Speaker 1: Seam curl from the rim of my mug and Lazzie spirals,
Speaker 1: and I watched it absently, standing barefoot on the chilly
Speaker 1: kitchen tile, while the rest of the apartment held at
Speaker 1: breath in an early Sunday hush. I could hear the
Speaker 1: hum of traffic leaking through the old windows, muffled as
Speaker 1: if the city mermured from another world. My phone pinged
Speaker 1: with our usual alarm Sunday brunch of Carr and Mark,
Speaker 1: just as I stacked two more mugs on to the
Speaker 1: breakfast bar. Adam was supposed to be home by now.
Speaker 1: I checked the time, ten twenty four. No sign of him.
Speaker 1: He left before dawn with a quick kiss on my
Speaker 1: hair and that apologetic, sheepish half smile. A babe, I
Speaker 1: swear I'll be back before brunch. Total nightmare. First home
Speaker 1: by panic attack. He'd rolled his ice ceiling ward, and
Speaker 1: I'd smile, already missing the weight of him next to me.
Speaker 1: My coffee had turned cold by the time I heard
Speaker 1: his call, the engine noise already hinting he wasn't close. Hey, Hey,
Speaker 1: don't wait up for me, Adam said, too bright over
Speaker 1: the corus bluetooth. It's nuts out here. I'm sorry, babe,
Speaker 1: give every one my best. I'll try to swing by maybe,
Speaker 1: but don't count on me. I nearly said I could
Speaker 1: wait or ask if he wanted me to drop something off,
Speaker 1: but he was already half way into another apology. I
Speaker 1: heard him laugh at someone off mike before his voice returned.
Speaker 1: You know how it is in spring, everyone wants to
Speaker 1: see a place at the same time. Love you, I
Speaker 1: stared at the phone screen after thum hovering over reedal.
Speaker 1: I turned the radio up instead, filling silence with static
Speaker 1: and jazz. This was fine, We'd had week ends like
Speaker 1: this before, worked just eating him alive. Still, I couldn't
Speaker 1: rid myself of the status siege behind my ribs. Adam
Speaker 1: missing brunch the only time he'd skipped, he'd been stuck
Speaker 1: in the yar with a sprained ankle, texting jerks the
Speaker 1: entire time. I grabbed his jacket from the back seat
Speaker 1: of the car he'd left it in the rush earlier.
Speaker 1: No doubt it's smell vaguely of aftershaven his favorite peppermint gum.
Speaker 1: As I've reached inside, a sheet of creamy folded notepaper
Speaker 1: tumbled out, creeing, flowing in elegant, leaping letters. Adam, thank
Speaker 1: you for the amazing night. I haven't stopped smiling. You
Speaker 1: made all of this feel easy. Let's do it again soon.
Speaker 1: There was a tiny smiley face after Jenny's name. My
Speaker 1: heart sort of paused, a is filling with the white
Speaker 1: noise hush of mourning. I looked around like someone might
Speaker 1: see me standing there in my own garage, clutching and no,
Speaker 1: clearly not meant from me. I read it again, then
Speaker 1: tucked it deep in my hoody pocket, ignoring the shake
Speaker 1: in my hand. Maybe it was nothing. A client may
Speaker 1: be effusive and grateful. Yes, Adam had always charms and
Speaker 1: neelywoods and divorces alike. He got thank you's, little Starbucks
Speaker 1: gift cards one time, even a bottle of fancy jin,
Speaker 1: But the tone of the note too intrimate, not salesy
Speaker 1: or grateful, but personal. I stood in the middle of
Speaker 1: our kitchen, staring at the spot where Adam's keys would
Speaker 1: normally land, A slatter ray of sun cut crossaff forridge calender,
Speaker 1: highlighting all the scribbled in brunches and birth days and
Speaker 1: endless little reminders that built our every day together. My
Speaker 1: heart started a quiet repetitive drumpy. Was I invading his privacy,
Speaker 1: making something out of nothing? What was my discomfort telling
Speaker 1: me the truth? Long before I'd let myself listen. I
Speaker 1: moved through the motions, wiping the counter, signing her load
Speaker 1: to Aunt's, streaming along the sail, pretending that my fingers
Speaker 1: went itch into giggle a j ann Adam in every combination. Instead,
Speaker 1: I made fresh coffee, letting normalcy settle over me, like
Speaker 1: a poorly mad quilt. But something already felt crooked beneath
Speaker 1: the surface. I knewon I was at the cafe, stacking
Speaker 1: plates for friends, who all one by one noticed Adam's absence.
Speaker 1: Work again mock Ass bro arched his wife, Kara squeezed
Speaker 1: my hand under the table, warmth, re a dating from
Speaker 1: her grip. I smiled, shrugging it off. Spring market, I
Speaker 1: said lightly, and let everyone move on the rest of
Speaker 1: the day, limp by a place, growing steadily quatter. I
Speaker 1: folded Adam's jacket, smoothing the sleeves, feeling the weight of
Speaker 1: the note hidden in my pocket. It felt almost ridiculous,
Speaker 1: standing at the window overthinking a scrap of paper, but
Speaker 1: the lines kept reaplaying in my head of the amazing night.
Speaker 1: I haven't stopped smiling. Are my instincts really that off?
Speaker 1: I wondered, Is there any reason at all to feel
Speaker 1: this unsettled? Or is this just what happens when your
Speaker 1: best friend and husband is suddenly too busy. I left
Speaker 1: the jacket by his side of the bed and put
Speaker 1: a note in the drawer with my sketch pds and
Speaker 1: unfinished drawings. I told myself, if it still bothered me
Speaker 1: in a week, i'd mention it. Maybe by then I'd
Speaker 1: be able to laugh it off, just another over zealous
Speaker 1: client in Adam's endless parade. For now, I made myself
Speaker 1: go to bed before he got home. In the dark,
Speaker 1: the city's lights flickering golden beyond our blinds, I tried
Speaker 1: to recall the last time I'd missed him like this
Speaker 1: on a Sunday. The next morning, Adam was already gone
Speaker 1: out for early Jim Big listing I'll text later. The
Speaker 1: flush of gilt washed over me, and I hated how
Speaker 1: quickly I could slot my kneed to behind his schedule.
Speaker 1: Hadn't this has always been how we worked. When I
Speaker 1: think about Adam and me, I always go back to
Speaker 1: that first night seven years ago to John pack Dot's
Speaker 1: collective pop up in wick A Park, music thumping and
Speaker 1: people jostling shoulder to shoulder. I knew no one clutching
Speaker 1: my sketch book like a flotation device. Then Adam crashed
Speaker 1: into the gallery for Speaming with a joke about the
Speaker 1: obnoxious installations, and somehow, within ten minutes I was at
Speaker 1: the bar beside him, laughing so much as snorted prosco.
Speaker 1: He'd bought print after print from young artists, gave away
Speaker 1: his coward with that infectious optimism, and at the end
Speaker 1: asked me out. I was bright enough to cut through
Speaker 1: any crowd. We balanced each other always. I loved how
Speaker 1: he could talk to any one, waiters, uber drivers, my
Speaker 1: silent father as easily as breathing. He passed in company.
Speaker 1: I thrived in quieter things, getting lost in layers of
Speaker 1: color and line, laid into the night. Adam didn't just
Speaker 1: fit into my world. He kicked the door open, inviting
Speaker 1: all our friends into one orbit. The ritual of Sunday
Speaker 1: Brunch grew almost by accident after our first year, group chat,
Speaker 1: swelling laughter, echoing through every tiny restaurant we could cram into,
Speaker 1: steadily growing into dinners holidays, A patchwork family. We were
Speaker 1: always Adam and even to our friends and entity, sparking
Speaker 1: snark fuel debates of a Marmosa's trading stories about open
Speaker 1: houses and gallery openings. As Adam's career took off, our
Speaker 1: lads glittered and strained in tandem. I'll admit sometimes I
Speaker 1: envied how easily he moved through rooms that left me
Speaker 1: tongue tied. He slid a hand around my waists, winking
Speaker 1: as he worked the room, my anchor, and sometimes the
Speaker 1: blind and spotlight I quietly shrunk from. Our apartment was
Speaker 1: half way between his office and my home studio, tiny
Speaker 1: but packed with life, shelves built over with designed books,
Speaker 1: tangled cords, and stacks of flyers from Adam's latest listings
Speaker 1: propped up next to my half finished canvasses. Our fridge
Speaker 1: was a colossus at roofed up bars, messy haired bunches,
Speaker 1: the wild grins of friends, even the mundane passed. The
Speaker 1: matching muks shared Spotify playlists felt like parts of a
Speaker 1: life which spent years layering on top of each other.
Speaker 1: Neither of us was in a hurry to turend that
Speaker 1: life into a family. Despite increasingly unsubtle hints from both
Speaker 1: sets of parents. We joked about it, traveling more squeezing
Speaker 1: in one last, selfisher putting off the next step. It
Speaker 1: had always felt like the world would wait for us. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: though at parties were after particularly draining weeks, I'd catch
Speaker 1: myself feeling ghostly behind his charisma. Friends gravitated towards him,
Speaker 1: morphing me into detail at the age of conversation, even
Speaker 1: as I told myself I like vanishing now and then still,
Speaker 1: Adam always made space for me. He noticed when I
Speaker 1: needed to leave early, when exhaustion and ate at my patience.
Speaker 1: He was relentless about his time, even if these days
Speaker 1: were crept into every corner. If I'm honest, I worried
Speaker 1: more about being left behind by his omission than about
Speaker 1: anything darker. He was so hungry, leaning into every networking angle,
Speaker 1: never missing a call, but secrets. He didn't hide things,
Speaker 1: not really, not before these last few months. Our parents
Speaker 1: call from time to time, supportive, but at halm's length.
Speaker 1: Neither Adam nor I craved much guidance. Now they lived
Speaker 1: their own lives, occasionally swept into ours for milestone dinners
Speaker 1: or group vacations. Our friends abd and flow of time,
Speaker 1: some drifted jobs or new relationships pulling them away, but
Speaker 1: the brunch crew stayed the same, a little Churisan family.
Speaker 1: I thought we had all the time in the world
Speaker 1: until that Sunday. The next Sunday, Adam bailed again, same excuse,
Speaker 1: slightly different flavor. This time it was overlapping open houses
Speaker 1: attitude bys flying in from Boston. He sounded breathless, harried,
Speaker 1: annoyed at the universe. He promised we do dinner again.
Speaker 1: He missed the entire day this sign. During brunch, Mark
Speaker 1: asked if I wanted to cancel. The whole thing feels weird,
Speaker 1: doesn't it, he said, teasing but not really. Kara gave
Speaker 1: me a look worried and searching. I told them I
Speaker 1: was fine, just busy, and changed the subject to my
Speaker 1: latest freelance project. At home, Adam breezed in at nine thirty, sweaty,
Speaker 1: talking about global offers and the desperate clients. He barely
Speaker 1: touched the tie leftovers averheated, scrolling through emails and shooting
Speaker 1: off quick texts. I picked up my noodles, watching him
Speaker 1: grin down at his phone. A buzz of luft bubbled
Speaker 1: up and I caught him tucking the phone face down.
Speaker 1: Who's that, I asked, too lightly. Adam grinned work. Newguy
Speaker 1: just joined the team. Total disaster, you know how it is.
Speaker 1: He shut the phone off, finally noticing me, and stood
Speaker 1: to give a dramatic bow. I am all yours, madam.
Speaker 1: But even then, as he kissed my cheek, I felt
Speaker 1: the distance. He smelled like gin in unfamiliar perfume. His
Speaker 1: hair must I told myself. I was imagining things late
Speaker 1: night and too much coffee, that's all. Third weekend, Third
Speaker 1: miss brunch. This time Adam called only thirty minutes before
Speaker 1: we were supposed to leave. His voice sounded dinner clipped, swamped. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I'll try to make it cover for me. What's going on, Adam?
Speaker 1: I tried injecting some levity he turning into a vampire
Speaker 1: realtor or what? He just laughed. Don't worry about it, Pape.
Speaker 1: The call ended too quickly That night, as we split
Speaker 1: a minimalist dinner at home, left of us because neither
Speaker 1: of us could muster mor Adam was distracted, phone buzzing
Speaker 1: every few minutes. He typed up long replies, smiling to himself.
Speaker 1: Then glancing at me as his startled to find I
Speaker 1: was still in the room. I tried to ask about
Speaker 1: his day, about his new clients, his strategy meetings. He
Speaker 1: gave vague responses, attention drifting in a nut. I offered
Speaker 1: to come with him one evening to check out a property.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you get bored? He said, almost impatient. These aren't
Speaker 1: like the stage once. They mostly stressful, last minute and
Speaker 1: a little gross. Lately, he flinched when I reached for
Speaker 1: his jacket, pulling it off the back of the chair.
Speaker 1: Hang on, I'll get that, he said, snatching it away
Speaker 1: with something almost like guilt. I force out a brutal laugh.
Speaker 1: Fifteen minutes later he was gone for another strategy meeting
Speaker 1: I'd never heard mentioned before. I tried to scroll through
Speaker 1: my latest commission notes, but couldn't folkers The thankye note
Speaker 1: from Jenny Howard in my mind, bright, unpersistent, I thought
Speaker 1: about googling her this first name, maybe Adam realter Jenny.
Speaker 1: I even opened a window on my I pad, but
Speaker 1: the idea of spiraling down a rabbit hole of Madgin
Speaker 1: scenarios made my chest tighten. A chastised myself for snooping
Speaker 1: for letting inside. He filled the gaps Adam left behind.
Speaker 1: The next few days, I watched him move through our
Speaker 1: apartment differently, no more open streaming. He started switching up
Speaker 1: passwords on Netflix, and Hilloo told me he updated security
Speaker 1: for our shared accounts. The browser on the laptop was cleared,
Speaker 1: little things, nothing I could pin down, but the shape
Speaker 1: of a pattern I wanted desperately to ignore. At brunch,
Speaker 1: the group kept asking where Adam was carties. Mister popular
Speaker 1: is working us out of the schedule? I laughed too loudly.
Speaker 1: I wondered if they noticed the strain, if they could
Speaker 1: see the crax. Was this just what being with some
Speaker 1: one that successful meant? Or was I reading too much
Speaker 1: into nothing. One afternoon, after a particularly glue work session
Speaker 1: on our logo project, Adam's phone buzzed while he was
Speaker 1: in the shower. We never locked our funds from each
Speaker 1: other until recently. When he flipped on face I d
Speaker 1: I heard a quick burst of a woman's laughter from
Speaker 1: the living room speaker, then Adam's muffle voice, then nothing.
Speaker 1: A cold disconnected too fast. When he came out, towel
Speaker 1: around his waist, he avoided my eyes and changed the
Speaker 1: subject before I could even form a question. Later that week,
Speaker 1: waiting for a ride shore on a sleepy night, I
Speaker 1: noticed Adam had been out every evening team drinks, late showings,
Speaker 1: closing dinners. I checked our joint bank account for my phone,
Speaker 1: partly for reassurance, partly out of irritation over and announced
Speaker 1: credit card charges and joint cards. Several new transactions popped up,
Speaker 1: high end cocktails at a bar I'd never heard, mentioned
Speaker 1: a room charge at a beauty cotel downtown. Three consecutive
Speaker 1: you' varid all at odd hours. I screen shotted them, instinctively,
Speaker 1: feeling the bottom fall out from under me, even as
Speaker 1: I told myself it was probably expenses or client events.
Speaker 1: Things started unraveling faster. Adams Instagram, once cluttered with brunch
Speaker 1: stories and mutual tags, went oddly quiet. He untagged himself
Speaker 1: from brupe photos, barely posted anything together. One night, while
Speaker 1: trading tired anecdotes with Olivia, an old friend from Adam's office,
Speaker 1: she asked how I liked Adam's new wart buddy Jenny.
Speaker 1: I laughed awkwardly, hoping for more, but Olivia just offered
Speaker 1: a quick don't know her really? Adams said she's a
Speaker 1: go Getta and smoothly switched back to talking about travel plans.
Speaker 1: He texted late that night, sorry running super late. Team
Speaker 1: drinks just kept going love you see you soon. I
Speaker 1: glanced at is what calendar he was supposed to be
Speaker 1: at closing, not at drinks. I told myself the market
Speaker 1: was just unpredictable. People celebrated deals at weird hours. At
Speaker 1: Mark's birthday, Adam's seat sat empty and untouched, a glass
Speaker 1: of whiskey sweating beside his plate. Carr pulled me aside.
Speaker 1: He said he had dinner plans with you. She murmured,
Speaker 1: searching my face. I shook my head. He told me
Speaker 1: he'd be here. We let the confusion hang, both pretending
Speaker 1: there was a reasonable explanation. The house started to feel
Speaker 1: less like ours, more like a hotel's. Whee tears. Mostly,
Speaker 1: he'd move stacks of paperwork in at every space, his
Speaker 1: charger always missing, his phone zipped. Wait a minute, he
Speaker 1: walked in. He snapped at me over nothing, then apologized instantly,
Speaker 1: stress written across his forehead. We spent dinners in parallel silence,
Speaker 1: flicking through our separate phones, sharing only the dinner of
Speaker 1: the city outside my unease doubled. The following Thursday, Adam
Speaker 1: had left an address on the kitchen note, but for
Speaker 1: its Sunday open house, muttering I'll be late, maybe meet
Speaker 1: you after. On a whim, Desperate for proof that this
Speaker 1: was all just stress, I decided to drop by the
Speaker 1: listing between gallery visits. The address turned out to be nothing.
Speaker 1: No for sale sign, no staged rooms, not even a
Speaker 1: pock car. The house itself sat dark and empty. I
Speaker 1: circled the block, telling myself it was a timing mix up,
Speaker 1: but a hard knot of dread stage lodged in my
Speaker 1: throat all afternoon. Driving home, I caught myself rehearsing what
Speaker 1: I'd say once he was home. Are you cheating on me?
Speaker 1: The phrase stuck in my teeth. The truth was I
Speaker 1: didn't want to know, not completely, not yet. I needed
Speaker 1: time to piece together the story, to figure out if
Speaker 1: my suspicions were worth destroying everything we'd built. Back home,
Speaker 1: I half heartily confronted Adam about the missing open house,
Speaker 1: rather than anything deeper. He said I'd gotten the time wrong,
Speaker 1: accused me of checking up on him with more exasperation
Speaker 1: than anger. He softened immediately after pulling me on to
Speaker 1: the ketchen, promising a weekend in Michigan once the market
Speaker 1: calm down. His lips brushed my forehead, but his eyes
Speaker 1: never quite met mine. It was little things, every day,
Speaker 1: small Rutcher's. He kept his phone clutch close, even in
Speaker 1: the shower. He changed his phone's background from a photo
Speaker 1: of us to something needle one. Friends texted for double dates.
Speaker 1: Adam replied with works insane rain check before even asking me.
Speaker 1: The place felt emptier with every new routine he dropped.
Speaker 1: I started sleeping restlessly Idwick at dawn to find the
Speaker 1: apartment doc Adam gone while sitting in the living room, texting,
Speaker 1: the blue phone light shining up at his face as
Speaker 1: he thumbed out long messages. Sometimes I'd hear him off
Speaker 1: of real open laugh. He rarely shared with me anymore.
Speaker 1: I tried again to bring it up over dinner, but
Speaker 1: he rolled his eyes, gesturing wildly about clients and the
Speaker 1: insatiable Chicago market. He talked circles around my worries. That night,
Speaker 1: driven by some animal panic, I dug through the trash
Speaker 1: hot panding. I found receipts, cocktails, ride chair entries, another
Speaker 1: boutique hotel charge, nothing explicit, but a trail that only
Speaker 1: grew wider. The thank you note from Jenny burned a
Speaker 1: hole in my sock draw. I vented to Kara, carefully
Speaker 1: skirting the edges, complaining about his hours. The mist brunches
Speaker 1: the late night call. She listened quietly, clearly biting her tongue.
Speaker 1: Eva if this were me, she said softly, I'd want
Speaker 1: to know, but maybe give him the benefit of the
Speaker 1: doubt at least once. I nodded, unwilling to admit how
Speaker 1: foup past that point had drifted. One Friday, Adam left
Speaker 1: again for another strategy session. I got bold. I called
Speaker 1: his office to ask if he'd left something for me.
Speaker 1: The assistant who answered pause, then said, oh, Adam just
Speaker 1: left with Jenny. They had climed drink scheduled at Jinny's.
Speaker 1: Want me to have him call you? I heard my
Speaker 1: own voice flat, No, that's fine, thank you. I hung
Speaker 1: up and looked up Jinnie's upscale tucked away the right
Speaker 1: kind of place. Adam had never mentioned it. I opened
Speaker 1: our bank ap sure enough, a chunky bar tab at Jinnes's,
Speaker 1: this time at ten thirty twelve 'am. When Adam finally
Speaker 1: arrived home close to midnight, he looked exhausted, and whyett
Speaker 1: I askewe wreaking of cologne and something sweet I didn't recognize.
Speaker 1: Long night, I asked. He nodded, flopping next to me
Speaker 1: on the couch without touching me too long. He sighed,
Speaker 1: clients can't make up their minds. J Annie's a godt
Speaker 1: end though, couldn't get through half this mess without her there.
Speaker 1: It was. Her name slipped, and casually we said a
Speaker 1: moment in heavy silence. I didn't ask who Jenny was,
Speaker 1: didn't mention that I'd never met her, that none of
Speaker 1: his stories about the office included her until recently. He
Speaker 1: dozed off almost instantly, hand curled around his phone as
Speaker 1: if clinging to a lifeline. I watched him breathe, the
Speaker 1: lines of stress cut deeper round his mouth, and wondered
Speaker 1: if he'd fallen asleep thinking of some one else. A
Speaker 1: week later, I finally brought up the note. I waited
Speaker 1: until after dinner, when our plates were still warm and
Speaker 1: Adam was in a rare, buoyant mood, tossing jokes about
Speaker 1: curR and marks misadventures in the suburbs. I set my
Speaker 1: fork down carefully and said, hey'd I've found this in
Speaker 1: your jacket last Sunday, thought you'd want it back. I
Speaker 1: slid the folded note across the wood. Adam's brow furrowed
Speaker 1: as he picked it up. I could see the rapid flinch,
Speaker 1: the almost imperceptible jolt, before his charm clamped down like
Speaker 1: a visor. He laughed. Oh geez, Jenny, Yeah, she's animated.
Speaker 1: He tapped the edge of the note, cheeks riddening. That
Speaker 1: was just a thank you for helping her get settled.
Speaker 1: She's new, big first perch, scared out of her mind.
Speaker 1: I hosted an open house for her, the one y
Speaker 1: I asked about. Actually she got a little carried away,
Speaker 1: wrote every one on the teamer note. Sweet right, He
Speaker 1: flushed a grin, shrugging. Does it seem weird? I mean
Speaker 1: she's just a friend, very grateful. Trust me, I've gotten
Speaker 1: weirder from clients. Do you remember the time with the
Speaker 1: banana bread basket? At least this was just a note.
Speaker 1: I watched her easy smile, Whilac's shoulders meeting my eyes
Speaker 1: without blinking. If he was lying, it was buried under
Speaker 1: layers of practice performance I'd never seen before. So that
Speaker 1: open house was it a big group thing? You weren't alone, right,
Speaker 1: I made my voice sound almost amused. He nodded, leaning back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: half the office was there late night. It turned into
Speaker 1: a party. You need to come next time we get
Speaker 1: so astir crazy. We'll take any excuse. He reached for
Speaker 1: my hand over the table, squeezing gently. I'm sorry, I've
Speaker 1: been distant, markets bonkers. I haven't managed my stress. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm letting everyone down, but especially you, cam Weed.
Speaker 1: I dunno rusat. I'll block out Sundays again. Let's not
Speaker 1: lose that. I wanted to believe him for a few days.
Speaker 1: I let myself. He stop shotted, leaving his phone out
Speaker 1: on the counter again. We went out for dinner, real dinner,
Speaker 1: cloth napkins, and good wine. He insisted on a weekend
Speaker 1: up north. Just the two of us started talking about
Speaker 1: future trips again. He was attentive, warm, present in a
Speaker 1: way he hadn't been in months. I felt stupid for
Speaker 1: ever doubting. I told myself it was holburn out, a
Speaker 1: career peak, maybe a crisis, relationship spent. Don't break right.
Speaker 1: It was almost easy to slip back into our routines,
Speaker 1: to tell our friends that things were just busy and
Speaker 1: brunchban was over a weekened our newly peaceful bubble. An
Speaker 1: anonymous text landed on my phone early Saturday morning. The
Speaker 1: number was unlisted, no name, just a single sentence. You
Speaker 1: don't know everything about Adam. A hatch photo, Adam in
Speaker 1: a navy shirt I didn't recognize, sitting across a tiny
Speaker 1: table from a woman's shoulder length, auburn hair, shot blazer, face,
Speaker 1: led up by a candle, their hands just barely touching,
Speaker 1: both smiling, close enough that the intimacy was unmistakable, even
Speaker 1: pixelated the time some Thursday night, two days ago, during
Speaker 1: what he'd called a lake kai, my hand shook so
Speaker 1: badly I nearly dropped the phone, knees buckling. As I
Speaker 1: sat at the kitchen counter for a moment, I couldn't breathe.
Speaker 1: The noise of the city faded out, were replaced by
Speaker 1: rushing in my ears, everything sharp and cold and silent.
Speaker 1: At once, a burning humiliation rose up, crowding out the
Speaker 1: piece of the past week. It felt worse than any
Speaker 1: answer I'd imagined, because it was definitive, and it was deliberate.
Speaker 1: Whoever sent the text wanted me to know. I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell if it was cruelty or mercy. Four hours, I
Speaker 1: did nothing. I didn't cry, I didn't call Kara, didn't
Speaker 1: confront Adam. Every muscle in my body felt locked. My
Speaker 1: mind chased itself in circles grief, anger, shame, and end
Speaker 1: the sloops. I pulled open our bank account, another charge
Speaker 1: at Jane's, matching the times damp from the photo. I
Speaker 1: searched Adam's emails on the laptop. Nothing explicit, but several
Speaker 1: event invitations forwarded from a Jenny Chin at his office,
Speaker 1: and one thread with dozens of after party replies. I
Speaker 1: ran sat my memories for every odd moment, his deflection,
Speaker 1: the vanished open house, the hotel charges, and watched the
Speaker 1: shape of his absence come into show. Adam moved through
Speaker 1: my life, but belonged to some one else. Still I
Speaker 1: needed more. I needed to know how much of our
Speaker 1: life was true and how much was candy colored fiction.
Speaker 1: It felt like drowning, but standing still the weight of
Speaker 1: an answer of questions anchoring me to this yawning, collapsing present.
Speaker 1: I started assembling every clue I had. I called the
Speaker 1: credit card company for another statement, cross checking each our charge.
Speaker 1: I dug through drawers in boxes, even the recycling. For
Speaker 1: more tangible evidence, I jotted timelines, mocked out absences and
Speaker 1: dates around the apartment. The tension crackled. Adam noticed, though
Speaker 1: he didn't say anything. We navigated each other in tight,
Speaker 1: polite circles. I couldn't meet his eyes. He started leaving earlier,
Speaker 1: coming home even later. I reached out to Olivia, Adams's colleague,
Speaker 1: the one who had been so evasive at the coffee shop.
Speaker 1: This time I was direct live. I need to ask Jenny.
Speaker 1: Is she just a client or is there something else
Speaker 1: between her and Adam. There was a silence so thick
Speaker 1: I imagine my phone had dropped the call eve I
Speaker 1: thought he knew. Olivia finally whispered, Jenny's not just a clentch.
Speaker 1: She turns for to our downtown office. Last fall. She
Speaker 1: and Adam, well their close. I don't know more than that.
Speaker 1: He helped her move here, set her up with a
Speaker 1: prime listing downtown. They've been in separable happy hours. I
Speaker 1: really thought you were in on it. God, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: It was like hearing my story told from a distance,
Speaker 1: an alternate version in which I was just another Biston,
Speaker 1: not to my own life. I spent the evening not
Speaker 1: immutely as Adam told stories about clients who won't commit,
Speaker 1: all while his phone barsed with texts he ignored or hid.
Speaker 1: I clicked through linked in, finding post affter post from
Speaker 1: Jenny's celebrating dream team wins, all likes from Adam, several
Speaker 1: selfies from office parties with him in the background, arms
Speaker 1: slung a round to chair. Next, I hunted through official
Speaker 1: team rosters, her name popping up in connection with Adam's
Speaker 1: biggest deals of the last six months. In a shared
Speaker 1: drop books folder, I found an odd email chain Adam
Speaker 1: and Jenny arranging weekend events using coded language. Follow up
Speaker 1: appointment at the club, are reviewing documents at the Penthouse,
Speaker 1: dates that matched some of those odd hotel charges. Now
Speaker 1: the timeline sharpened, undeniable in its pattern, each work emergency
Speaker 1: traced in one way or or another back to Jenny.
Speaker 1: Where I had once seen randomness of a commitment a
Speaker 1: demanding market, I now saw deliberate planning. I stood in
Speaker 1: our kitchen holding the original thank you note, the one
Speaker 1: I at once convinced myself was innocent. I studied the
Speaker 1: hand drawn heart below her name and realized how foolish.
Speaker 1: I'd been, not just for trusting Adam, but for letting
Speaker 1: my fear of the truth delay the questions I should
Speaker 1: have insisted on asking. Not that it mattered. I had
Speaker 1: my answers on Adam. He was still out somewhere, moving
Speaker 1: through a parallel life I'd only recently discovered, perfectly petitioned
Speaker 1: from Marhoem our friends, our history. It felt almost clinical,
Speaker 1: the way the evidence crystallized, a list of charges, an
Speaker 1: album of tagged photos, and office connection nobody bothered to explain.
Speaker 1: But underneath it all, my loss had an edge as
Speaker 1: sharp and bright as the day we met. The rooms
Speaker 1: of our apartment ache of ghost routines, his headphones on
Speaker 1: the armchair, my mud left unwashed on the counter, the
Speaker 1: desk where he had helped me frame my very first
Speaker 1: gallery shore. I smelled his cologne in the sweater he'd
Speaker 1: thrown on the bed. The weight and reality of all
Speaker 1: those shared hears pressed in on me. I stayed up
Speaker 1: through the night, cataloging every clue, pracing for whatever came next.
Speaker 1: I told myself there was still a chance, some rogue
Speaker 1: explanation just out of sight, But in my bones I
Speaker 1: knew the life I had with Adam was already in
Speaker 1: the past, far behind me, waiting for me to accept
Speaker 1: an ending I never saw coming. I barely registered the
Speaker 1: hiss of the kettle. The next morning, sun light flickered
Speaker 1: with the shop an adequacy of the outside world. Oblivious ordinary,
Speaker 1: my hands moved through morning rituals as though I were
Speaker 1: an understudy in some one else's play. I put oat
Speaker 1: milk in my coffee, watched the swirl, and dropped an
Speaker 1: extra spoon of sugar on auto pilot Adam's way, not mine,
Speaker 1: then poured the hull cup down the drain, too thick
Speaker 1: with memory to swallow. Adam had texted at two ten
Speaker 1: a m. Stuck reviewing offers, going to crash at the
Speaker 1: office couch, see you in the morning, x x, I
Speaker 1: scrawled up, searching for warmth. In his recent messages, most
Speaker 1: were transactional, clipped, running late, catching the train, see you soon, Sorry,
Speaker 1: can you order food? Love you? But there was a
Speaker 1: kind of pattern Lungthia replies late at night, little Emoji's
Speaker 1: trailing when he mentioned work, enthusiasm blunted everywhere else my
Speaker 1: joy from clunching it in sleep on a whim. I
Speaker 1: tried to log into our old streaming account one we'd
Speaker 1: used nightly, slouched across the couch with our feet touching,
Speaker 1: but eyes on different screens. Passwood denied a county mail reseaid.
Speaker 1: I dug through my files, every single one, streaming grocery delivery,
Speaker 1: even the group dinner thread had moved to his private
Speaker 1: email in the last few weeks. At first, the paranoia
Speaker 1: made me recoil. I closed my laptop, pressed my fists
Speaker 1: into my sonum. Just passwords, just new best practices. The
Speaker 1: world gets hacked every day. But the tilt and the
Speaker 1: details only widened. Our shave giggle calendar, always packed with
Speaker 1: colored blocks, was suddenly blank. On Adam's side, it just
Speaker 1: generic work. After six p m. Emptied of specifics, I
Speaker 1: left the apartment and wandered wicker Park, hugging close to
Speaker 1: store windows, pretending to browse. I found myself at the
Speaker 1: watercolor supply shop, the one Atom had celebrated my last
Speaker 1: commission in fifty feet off the steep where he'd first
Speaker 1: said I Love you in a snowstorm. The owner, Greta,
Speaker 1: smiled from behind the register and asked no Adam to day.
Speaker 1: I mumbled something about works wallowing us both. She clocked
Speaker 1: sympathetically and suggested a new shade for eye signature blue shadows.
Speaker 1: The small talks Donne the precise intimacy of strangers who
Speaker 1: only knew you was part of couple on the OL
Speaker 1: ride home. A message currer drinks this week some nonsense
Speaker 1: about Adam's hours. Need not to implode, Karr replied, instantly,
Speaker 1: of course, Tuesday tie at our place seven. I send
Speaker 1: a thumbs up then, However, wanting to spill, wanting to
Speaker 1: stay silent, I settled on a compromise. Everything's weird lately.
Speaker 1: Don't let me chicken out of venting. Tuesday drifted closer.
Speaker 1: I spent the intervening days half watching Adam's movements, scribbling
Speaker 1: half finished designs but tossing them infstration my brain shouting
Speaker 1: that everything was fine, even as my stomach lurched every
Speaker 1: time his phone pained. Twice I caught myself composing texts
Speaker 1: I never sent. Who is Jenny? Really? Is this something wrong?
Speaker 1: Or just something I don't want to see? Tuesday night,
Speaker 1: the four of us perched around Mark and Carr's heavy
Speaker 1: reclaimed table. Everyone perfumed would take a spice in a
Speaker 1: low great handover from work. Adam had counseled the last
Speaker 1: minute conference call, tell every one and saving them for
Speaker 1: my bad mood. I bristled at his absence, even as
Speaker 1: I defended it to the group car poor cheap wine,
Speaker 1: and waited until Mark retreated for dessert before asking you, okay,
Speaker 1: for real? This isn't just typical. Adam works dress. I
Speaker 1: trace the rim of my glass. He's different lately, distant,
Speaker 1: scheduling over everything, missing, brunches, protecting his phone like at
Speaker 1: CIA classified. I gave a weak laugh Karr as I
Speaker 1: searched my face for a beat too long. You think
Speaker 1: he's seeing some one. Her voice was gentle, but edge
Speaker 1: with worry. I know, I mean, I can't just assume
Speaker 1: my sentence trailed off anemic. I found a note from
Speaker 1: a client, very appreciative, and there's this woman, Janny. I
Speaker 1: can't get a read on it. Adam says, it's nothing
Speaker 1: but all these little things, lies that don't feel vague,
Speaker 1: but when you stack them up. I squeezed my hand
Speaker 1: into a fist. Car reached for me, fingers strong and practical.
Speaker 1: Do you want me to ask Mark to poke around?
Speaker 1: He hears suff at the brokerage. Sometimes the urge to
Speaker 1: say yes to despatch. Some emboulder and thus emotionally tethered
Speaker 1: flickered across my face, but I shook my head. Not yet.
Speaker 1: I want to trust him, or at least trust I'm
Speaker 1: not inventing a problem before there is one. While Mark
Speaker 1: returned with malten cake, conversation scattered, but Carr's gaze cap
Speaker 1: flicking to mine, still impatient a lifeline if I dared
Speaker 1: grab it. That night, home alone again, I snuck in
Speaker 1: to Adam's small, cluttered home office, pretending to look for
Speaker 1: a glue stick. A stack of folders spiled under his desk,
Speaker 1: each labeled in his lopy handwriting. I thumbed through guests
Speaker 1: less listing, agreements, checklists, then tucked between a mortgage packet
Speaker 1: and a print out of comps, I found a sheet
Speaker 1: covered with blocky to do items Jay Chen, review deck,
Speaker 1: confirm SAP with scheduled drinks Send Kiekar to Jay. There
Speaker 1: wasn't technically anything wrong with it, until I realized Adam
Speaker 1: had used my childhood nickname for me the in earlier lists,
Speaker 1: always for personal reminders. The cemetary was enough to start
Speaker 1: a slow drip of nausea from the living room. Adam
Speaker 1: called Eva have you seen my navy watch going to
Speaker 1: be late? I jammed the folder closed, hand shaking, and
Speaker 1: called back for st preternaturally smooth top shelf by your
Speaker 1: camera bag. He strode in. Herowt I slung over his shoulder.
Speaker 1: You're a lie saver, he grinned and kissed me, hovering
Speaker 1: just long enough to tis like towopists and Resigel pevermen.
Speaker 1: I watched him hurry out the door again, leaving the
Speaker 1: rooms full of shoe prints and questions. Sleep didn't come easily.
Speaker 1: When I finally drifted off, it was with my phone
Speaker 1: clutched in my hand, a screen glowing faintly with our
Speaker 1: last threat, his love you, Me love you too. Wednesday,
Speaker 1: I visited Adam's office ostinably to deliver a sweater he'd
Speaker 1: left home a pretext over house too many times. I
Speaker 1: buzz past reception, feeling eyes pricked my back. Jenny wasn't
Speaker 1: at the front, but I heard her name ripple in
Speaker 1: a passing conversation. Jenny said she'd handle the ninth Street
Speaker 1: listing Adams covering the open house with his Saturday. The
Speaker 1: words sang claws into me. Adam's office door was closed,
Speaker 1: laughter audible, A man's and a woman's voice, lowered and familiar,
Speaker 1: then a quick ash. I knocked, balancing my mask of wifeliness.
Speaker 1: Adams warm the door open, Eva, this is a surprise,
Speaker 1: he said, his voice are touched too casual. I found
Speaker 1: you sweater, I said, handing it over. I glanced toward
Speaker 1: the woman inside, a slim expertly put together auburn her
Speaker 1: shining Jenny. Her smile was generous, but not effusive, lips
Speaker 1: painted a shade I'd never dare. She stood, extending her hand.
Speaker 1: You must be Eva. Adam always says you're the creative
Speaker 1: force behind his best marketing. And Jenny. The handshake was firm, practiced.
Speaker 1: I took her hand at catalog and details, think old bracelet,
Speaker 1: subtle perfume, and easy familiarity in the way she occupied
Speaker 1: the room. Nice to meet you, I said, voice lighter
Speaker 1: than I felt. I'm rarely down town these days. Sorry
Speaker 1: for interrupting. Jenny waved it off as if it were nothing,
Speaker 1: not at all, we were just rapping. Adam's gaze getted
Speaker 1: over us, then to his phone, then to the clock.
Speaker 1: Big week, he said, almost a warning. I glanced at
Speaker 1: the display board behind him. Two listings under hot of
Speaker 1: coming Jay. See both dated for a weekend, Adam had explained,
Speaker 1: with a flurry of last minute cancelations to me. Jenny
Speaker 1: excused herself, gathering files and practice deficient motions. See you tonight, Adam,
Speaker 1: she said, before catching herself at the office dinner. I mean,
Speaker 1: I couldn't read the look that flashed between them, professional playful,
Speaker 1: something less easily classified. Adam. Shepherded me back down the hall. Sorry,
Speaker 1: e've a crazy day. Thanks for the sweater. I owe
Speaker 1: you lunch, he said, before e kissing my cheek and
Speaker 1: ushering me into the elevator. Before I could catch my
Speaker 1: breath in the glass reflection, I studied myself, dark circles,
Speaker 1: hair frizzed by the wind, jaw set hard. For a moment,
Speaker 1: I wanted to scream. Instead, I fixed my expression into
Speaker 1: brittal serenity. The ride home was a blur of noise
Speaker 1: and headlines, the city's and blinking face At our apartment,
Speaker 1: Adam's office key fell from my back. I turned it
Speaker 1: over in my hand. The ourage to go back, to
Speaker 1: dig deeper, to find some small, exonerating truth almost irresistible.
Speaker 1: Thursday passed with tiny, fratturing adjustments, sad and texting he'd
Speaker 1: be home, maybe late, maybe not, then send in a
Speaker 1: thumbs up emoji to cancel together. I ordered takeout for myself,
Speaker 1: ate cross legged in the living room watching shadows slide
Speaker 1: across the walls. Friday, after a burst of hollow resolve,
Speaker 1: I called Adam's office, asking for him on a preten's
Speaker 1: forgotten lunch plans. A different receptionist answered voice flat. Adam
Speaker 1: just left fourteen event, said he be offline. My question
Speaker 1: with Jenny Chen hung in the air between us. The
Speaker 1: receptionist's pause was a thudding confirmation. Here Jenny's leading the project.
Speaker 1: Now they've been out a lot lately. After the call,
Speaker 1: I sifted through our bills again, finding that beauty hotel charge,
Speaker 1: repeating the bar tab at Chinese logged three weeks in
Speaker 1: a row, all for two, always under Adam's card. I
Speaker 1: searched the hotel. Never once had team mentioned to Team
Speaker 1: happy hour or private event. There each detailed press possibility
Speaker 1: closer to inevitability. On Saturday, I decided to observe him,
Speaker 1: not follow exactly, but to see with Carty whether the
Speaker 1: versions he told me match the versions observable in daylight.
Speaker 1: Adam left for the office partied at six, crisply dressed
Speaker 1: his usual edge dell by what almost looked like anticipation.
Speaker 1: Dot Wait up, he said, pocketing his phone, brushing a
Speaker 1: fingerprint from its face. Depends how late people want to celebrate.
Speaker 1: As soon as the elevator doors closed, I paced. I
Speaker 1: debated calling Kara, debated leaving, debated numb acceptance. Instead, I
Speaker 1: pulled up the group text our old friend crew dead,
Speaker 1: silent except for Kara and Marx inside jokes. I scrolled
Speaker 1: up to pass photos. Adam, with his arms flung wide,
Speaker 1: grin stretching to the horizon, meet up anew, his arm beaming.
Speaker 1: My thumb hovered over send message instead. I locked my phone,
Speaker 1: dropped it on the couch, and pressed my fist to
Speaker 1: my eyes until I saw fireworks. It was after midnight
Speaker 1: before Adam returned. Hetty with cologne, shirt and tarped hair.
Speaker 1: Must wild night, he murmured, dropping it to go bag
Speaker 1: on the counter. Jenny's a machine closed, two deals, kept
Speaker 1: everyone motivated. Should have seen her run circles around the newbies.
Speaker 1: His eyes were glassy, but his voice rode the edge
Speaker 1: of triumph and fatigue. I pretended to believe him. I
Speaker 1: told myself I was gathering data, but my heart handed
Speaker 1: with each word, cataloging inflictions, mapping the distance between a
Speaker 1: wild night and his immediate retreat to the bathroom with
Speaker 1: his phone cupped in both hands. I waited ten minutes,
Speaker 1: long enough for plausible deniability. Then I crept to the
Speaker 1: bedroom and listened through the crack of the door. His
Speaker 1: laughter was softer than with me, but the contentment was insistent.
Speaker 1: I know yet she's asleep, he murmured, voice low. You
Speaker 1: were brilliant to night, so fucking proud of you. I
Speaker 1: pause there, almost inaudible. Yeah, I wish me to next weekend.
Speaker 1: I stumbled back to the couch, fispawled, pulses of shame
Speaker 1: hot in my chest. Adam emerged minutes later, smilingly, easy,
Speaker 1: I softening, as if nothing had happened. Sorry, just needed
Speaker 1: to decompress. Want me to rub your shoulders. I let him.
Speaker 1: My arms wrought on tight, every cell, screaming. He pressed
Speaker 1: his thumbs into my back, hands, steady arm, familiar, moss
Speaker 1: you lately, he said, lips on my ear. Let's do
Speaker 1: something together, just us, no work. I forced myself to
Speaker 1: not to lean into him, desperate for a glimpse of
Speaker 1: the Adam. I knew the feeling didn't last. He pulled
Speaker 1: the way ten minutes later to feel another call. Voice, cheerful,
Speaker 1: half turned toward the window. Sunday dawned. I lay in
Speaker 1: bed as he showed, listened to the running water, masking
Speaker 1: his phone's fain shines. Cortext At brunch, I hit decline,
Speaker 1: blaming a migrane. I lay flat. Hans nodded, staring at
Speaker 1: the ceiling. I spent the day drifting, pausing to stare
Speaker 1: at photos from the past holidays, gallery openings, the rooftop
Speaker 1: picnic where Adam had promised you and me always first.
Speaker 1: I counted how many hours and a week he was
Speaker 1: now missing, How little of our life he's seemed to
Speaker 1: occupy any more. I replyed. Jenny's smile, the confidence of
Speaker 1: a woman shotting territory she knew well. Evening, pressed in
Speaker 1: damp and implacable, Adam kept her rority. Fridaych's toast, the
Speaker 1: smell of butter curling around my sadness. He set the table,
Speaker 1: poured juice for me, practiced normalcy with intense determination. About brunch,
Speaker 1: he said, cutting yokes with surgical care. I really do
Speaker 1: miss it. Let's make it just us next week. I
Speaker 1: need a break and you are the only reset that works.
Speaker 1: I wanted to believe him. I wanted my instincts to
Speaker 1: be paranoid dreams. Instead, I nodded, feeling a dense, terrible
Speaker 1: piece and acceptance of the chasm that had come between us,
Speaker 1: even seated together at our batter table, hands inches of pot.
Speaker 1: After dinner, Adam pulled out his lot up, opening emails
Speaker 1: by keeping the screen angle just out of sight. Just
Speaker 1: need to send Jenny a report, she's new drowning. His
Speaker 1: voice was soft, almost offensive. I watched his fingers skate
Speaker 1: over the keys, a glow of the screen pail against
Speaker 1: his drawn face. I thought of the coddl language, the scheduling,
Speaker 1: the tiny smiles he reserved for messages I never saw.
Speaker 1: I cleaned a kitchen in silence, shaping my rage into
Speaker 1: white scar plates and gleaming countertops. I resisted the urge
Speaker 1: to hell a mug into the sink, to shatter evidence
Speaker 1: of his abandonment into something that would demand attention. Late
Speaker 1: that night, I lay beside him, both of us awake,
Speaker 1: but needa willing to speak. Adam's arms found me in
Speaker 1: the dark, heavy in purpose, his mouth at my neck, urgent, familiar, needy.
Speaker 1: I'll let him, let hi my body respond while my
Speaker 1: man tavered above and observe it to my own, longing
Speaker 1: for touch, for certainty. After Adam breathed out along shaking
Speaker 1: sigh and whispered I love you. You know that, I
Speaker 1: stayed silent, pressing my finger tips into his back as
Speaker 1: though I could anchor, aspose to something solid. He drifted
Speaker 1: to sleep. I counted the cracks in the ceiling, imagining
Speaker 1: Jenny's face. Monday came in violent blue parre, cold whispers,
Speaker 1: edged in concern. Even if you need anything, anything, just
Speaker 1: say do you want Mark to talk to Adam? People
Speaker 1: notice things. I almost told her everything, but shame beat
Speaker 1: me back. Instead, I promised her I was fine, just overtired, overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: It's probably in my head, I said, lying to both
Speaker 1: of us. Tuesday, I found a small new box in
Speaker 1: Adam's side of the closet. Expensive cologne, but not the
Speaker 1: brand he wore when he was with me. No receipt,
Speaker 1: just a handerton note tucked in the tissue for later Jay.
Speaker 1: My fingers closed around the box, knuckles blanched, how did
Speaker 1: I become a spy in my own home? How did
Speaker 1: a relationship built on open doors turn into an endless
Speaker 1: corridor of locked ones. Adam came home early that evening,
Speaker 1: humming a bouquet of grocery store roses in one hand.
Speaker 1: Miss you, he said, tucking the flowers into a glass
Speaker 1: and rubbing his hand over my neck in his old
Speaker 1: dear way. I wanted to collapse into him, to pretend
Speaker 1: none of the last month had happened. But the note
Speaker 1: burned a hole in my pocket. I thought of confrontation, collar, noise, tears,
Speaker 1: but my fear was a more patient jailer. That night,
Speaker 1: playing it to mysticity, I made spaghetti, tried to laugh
Speaker 1: at his jokes, joined him on the couch for an
Speaker 1: episode of a series we both lost interest in. Adam
Speaker 1: culled his feet under mine the scent of his new
Speaker 1: colown rising as a kind of proof. In the dare,
Speaker 1: I forced myself to ask, was work good today? Any
Speaker 1: new client's driving you crazy? My voice was sour, and
Speaker 1: Adam's smiled crookedly. Actually pretty compe. Jenny and I closed one,
Speaker 1: so I celebrated with kick in the office. His tone
Speaker 1: was so normal, so casual, so utterly dismissive of consequence
Speaker 1: that I nearly dropped my fork. I watched him face
Speaker 1: upturned into laughter, wondering if the secret was that he
Speaker 1: truly didn't see Thiss his betrayal, or if the acting
Speaker 1: was a lie so old he no longer remembered what
Speaker 1: the truth had ever looked like. Friday, Olivia finally messaged back, Eva,
Speaker 1: can you talk now? After be quick? We spoke in
Speaker 1: the bathroom, the only door with a lock between Adam
Speaker 1: and my collapse in composure, Olivia's words hesitance stuttered. I
Speaker 1: don't know everything, but Jenny and Adam there together all
Speaker 1: the time, late client meetings, after work weekends. It's not
Speaker 1: normal people talk, Eva. He covers for her, and she
Speaker 1: covers for him. Her sympathy wasn't comforting but routine. I'd
Speaker 1: feared this so long it no longer felt new. I
Speaker 1: thanked her. She apologized again, and I promised not to
Speaker 1: bring her name into it. That evening, Adam texted, will
Speaker 1: be home late, closing up with Jenny, don't wait, I
Speaker 1: love you. I closed my eyes and let my head
Speaker 1: long against the col subway tile. The ache of confirmation,
Speaker 1: not deciding, I wasn't crazy, only broken and breaking further
Speaker 1: every day. Adam came home near midnight, eyes wild hands,
Speaker 1: trembling with manufactured excitement. Huge winter night. Jenny clinched a
Speaker 1: sail no one thought she could. Drinks turned into dinner.
Speaker 1: I brought you cannoy from the place and clock. He
Speaker 1: dealt the box with an uncertain flourish, a smile, took
Speaker 1: a bite let sugarn on my ton. They urged a
Speaker 1: screen to rage, to demand truth, hovert, but I held
Speaker 1: it at bay. I wasn't finished gathering what I needed
Speaker 1: to confront, to destroy, or to finally walk away. Over
Speaker 1: the next week, the pattern only deepened. I observed the
Speaker 1: choreography of Adam's dishonesty, New ties, strange receipts left her
Speaker 1: in the shower of texts that arrived and were dispatched
Speaker 1: with practiced discretion. More and more, my prisons seemed to
Speaker 1: serve as an alibi, a piece in his game. Friends
Speaker 1: stopped asking for joint plans, learning not to expect him.
Speaker 1: I wondered if he noticed or kid. I made a list,
Speaker 1: hand written and folded beneath my mattress. Thank ye, no
Speaker 1: handwriting a Vagini's Thursday night barta for to retach in
Speaker 1: New Kologne, Notre Jay well the Jennies transfer public social
Speaker 1: media tagged events, Adam present, while Livy's call covering for
Speaker 1: each other, missing Sunday brunches five total, A kind of
Speaker 1: non purpose filled me. If this was happening, at least
Speaker 1: I could trace the counters of what I was losing.
Speaker 1: One night past midnight, I woke and found Adam gone
Speaker 1: from the bed. The living room was dark except for
Speaker 1: the faint glow of his lap up screen. I patted
Speaker 1: in quietly, leaning against the wall. He sat shirtless, eyes
Speaker 1: flickering between tabs through the glass of our balcony. City
Speaker 1: lights blinked indifferent. I watched as he opened an email
Speaker 1: subject this weekend message hotels confirmed. Caun't wait to see you,
Speaker 1: hark Jay. His breath was slow, almost meditative, as he
Speaker 1: typed me too, counting the hours. I stepped back so
Speaker 1: quietly the floorboards didn't even prodict. I curled in our bed,
Speaker 1: skin crolling the confirmation, both a relief and a fresh crew.
Speaker 1: No more uncertainty, no more hope. I didn't confront him
Speaker 1: that night or even the next morning. I practice what
Speaker 1: I'd say in the shower, in the mirror, walking the
Speaker 1: block to the corner cafe. I wanted to be calm,
Speaker 1: to hold the narrative so steady that Adam couldn't bend
Speaker 1: it into some shape that would make me question myself again.
Speaker 1: Days bled together in lip's work, pale excuses, empty conversation.
Speaker 1: Adam's eyes met, mind less and less. Our bed became
Speaker 1: a cold war zone, each of us perched far from
Speaker 1: the other, touching only at accidental midnight crossings. I clutched
Speaker 1: my sketchbook at night hans, longing for the comfort of creation.
Speaker 1: But nothing came, just angry lines, unfinished faces, corr tax
Speaker 1: to persistent need to see you call me. I put
Speaker 1: her off, ashamed, unable to curate the right shape for
Speaker 1: my grief, I didn't know how to say the words
Speaker 1: he is cheating. I am lading him the apartment trunk,
Speaker 1: as though the walls remembered what I tried to deny. Still,
Speaker 1: I waited for Monday morning, for a reason, for my
Speaker 1: courage to astrict my terror of answer. In the cold
Speaker 1: pre dawn hash, with Adam's own charging face down beside
Speaker 1: the sink, I looked at my own face in the
Speaker 1: bathroom mirror worlder sharper, eyes ringed with exhaustion. The love story,
Speaker 1: we'd cough it was crumbling fast. Soon one of us
Speaker 1: would be forced to admit it out loud. There was
Speaker 1: no satisfying crash, no cinematic lightning bolt when the lust
Speaker 1: of my hurt finally failed me, Just a stillness so absolute,
Speaker 1: a buzz through my nerves burning itself in behind my eyes.
Speaker 1: The bathroom mirror reflected a face I both recognized and
Speaker 1: didn't skin wan hair pulled back for armor, mouthed rigid
Speaker 1: in that way you clumb shot to dam a rising tide. Inside.
Speaker 1: Down the hall, the apartment stood frozen, an artificial dawn.
Speaker 1: I could hear Adam's muffled snores, the sleepy giggle of
Speaker 1: the old radiator clicking imlessly. It would all keep running,
Speaker 1: even at the shape of the life I clung to
Speaker 1: finally slipped out of my grasp. By seven, I was up,
Speaker 1: stoking some small hope of normalcy through the jittery ritual
Speaker 1: of brewing coffee. The sunlight showed familiar things in cold relief.
Speaker 1: Adams shoes left half kit beneath the bench, my old
Speaker 1: heady thrown over the chair, A plate from last night,
Speaker 1: fake dinner still waited in the sink. I pressed my
Speaker 1: palm to the cantertop, granding myself in the chill, count
Speaker 1: the seconds, the gestures, as if pausing could by clarity.
Speaker 1: Truth no longer felt optional. A pulse at my temple's
Speaker 1: insistent Adam wandered out in Sofswait's eyes bleary sleep at all,
Speaker 1: but he asked, scrubbing at his beard with both hands.
Speaker 1: His voice was cautious, as if he already knew. I
Speaker 1: drifted further away, as if neither of us wanted to
Speaker 1: acknowledge it. Yet not much, I said flat. I handed
Speaker 1: him his coffee, our hands brushing for the first time
Speaker 1: in days, both of us flinching at the contact. He
Speaker 1: carried his mug to the window, yawning, as if this
Speaker 1: were just any other morning, after just any other long week.
Speaker 1: I felt the note in my pocket, Jenny's cursive, the
Speaker 1: thawn at the heart of everything, and tried not to
Speaker 1: picture the email he'd send the night before to the
Speaker 1: same looping, artful Jay. He offered up some bland smile, comfortless,
Speaker 1: big showing later, he said, trying to sound normal, but
Speaker 1: I'll be home early want to order in Yeah, I managed,
Speaker 1: with nothing left in my voice. I kept to myself
Speaker 1: as Adaman throw o verrotines, humming in the shower, texting
Speaker 1: someone with a smile. He didn't bother to hide. I
Speaker 1: knew I was building up to something. Some needed choreography,
Speaker 1: a scene that would set it all straight. But for
Speaker 1: now we orbited each other, worry, wounded, and spoken. I
Speaker 1: left the apartment just after ten, walking the city in
Speaker 1: the haze, the shops, the market, the patch with murals
Speaker 1: under the Altraslok. The same but familiar shopkeepers clocked my attention,
Speaker 1: offering warm small talk I barely absorbed. I bought a
Speaker 1: coffee I didn't want, watched its steam onto the knockers
Speaker 1: of my clasped hands. The entire world carried on in
Speaker 1: casual contentment, shouting reminders of how far I had fallen
Speaker 1: from anything resembling peace. I couldn't go home, not yet. Instead,
Speaker 1: I crossed into the old park, feeling the crunch of
Speaker 1: last falls leaves under my boots. I sat breathing in
Speaker 1: the cold as closed, rehearsing the shape of the day
Speaker 1: to come. Thoughts came in sharp brief flashes. Adam's laughter
Speaker 1: in the dark. Jenny sure handshick every silly Sunday branched
Speaker 1: smile that was now rendered hollow or relicive. Before every
Speaker 1: time I tried to line up facts into an argument
Speaker 1: that could be spoken aloud, the words would scatter, sickened
Speaker 1: by their own weight. By noon, I texted Karr, we
Speaker 1: need to talk, She replied, instantly, my place wampum. I
Speaker 1: stared at arthread thumbs, hovering, terrified at saying the words
Speaker 1: out love would make them real. I showed up empty
Speaker 1: handed anyway. Sinking into Kara's neat living room. She pressed
Speaker 1: hot tea into my palms, her worry now an open secret.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how to say this without sounding insane,
Speaker 1: I whispered. I think Adam's cheating, not think I know.
Speaker 1: The sentence when spoken, landed like a heavy brick in
Speaker 1: my chest. Kara's arms were around me before I finished.
Speaker 1: What do you need, she asked, voice firm and steady.
Speaker 1: I need to survive the next part, I said, I
Speaker 1: need to have the confrontation. I need not to fall apart.
Speaker 1: For the first time in weeks, I felt anger's heat
Speaker 1: well up, steady and clear, and not at Adam not
Speaker 1: at Jenny, but at myself for living so long in
Speaker 1: the borderland of truth and denial. I sipped the tea, trembling,
Speaker 1: knowing what I needed most was the nerve to finish
Speaker 1: what I'd started. The walk home was different. I felt
Speaker 1: eyes on me every were friends, Boris's, even people in
Speaker 1: passing cows. Rationally, I knew this was just more debris
Speaker 1: from months of self doubt. But it's done the same.
Speaker 1: The city was pressed in, but nothing could break the
Speaker 1: steady he beat in my chest that now kept time
Speaker 1: with every remembered lie. By late afternoon, I began gathering
Speaker 1: the evidence. Bank statements, hotel charges, bar tabs, rye chairs, flowers,
Speaker 1: all mapped to Jenny's events, every email and social post
Speaker 1: collated and printed. A tiny steck that fell tosicn origin
Speaker 1: in my hands. The note of that pathetic, hopeful thank you,
Speaker 1: now so obviously a declaration of intent lay on top,
Speaker 1: mocking the seven years that had led to this moment.
Speaker 1: The apartment felt cold whenever re entered my steps, echoing
Speaker 1: Adam had texted, stuck in traffic, dinner plans with the
Speaker 1: team running late again, I pictured them uddled at some
Speaker 1: dim lilt table Jenny called in the crook of his arm.
Speaker 1: New inside jokes already well established between them. Nose pricked
Speaker 1: up my skin, and anxious electricity. I changed the bedding,
Speaker 1: where made the couch, set every dish in the dishwasher.
Speaker 1: These were postponements, not preparation. By eight, he was home,
Speaker 1: keys jangle and cheeks flushed with cold winter and alcohol. Hey, sorry,
Speaker 1: ran Long, I brought sushi, he said, holding up a
Speaker 1: white plastic bag, face bright as if nothing in the
Speaker 1: world could possibly be wrong between them us. He kicked
Speaker 1: off his shoes, rolled his eyes. Jenny's obsessed with spicy tuna.
Speaker 1: I'm so sick of it. It struck me then, just
Speaker 1: how heartless I become to his casual use of her name.
Speaker 1: All those weeks were he'd carefully skirted her presents. Now,
Speaker 1: with walls closing in her name carried no danger, only boredom.
Speaker 1: I waited until after we'd eaten, both of us, picking mechanically,
Speaker 1: a ritual neither of us believe in any more, before saying,
Speaker 1: can you come sit in the living room. The tom
Speaker 1: must have been different, because he stopped mid sentence, watching
Speaker 1: me a little too closely as he followed me down
Speaker 1: the hall. I set the notes, emails, receipts, and the
Speaker 1: original thank he note on the coffee table in a
Speaker 1: neat line. My hands were trembling, but I spoke as
Speaker 1: steadily as I could, Adam, I said, before you say anything,
Speaker 1: I want you to look at these. His eyes darted,
Speaker 1: quick and nervous. He picked up the note first. Braufurd
Speaker 1: gave a stagy sigh, then the emails, the bank print outs.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in the middle the masks started to crumble. That
Speaker 1: easy grin replaced by a tight, burning flush at his cheeks.
Speaker 1: What is all this? He try, But the prudence was
Speaker 1: lost already. It's ever everything you've been hiding, and I
Speaker 1: need you to tell me the truth, all of it.
Speaker 1: No more lies about work, about Jenny, about everything you've
Speaker 1: done to both of us in the last year. Adam
Speaker 1: Fumble voiced a jumble of half defenses in sudden desperate justifications. Eva,
Speaker 1: it's nothing like what you think. She's just she's young,
Speaker 1: she needed help. I got carried away, maybe, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's complicated, it always is, I said, a
Speaker 1: voice hard. He lied about where you were, You lied
Speaker 1: to our friends, You spent our money on her. You
Speaker 1: changed our routines so you could fit her in. I
Speaker 1: want to know it all now. His hands trembled as
Speaker 1: he rubbed his jaw. Okay, okay, it's started at work.
Speaker 1: She was lost. I wanted to help. We got clothes.
Speaker 1: It felt good, it felt new, like someone saw me again.
Speaker 1: At first, it was just drinks, just talking, nothing physical.
Speaker 1: I swear I stayed at her, moving as the silence thickened.
Speaker 1: But then it got blurry and I wasn't careful. I
Speaker 1: liked her, and she liked me. We stayed after events,
Speaker 1: had dinners, yes, sometimes hotel rooms. But at first, I
Speaker 1: swear it was just to talk. The anger at last
Speaker 1: caught fire in my chest. I was right here, I
Speaker 1: said every word of stone. I was here every day,
Speaker 1: every night, waiting for you to remember what we are.
Speaker 1: You said you'd never keep anything from me. Adam put
Speaker 1: his head in his hands, the posture of grief that
Speaker 1: landed his self pity. When he finally looked up, his
Speaker 1: eyes were wet and raw. I didn't mean for this
Speaker 1: to happen. I don't even know how to explain it.
Speaker 1: If things changed, you changed you, I let the words
Speaker 1: hit me or ware of a way. He tried to
Speaker 1: shift blame. Don't you dare make us about me, I said,
Speaker 1: voice trembling with fury. He checked out. You left, and
Speaker 1: then you spent months lying to my face. You planned
Speaker 1: a whole second life inside our home. It's that not
Speaker 1: enough for you to even be honest now, He wiped
Speaker 1: his face open out at a loss, cycling back through apologies.
Speaker 1: It just I just missed up. It got too far,
Speaker 1: I told myself, I was just helping, just keeping my
Speaker 1: options open. I never wanted to hurt you. He didn't
Speaker 1: just hurt me, Adam, you erased us. You made me
Speaker 1: a sigh character in my own life. I swallowed hard exhaustion,
Speaker 1: crashing over the rage. Is it still going? Are you
Speaker 1: still with her? He didn't answer, not directly. He just
Speaker 1: dropped his gaze, shame in every angle of his posture.
Speaker 1: The silence was finally an answer. I let him stand
Speaker 1: there a minute longer, breathing in the sound of everything ending,
Speaker 1: every joke, every promise, every lazy sunday. I felt sadness
Speaker 1: and hate, compassion and fury all tangled into one wind
Speaker 1: across my chest. I didn't want comfort or closure or
Speaker 1: a hundred new explanations. I wanted out. It's over, I said, quietly,
Speaker 1: voice firmer than I felt. We're done. You need to
Speaker 1: leave to night. Adam's protests snapped out weakly, can't we talk,
Speaker 1: can't we fix this? Please? Heava just give me a chance,
Speaker 1: But his appeals faded as he watched me, really watched,
Speaker 1: and saw there was no road back. He left the
Speaker 1: room before I did, snatching a jacket, keys, stuffing a
Speaker 1: few things into a bag. For the first time, I
Speaker 1: heard him weep, the breathless, ugly sound of a man
Speaker 1: whose mask has finally split. I wanted to feel sorry
Speaker 1: for him. Instead, I just felt empty. He paused at
Speaker 1: the door, face haunted. I loved you, he whispered. I
Speaker 1: still do. You don't get to say that any more,
Speaker 1: I answered, my voice steadier than I expected. He left
Speaker 1: the door, swinging shut with the smallest click. The quiet
Speaker 1: was absolute, no music, no city sounds, no footsteps in
Speaker 1: the hall, just the aftermath, the shivering nowness of life
Speaker 1: collapsed into nothing but me and all the evidence on
Speaker 1: the coffee table. Proofing could buy an equal measure. For minutes,
Speaker 1: maybe longer, I sat there, listening to my pulse, battered
Speaker 1: the inside of my skin, bracing myself against the enormity
Speaker 1: of absence. The first thing I did was collect his things,
Speaker 1: shoving them attempty tope bag's, shirts, headphones, chargers, the cologne
Speaker 1: I never asked about. I stripped the bed, dumped the
Speaker 1: sheets into the basket, moving through the apartment as if
Speaker 1: guided by muscle memory rather than thought. Every echo of
Speaker 1: Adam felt like a splinter at the key chain with
Speaker 1: our initials. A flyer from our first place solved party
Speaker 1: and mug his favority. I box them up and set
Speaker 1: them by the door. Next, I text the car it's over.
Speaker 1: Don't ask yet. I need a few hours, she replied instantly.
Speaker 1: I here, let me know when you want me. Adam's
Speaker 1: parents called not long after, their numbers popping up together
Speaker 1: on my screen. I let it run out, then send
Speaker 1: a short message Adam and I need time apart. That's
Speaker 1: all you need to know. Right now. I had to
Speaker 1: do the banking. I lowered into our account, moved my savings,
Speaker 1: started the slow process of entangling our out of payments,
Speaker 1: changed every password to something new. The logistics kept me busy,
Speaker 1: occupied just long enough to keep the sharpest edges from
Speaker 1: pressing in. I finally circled the apartment, collecting every last
Speaker 1: object that wasn't mine, his smell, his aftership, his comic books,
Speaker 1: his running shoes. Oliver became stuff, no longer the relics
Speaker 1: of us, but the baggage of him and her own secrecy.
Speaker 1: I left the bags by the door for a while.
Speaker 1: I just stood staring at them, for had pressed to
Speaker 1: the door frame, feeling the hollowack of a future torn
Speaker 1: down to the studs. Night gathered outside, while the world
Speaker 1: moved on beyond my windows. The city felt suddenly huge,
Speaker 1: full of strangers where once it had been out playground.
Speaker 1: I sent a single message to our friend's group, taking
Speaker 1: some time. Won't be around for a bit, Love you guys.
Speaker 1: It was late where I finally sat again, the apartment
Speaker 1: heavy with silence, the light off in every room but
Speaker 1: the kitchen. I dumped cold tea from the pot, wiped
Speaker 1: all fingerprints from the fridge, rinsed every dish until my
Speaker 1: hands were none. The hum of the fridge, the soft
Speaker 1: click of pipes, where all that was left. In the end,
Speaker 1: the only sound was me breathing in a home that
Speaker 1: wasn't our home any more. Sunday arrived, indifferent, the sky'smudge
Speaker 1: of gray. I listened for Adam's old signals, of the
Speaker 1: creak of shoes, the clatter of keys, but none came.
Speaker 1: The apartment was mine, again, stripped and unfamiliar, a blank page.
Speaker 1: I turned the kettle on, poured water over the same
Speaker 1: mug ideus every Sunday for seven years, and drank, staring
Speaker 1: at the window. Then I walked the rooms, gathering everything
Speaker 1: too painful to see, his pictures, his notes, up polaroid wall,
Speaker 1: and put them away in a box marked only with
Speaker 1: my initials. In the hush, I found my sketch better,
Speaker 1: the one Adam had given me for my birthday the
Speaker 1: first year we moved in together. I sat at the
Speaker 1: kitchen table, hands trembling, pencil poised over blank paper, the
Speaker 1: muscles ate with the effort of routine. For a minute,
Speaker 1: I only pressed lines, shapes, letting them come as they would.
Speaker 1: It was enough for now to let my hands remember
Speaker 1: what I had forgotten, how to full emptiness, how to
Speaker 1: claim space for myself again. I drew until my breath
Speaker 1: came easier, until the edges of loneliness softened with every mark.
Speaker 1: The kitchen held all its old but it felt like
Speaker 1: something different, now, a place, waiting for my own story, However,
Speaker 1: uncertain whatever came next, I kept drawing lines, blurring and multiplying,
Speaker 1: not sure if I was making a face or just
Speaker 1: a shaped full time. At first, I thought about Adam,
Speaker 1: how to translate the way his smile used to break
Speaker 1: open a room, the heat of his hand at my
Speaker 1: back when he still belonged to me. But everything in
Speaker 1: my minds I wouldn't settle into real form. My hand
Speaker 1: ached with the pressure, the way I insisted on pushing
Speaker 1: the penal harder than I ever should have. Eventually, the
Speaker 1: lines stopped trying to become anything. I just let them be.
Speaker 1: For a long while, I just sat listening to traffic
Speaker 1: moving below, hearing faint music from the apartment next door,
Speaker 1: the kind of Adam used to dance to in the
Speaker 1: kitchen before Sunday brunch. Part of me wanted to erase
Speaker 1: every sound, to blast white noise until the world faded.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't do that. No. Now, something am me resentful,
Speaker 1: raw demanded witness to the aftermath. I owed myself at
Speaker 1: least that I forced myself through the rest of the day,
Speaker 1: stumbling through tasks small and large, Somehow my legs carried
Speaker 1: me to Target for new sheets, ones that didn't smell
Speaker 1: of his detergent, free of the lavender he swore by
Speaker 1: any and I only tolerated. I bought a set in rufflin,
Speaker 1: in all slate and deep green, heavy in my arms.
Speaker 1: On the wap back, it felt ceremonial, a silent proclamation
Speaker 1: that someone you would sleep here, and that person would
Speaker 1: be myself. As I changed the bed, crief sharpened into
Speaker 1: something almost physical. There were still little reminders everywhere, his
Speaker 1: running shoes peeking from beneath a chair, one battered water
Speaker 1: bottle perched at the edge of the hallway table. I
Speaker 1: gathered them all, slow and methodical, stacking the last of
Speaker 1: his things into a heap by the door. There was
Speaker 1: a deliberateness to teach item of boundary, a clear and
Speaker 1: not mine that let me reclaim one squareffort after another,
Speaker 1: only once, as I folded the gray T shirt he wore.
Speaker 1: The night we got engaged. Did my hands falter? But
Speaker 1: I kept going. Around three, my phone vibrated carr again.
Speaker 1: I let it ring out, not ready to talk, not
Speaker 1: ready for any one else's sorrow or anger or comfort.
Speaker 1: I needed to hold on to this hollow private, I
Speaker 1: a little longer before letting it respond to some one
Speaker 1: else's touch. The shadows grew long on the living room floor.
Speaker 1: In the tilted light, the city didn't look like the
Speaker 1: same place where Adam and I built our little kingdom
Speaker 1: of friends and parties in private jokes, I half expected
Speaker 1: him to waltz in, humming pop songs, talking about his
Speaker 1: newest listing, dropping coffee on the mail pile, and calling
Speaker 1: out my name. But the hush was honest, now stripped
Speaker 1: of fantasy. He wasn't coming back, and if he did,
Speaker 1: it would never be the same. Without planning it, I
Speaker 1: ended up walking outside through the neighborhood, each step a
Speaker 1: kind of reset. I took God and familiar turns, hands
Speaker 1: in my pockets, not trusting myself not to double back
Speaker 1: toward places would haunt it together. It was almost laughable,
Speaker 1: the number of doorways and stoops and bars tied to
Speaker 1: our history. The city was a palim sister shared moments,
Speaker 1: now overwritten by fresh loneliness. At the boga on the
Speaker 1: edge of division, the owner nodded at me and asked
Speaker 1: after Adam, as he always did. I managed to smile
Speaker 1: and said he moved out. I thought it would break
Speaker 1: me saying the words, but instead it only loosened. Some
Speaker 1: ancient nodded right inside my chest. The man murmured something
Speaker 1: about time healing, and for once I let it pass
Speaker 1: with that protest. On the way back, the wind pull
Speaker 1: tears from my eyes. I blamed it on the cold
Speaker 1: ack homb. I found myself in the shower, skelding water
Speaker 1: beating a red blush into my skin. I scrubbed at
Speaker 1: my arms, my neck, as if the residue of Adam's
Speaker 1: touch could be washed off so easily. But memory has
Speaker 1: a way of lingering in your bloodstream. Reef doesn't respect
Speaker 1: clear logical boundaries. I pressed my forehead to the tile
Speaker 1: until my legs threatened to buckle, then turned off the
Speaker 1: water and stood dripping for a long minute before finding
Speaker 1: a wilter reach for a towel. I dressed in the
Speaker 1: coziest clothes I owned, not the silk pajamas Adam had
Speaker 1: given me for Christmas, but the threadburst sweats from college.
Speaker 1: It was almost funny, the way solitude prompted return to
Speaker 1: versions of myself I'd set aside for years. The walls
Speaker 1: pulsed with the empty rhythm of a home abandoned and
Speaker 1: reclaimed all at once. Hunga didn't register until I caught
Speaker 1: the faintest smell of ginger from the bundle on the counter.
Speaker 1: A neighbor must have slipped it beneath my door, an
Speaker 1: unmarked kindness, a brew tea, and led its deep. The
Speaker 1: heat stead did me each shape with tiny defiance. I
Speaker 1: could still tend to myself, however, falteringly, one habit at
Speaker 1: a time. Later that evening, there was a knock at
Speaker 1: the door, not insistent, just quite twice, then nothing. A
Speaker 1: froze drev warring with hope. Maybe Adam, having found some
Speaker 1: courage or regret, had come back for a final plea.
Speaker 1: Maybe Cora, unwilling to wait for a text, had arrived
Speaker 1: with wine and a box of cookies than all her
Speaker 1: best intentions for distraction. When I peek through the peep hole,
Speaker 1: it was Mark alone, hand stuffed into the pockets of
Speaker 1: his battle picoat. I hesitated, but guilt wouldn't let me
Speaker 1: eat nor him for long. I opened the door crack.
Speaker 1: He stood all acwordly in the threshold, gazed, darting between
Speaker 1: the floor and my face. Hey, I I was just
Speaker 1: checking Karr's worried. We both are. His voice was softer
Speaker 1: than usual. I softened, shifting the door wider. He's gone, Mark,
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't tell you everything right now. It's
Speaker 1: just he lied about everything, Jenny. I stopped, breath hitching,
Speaker 1: unable to say more. Mark nodded, swallowing we oh didn't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I won did, but he trailed off. If
Speaker 1: he need help with anything, hauling stuff, food, runs by,
Speaker 1: t V amorand thank you, I whispered, tears threatening again,
Speaker 1: though I was sure I'd bled out every possible tyre
Speaker 1: already he has it. Don't let him spin it, okay.
Speaker 1: He finally said, you are not crazy. None of this
Speaker 1: is your fault. Something in the way he said it
Speaker 1: almost broke me, but I nodded, promising myself i'd remember
Speaker 1: that later when the blame crept in. We stood in
Speaker 1: silence another moment, and then he patted my arm, awkward
Speaker 1: and brotherly, before disappearing back down the hall. I locked
Speaker 1: the door, put the kettle on again, mostly for the
Speaker 1: familiar sound. This time, I sat on the rug in
Speaker 1: the living room toes, curling into the wool, back against
Speaker 1: the coal of the radiator. The coal found me in
Speaker 1: the deepest parts. But I let it happen. I knew
Speaker 1: it was the end of something. That kind of clarity
Speaker 1: deserves a ritual. The hours crawled. At one point I
Speaker 1: texted Currer at it's over. I threw him out. She replied,
Speaker 1: in all caps, endless heart's promise of food standing offered
Speaker 1: to come over now or at three a m. Or whenever.
Speaker 1: I told her, thank you, but not yet. I need
Speaker 1: to night to her on my own. Sunday blurred into
Speaker 1: Monday in the way ending sometimes drew. Sun smeared across
Speaker 1: the windows, the ache of having nowhere to be, the
Speaker 1: low level panic when the phone vibrated, I ignored Adam's number.
Speaker 1: When it appear the phone lit up with a single
Speaker 1: desperate voice mail, No doubt lost, etch explanation or apology.
Speaker 1: I didn't listen. Some things by now matter too little
Speaker 1: or too much to let in. Afternoon brought the first
Speaker 1: practical consequences. Calls from our building manager about splitting the lease, e,
Speaker 1: mails from our joint bank about changes to account ownership,
Speaker 1: a curt form for rerouting deliveries that Adam somehow had
Speaker 1: already submitted. He was always organized about logistics. It made
Speaker 1: me want to laugh or scream, the sudden burst of
Speaker 1: competence after a year of dirty secrets amounting sloppiness. It
Speaker 1: was cruel that the world demanded so much attention to
Speaker 1: detail when my life felt like it had been scrapraw.
Speaker 1: I filled out forms for a haze of exhaustion, changed
Speaker 1: automatic payments to my own name, boxed up left of
Speaker 1: us in the frisch that I knew i'd never eat.
Speaker 1: There were so many practical act complete, so many ways
Speaker 1: I had to declare independence, even as I felt entirely
Speaker 1: unequipped to stand alone. When I found Adam's last voicemail,
Speaker 1: curiosity almost one. I hovered thumb poise, wondering if he
Speaker 1: be angry, broken, or just cold. Would he beg again?
Speaker 1: Would he accept blame? Would there be a moment of
Speaker 1: honesty or yet another defensive half apology. Instead, I deleted it.
Speaker 1: He'd weaponize his words far too long. My ears deserved relief,
Speaker 1: even if that meant never getting the satisfaction of a
Speaker 1: grovel or confession. The end needed to be clean, or
Speaker 1: as clean as real endings could ever be. A little
Speaker 1: after dusk, Carr called. This time I answered for ten minutes.
Speaker 1: She'll let me talk, let my rage fizz up and
Speaker 1: die down, let my grief run out in ways. Before
Speaker 1: offering comfort, she asked what I needed, made me laugh
Speaker 1: with some silly story about Mark trying to fix the
Speaker 1: garbage disposal. Promised to check up again soon, but only
Speaker 1: as much as I wanted. There was power in the
Speaker 1: ability to choose conversation company or quiet. I picked quiet,
Speaker 1: and she honored it. The apartment felt emptier when I
Speaker 1: hung up, but also larger in a way that was
Speaker 1: not wholly despairing. As night settled, I tidied the last corners,
Speaker 1: putting his favorite Mark, the gray one with the sky
Speaker 1: line etched on its side, into the giveaway box. I
Speaker 1: traded ours playless for the sound of nothing, lighting the
Speaker 1: silence film instead of him. By the time midnight arrived,
Speaker 1: I was stretched on the couch, lights off city sounds
Speaker 1: once again a distant hum. I wrapped myself in a
Speaker 1: blanket and closed my eyes, letting the exhaustion when out,
Speaker 1: Trusting for the first time in months, that there would
Speaker 1: be no secrets happening under this roof, no second life
Speaker 1: on the other side of a lock's green, just me
Speaker 1: and Beth, and the possibility that tomorrow might bring something cleaner,
Speaker 1: if not brighter. The next morning, gray in tentative shimmered
Speaker 1: through the windows. I poured coffee, sat in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: letting the mug warm the heel of my balm. At
Speaker 1: first I thought I might call in sick draw the
Speaker 1: blinds try to sleep through the storm of endings. But
Speaker 1: slowly a new kind of were kicked in. One by one,
Speaker 1: I erased Adam from every app, everyless, every loggin. I
Speaker 1: canceled dinner plans that once pivoted around his availability. A
Speaker 1: text with my mother, an honest brief update Adam and
Speaker 1: I are done. Love. You don't want to talk about it,
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you if I need anything. There was
Speaker 1: a sharpness to the actions, painful but necessary, a way
Speaker 1: of whistling down the overwhelming to tasks that could eventually
Speaker 1: add up to something resembling autonomy. Mid morning, I finally
Speaker 1: opened the sketch pat again, this time in search of
Speaker 1: myself rather than penance for what I had lost. I
Speaker 1: let my finger tips roam shaped, blew me into tentative
Speaker 1: figures as it escape, rough and hurried but mine. As
Speaker 1: my pencilutched over the grain of the page. I felt
Speaker 1: the runas reced a little, not healing, not yet, but
Speaker 1: proof that survival had a shape, and nock rattled the quiet.
Speaker 1: A package addressed to Adam, probably rerouded by habit I scrawled,
Speaker 1: returned to sender and blockie and lovely letters, and set
Speaker 1: it outside the door. Also the day coals and notifications
Speaker 1: registered from his number, or his parents, or our mutual
Speaker 1: friends who'd eventually heard the news. I watched them tally up,
Speaker 1: but I left everyone unonswered. As the light faded, I
Speaker 1: let myself stand at the window, arms wrapped around my middle.
Speaker 1: I watched the city's Friday night crowds loose with anticipation,
Speaker 1: slipping into restaurants and bars with the energy of beginnings.
Speaker 1: It was cold, but I cracked the window anyway, breathing
Speaker 1: in the flavor's old fry oil rain on pavement, a
Speaker 1: snatch of jazz from the bar at the corner. It
Speaker 1: haird to imagine all Adam's alternate week ends, all the
Speaker 1: lives I hadn't lived, to the friends we both lost.
Speaker 1: But in the honor space of my own kitchen, something shifted.
Speaker 1: There was pain and silence and the ache of empty
Speaker 1: rooms for There was also uncleaned space, enough from messi
Speaker 1: art supplies and too many pillows and music too soft
Speaker 1: for company. I poured myself a splash of wine, finally
Speaker 1: ate something with substance, set a new playlist, one I'd
Speaker 1: make for myself. No rituals performed for any one else,
Speaker 1: No watching the clock for a text or ghosting around
Speaker 1: the shadow of some one else's absence. Night Druin, I
Speaker 1: pulled up paints for the first time in months, decided
Speaker 1: to stain the page with color. Not because I'd healed,
Speaker 1: not because I'd forgiven any one, least of all myself,
Speaker 1: but because life, cruel and casual, always demands the next chapter,
Speaker 1: whether you want it or not. For the first time,
Speaker 1: I let the air settle into peace, no expectation that
Speaker 1: anything would make sense soon, no desperate race to fill
Speaker 1: the gaps Adam left, just me and whatever I might
Speaker 1: choose to make with a blank piece of paper and
Speaker 1: an open unserve in future. I kneeled on the faded
Speaker 1: rug chip, pained on my finger tips, and let my
Speaker 1: breath slow. The kind of con that was earned, not gifted.
Speaker 1: Therein I understood lost hollows space, but that space can
Speaker 1: be filled by something honest, maybe even something beautiful if
Speaker 1: you're patient enough to let it grow. And that is
Speaker 1: the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see
Speaker 1: you in the next one.