guess so unless you want something different. I almost laughed,
Speaker 1: but managed not to. I want a time machine, THO
Speaker 1: want the brunches and your playlists. I want to not
Speaker 1: hate myself for missing you. She shook her head, a
Speaker 1: small smile devouring itself. He'll be okay, you always are.
Speaker 1: We talked for I was not about Marco any more.
Speaker 1: Her betrayals are blame, but logistics, gallery rumors who kept
Speaker 1: what The tarque had the flatness of a business call,
Speaker 1: punctuated sometimes by the ghost of an old joke. I
Speaker 1: let her choose first. The portfolio of photos of her parents,
Speaker 1: the sketch Lena made of me on our anniversary, half
Speaker 1: a dozen prints from pop ups long since closed. I
Speaker 1: kept my favorite maug the bat of French press, A
Speaker 1: handful of inside jokes I nears. We agreed I'd move out,
Speaker 1: since her commute was easier from here. I didn't fight
Speaker 1: for more. We sorted the biggest objects, both of us
Speaker 1: careful not to let sentiment win over practicality. When it
Speaker 1: was done, Lena leaned against a counter. I'm going to
Speaker 1: Marco's for a while, see if I actually matter to
Speaker 1: him when things aren't easy. The admission felt strangely empty.
Speaker 1: I nodded, not knowing what else to say. The next day,
Speaker 1: division continue. I boxed my sketch books, labeled them in
Speaker 1: block letters so nothing would go missing. I walk room
Speaker 1: to room, telling what belonged to him, marking book's wrapping prints,
Speaker 1: carrying piles to the entryway. Lean and octon and now
Speaker 1: quiet but not apologetic, answering my questions in monosyllables. Mid afternoon,
Speaker 1: Sarah arrived to help, as did a mirror for Lena.
Speaker 1: The apartment filled with their energy, the busy, careful movements
Speaker 1: of friends who want to help without intruding. They shielded
Speaker 1: us from the worst awkwardness. Sarah kept up the rhythm
Speaker 1: of boxing, directing me not to linger over every object. Later,
Speaker 1: Cordy emailed again, the gallery wanted to support Leani's transition,
Speaker 1: promising discretion. I deleted it without answering. The art world
Speaker 1: orbited on, noting our separation and quite whispers at events
Speaker 1: I didn't take. By early evening, the apartment looked half dismantled.
Speaker 1: I arranged a van for my things, confirmed my friend
Speaker 1: market space for me at a spare World walk up downtown.
Speaker 1: I scheduled a moving date three days ahead, toldly, and
Speaker 1: I'd take the next two evenings to finish up. Outside
Speaker 1: of the practicalities, a chill set in escalation, taking on
Speaker 1: a life of its own. Rumors leaked first as in
Speaker 1: direct messages, mutual acquaintances, texting, veiled curiosities, green shots of
Speaker 1: group threads. I had no desire to re friends splintered,
Speaker 1: some siding quietly with me, otters maintaining Lena wasn't to
Speaker 1: blame the art world too, and solw to keep secrets forever.
Speaker 1: I once tight gallery circle, the one that had known
Speaker 1: us as a pair of fracture without open violence. But
Speaker 1: everyone seemed to know something and nothing at once. Even
Speaker 1: picking up groceries became a theatrical negotiation, running into people
Speaker 1: who'd heard about the break up, fielding loaded you, doing
Speaker 1: okay man lines in checkout. I felt like a story
Speaker 1: that had gotten away from its author, just another downtown
Speaker 1: casualty On the second to last night before the move,
Speaker 1: Lena came back late, the air electric with anticipation. She
Speaker 1: moved quietly, arranging her own things, one row of books,
Speaker 1: unruly piles of scarfs, three new paintings wrapped and label
Speaker 1: for the gallery. She paused at the kitchen door, where
Speaker 1: arms crossed, are you really going so soon? And nodded
Speaker 1: does it matter? She watched me, as if searching for
Speaker 1: a reason to fight. Instead, she just sighed and turned away.
Speaker 1: Whatever closeness we'd once been able to conjure, even in
Speaker 1: the heat of an argument, was gone, replaced by the
Speaker 1: practice civility of com managers winding down a joint project
Speaker 1: now too far gone. That night, I replayed the last
Speaker 1: years and jagged Vignett's the dinner parties, Leana painting toe
Speaker 1: nails at midnight, the smell of burnt popcorn when we
Speaker 1: forgot to check the pot. It all seemed to belong
Speaker 1: to someone else, a younger couple held together by gravity
Speaker 1: or chemistry, or pure refusal to lea the world in.
Speaker 1: When morning finally came, the apartment was a nearly empty set.
Speaker 1: Everywhere the aftermath was visible. Little emblems remained, traces of
Speaker 1: us scattered and drinking. We spent an aw qward half
Speaker 1: hour box in the last shed out the things that
Speaker 1: weren't really valuable to anyone else, but couldn't be left
Speaker 1: behind A fire from our very first paw up show
Speaker 1: a faded selfipoloid, Lina sticking out her tongue, mein a
Speaker 1: badly crop corner, grinning. I handed her the polar oid.
Speaker 1: This one's more yours and mine. She stared a moment,
Speaker 1: then tucked it into her wallet with trembling fingers. Thanks.
Speaker 1: I knew then that there'd be no grand gesture, no
Speaker 1: world clearing speech, just a slow deconstruction, the two of
Speaker 1: us leaving only careful, silent marks behind for the next tenants.
Speaker 1: I loaded my last bag by the door, jackets slung
Speaker 1: over my shoulder. Lena hover, wanting to say something, but
Speaker 1: unsure how to begin. Are you? She started? I shook
Speaker 1: my head, a motion boiling just beneath the surface. Let's
Speaker 1: not pretend we both know we broke it. She just
Speaker 1: stood there, arms crossed as I lifted the box, stepped
Speaker 1: through the doorway, and closed the door between us for
Speaker 1: the second to last time. Outside the city clattered on wind,
Speaker 1: whistling through the brick canyons, the clamor of a life
Speaker 1: moving forward. Whether I was ready or not, I paused
Speaker 1: on the stoop box, witched under one arm phone silent
Speaker 1: in my palm, no texts, no calls, just the blank
Speaker 1: possibility of somewhere else. I made my way through the street,
Speaker 1: the cities now swallowing, the memory of our place, moving
Speaker 1: steadily toward a new edge, and so unresolved, but in motion.
Speaker 1: At last, three days later, most of my stuff had
Speaker 1: vanished from the old apartment mark spaar wok up was
Speaker 1: a patchwork of new beginnings and old habit. Moving data
Speaker 1: still clung to my boxes. That final afternoon, I realized
Speaker 1: one box of sketchbooks was missing, the one I'd left
Speaker 1: on the window sill in our old bedroom, forgotten. Amid
Speaker 1: the shuffle, I doubled back, knowing Lina would be out
Speaker 1: at the gallery or am I entirely The lock stuck
Speaker 1: as usual inside the place, echo hollow and stripped only
Speaker 1: a handful of objects marking either of us had been
Speaker 1: alive there at all. I moved through the rooms with Meta,
Speaker 1: first the bedroom windows shut, dust on the sill, then
Speaker 1: a closet I spotted my sketchbook box tucked just out
Speaker 1: of side behind a half open dresser. As I lifted it,
Speaker 1: I noticed my favorite easel propped in the far corner.
Speaker 1: Taped to it a square of paper with Lina's curving script.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I hope we both find our spark again,
Speaker 1: even if it's not together. They'll for a while. I
Speaker 1: stood there, cardboard box pressed to my chest, I stain
Speaker 1: the apology held, no hope, no plea for forgiveness or
Speaker 1: due over, just an acknowledgment of final life under what
Speaker 1: we've been. After a few breaths, I picked up the easel,
Speaker 1: balanced the box, I made my way to the window.
Speaker 1: The city wheeled below, its colors bright and an yielding night.
Speaker 1: Already pressing at the glass, the easel felt suddenly light,
Speaker 1: A part of me not left behind, but carried forward,
Speaker 1: neither racing the past nor letting it define the shape
Speaker 1: of kne Next, I opened the door for the last
Speaker 1: time and stepped into the corridor. At the city's distant
Speaker 1: music swelling. And that is the end. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and I will see you in the next one.