Speaker 1: The sound of tennis balls echoing on the courts next
Speaker 1: to me used to be the anthem of my Saturday mornings.
Speaker 1: Our tradition, it was more than that, almost a superstition,
Speaker 1: was to play a set every Saturday at Willow Park,
Speaker 1: no matter how hungover, tired, or jet lagged from a
Speaker 1: red eye flight, Emily and I would drag ourselves out
Speaker 1: of bed, lace up our sneakers, and stumble down the
Speaker 1: block to the faded, hard courts. I used to joke
Speaker 1: the lines were as uneven as my serve, and Emily
Speaker 1: would roll her eyes, humming along with whatever she'd been
Speaker 1: listening to that week. It was our ritual, a weekly
Speaker 1: claim on one another. But that morning, the sun already high,
Speaker 1: I was there alone, just me and my racket, perched
Speaker 1: on the peeling green bench, thumb nudging the screen on
Speaker 1: my phone every few minutes. Emily's text had come in
Speaker 1: at eight fifty seven, quick and sparse, sorry, last minute
Speaker 1: brunch with potential clients, love you, not even a period,
Speaker 1: even less warmth. I could practically hear her typing it
Speaker 1: over Mimosa's ignoring the taste of soggy toast as she
Speaker 1: tried to land a pitch. Maybe I was being dramatic,
Speaker 1: but that text strung. There was never a question of
Speaker 1: skipping tennis before now. Even when Emily had deadlines, she
Speaker 1: would insist, it's our our nick, the work can wait.
Speaker 1: I watched two couples pairing up on adjacent courts, giggling
Speaker 1: in that pre match way. Some one's playlist carried faintly
Speaker 1: through the early heat, something light and instrumental. I felt
Speaker 1: oddly exposed, like not having Emily there made the whole
Speaker 1: ritual meaningless for me, that I was pretending at couplehood
Speaker 1: without my team mate. I glanced at our usual spot
Speaker 1: across the fence, expecting her laugh, her little hop in
Speaker 1: place before a serve, but the only thing on the
Speaker 1: bench was the imprint of her racquet handle from last week.
Speaker 1: Gathering my things, I headed toward the parking lot, pressing
Speaker 1: my phone between my palm and the grip of my
Speaker 1: tennis bag. As I reached the sidewalk, Jenna appeared, a
Speaker 1: flash of pink joggers and grocery bags, sunglasses pulling at
Speaker 1: the bridge of her nose. She looked right at me,
Speaker 1: and for a second her mouth opened to say something,
Speaker 1: then just as quickly she ducked her head. Hey Nick,
Speaker 1: she mumbled, not pausing, clutching the groceries closer to her
Speaker 1: chest like armor, her eyes darting past me to the curb.
Speaker 1: I waited for her to stop, maybe ask about Emily,
Speaker 1: maybe crack a joke about baling on tennis, but she
Speaker 1: kept walking, even as I managed her. Hey, Jenna, everything good,
Speaker 1: She offered a soft dismissive, yeah, busy, and then she
Speaker 1: was gone. Around the corner. In my car, ere thrumming
Speaker 1: with recycled cold, I stared at myself in the rear
Speaker 1: view mirror. My face looked tired. I scrolled through our texts,
Speaker 1: all the green and blue blocks, stretching for years, half
Speaker 1: expecting to find a clue, staring back, but there was nothing,
Speaker 1: just that cold, little message of the top. Maybe everyone
Speaker 1: gets periods like this, maybe I was the needy one.
Speaker 1: But as I pulled out of Willow Park, something did
Speaker 1: in a line, not just Emily's mechanical text or Jenna's awkwardness,
Speaker 1: but the way my chest felt empty and jittery. At
Speaker 1: the same time, I told myself I was being neurotic,
Speaker 1: that this is the kind of thing people in long
Speaker 1: term relationships learned to let go. Still, the silent drive
Speaker 1: home hung with suspicion, and I caught myself wondering if
Speaker 1: I was missing something obvious, if somewhere between the tennis
Speaker 1: courts and our living room, Emily and I had gone
Speaker 1: off script without even meaning to. The beginnings are always deceptive,
Speaker 1: aren't they. We met at a wedding Julian, my college roommate,
Speaker 1: married one of Emily's best friends from high school. I
Speaker 1: was seated next to Emily because the bride claimed she
Speaker 1: wouldn't talk to any one else otherwise. She arrived late,
Speaker 1: a little bit of glitter on her cheek, a riot
Speaker 1: of curly hair. I'd like to say we locked eyes
Speaker 1: and that was it, but honestly, I spilled my drink
Speaker 1: before the salad. She laughed at the stain, and we
Speaker 1: spent the whole dinner debating existential questions like whether carrot
Speaker 1: cake is a dessert or a breakfast food. By the
Speaker 1: time we got to the dancing, my feet hurt, but
Speaker 1: I didn't want the night to end. There was never
Speaker 1: a moment when I had to guess how Emily felt
Speaker 1: about me. She approached life like she approached courtship, enthusiastically
Speaker 1: with a full court press. She suggested our first road trip,
Speaker 1: a mad week end scrambled to Montreal just for bagels.
Speaker 1: She commandeered my Spotify for our playlists. Life needs a
Speaker 1: sound track, Nicki, she'd say, changing songs mid argument. She
Speaker 1: loved food and travel and convincing me to say yes
Speaker 1: to things I'd never have planned myself. After two years
Speaker 1: of dating, during one of those lazy Sunday afternoons reading
Speaker 1: on the fire escape, she said, let's get married. I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding. We were engaged by the end of that fall.
Speaker 1: We're or maybe were, a busy couple. I'm an architect
Speaker 1: at a boutique firm, a classic combination of late nights,
Speaker 1: design models on the kitchen table, and dreams of one
Speaker 1: day building something permanent in the skyline. Emily moved up
Speaker 1: fast in marketing, first as an account coordinator, then project lead,
Speaker 1: and lately a full marketing manager at a tech focused
Speaker 1: branding agency that seemed to expand every month. She thrives
Speaker 1: in competition, cuts through meetings like a shark in a pond,
Speaker 1: never afraid to say what's needed. Friends like to tease
Speaker 1: that we're opposites. Me the introvert her the social engine.
Speaker 1: She organized housewarmings, themed dinner parties, and game nights at
Speaker 1: our downtown condo. Our kitchen still bore paint marks from
Speaker 1: last years painting and pino night, a book club wineglass
Speaker 1: tally written in sharpie on the fridge whiteboard. Even our
Speaker 1: Friday routine was set a lazy pizza night delivery and
Speaker 1: whatever new show seemed bingeable, the kind of tradition that
Speaker 1: glues a couple together without them noticing. Sometimes it felt
Speaker 1: like our life was woven into a giant web of
Speaker 1: other couples, Jenna and Matt, Liz and Clara, Ash and Nico.
Speaker 1: Jenna especially was Emily's confidant. They'd shelter on our balcony,
Speaker 1: plotting escapes from stressful work days, or planning spontaneous girl's trips.
Speaker 1: Our friend group was, and I suppose still is, a
Speaker 1: tightly wound thing, a network that felt both protective and exposing.
Speaker 1: It made all of this harder to navigate, like we
Speaker 1: were all tangled in the same net. Earlier in our relationship.
Speaker 1: The vulnerabilities were small seeds that grew at their own pace.
Speaker 1: I'd sometimes feel a cord of jealousy when Emily relished
Speaker 1: the attention of her high achieving, glamorous friends, her agency
Speaker 1: would throw parties at rooftop bars, and I'd fade into
Speaker 1: the walls, a ghost in a room of fast talkers
Speaker 1: and power suits. I'd fret, did I measure up? Did
Speaker 1: she ever wish for someone louder? Emily, her part, confessed
Speaker 1: her anxieties over not climbing fast enough, not being enough
Speaker 1: by her own impossible standards. Even as we bought our condo,
Speaker 1: a sunlit corner unit above a wine shop with a
Speaker 1: mortgage that felt reassuring except on sleepless nights, we kept
Speaker 1: our eyes on the future trips to Europe. We mapped
Speaker 1: out in Google docks, joking about back yard renovations and
Speaker 1: some day plans. For the longest time, I genuinely believed
Speaker 1: we were rocks solid, that even our frictions were proof
Speaker 1: of life, not cracks in the foundation. A couple of
Speaker 1: months earlier, Emily had landed her promotion, her name on
Speaker 1: a shiny new office door. Bonus check. We spent on
Speaker 1: a weekend at a boutique hotel. I remember how proud
Speaker 1: she was. We celebrated, surrounded by friends, a night full
Speaker 1: of after midnight toasts, shared stories, and the sense of
Speaker 1: luck that comes when two lives run parallel and in sync. Sometimes, though,
Speaker 1: I'd wake up in that post celebratory haze and wonder
Speaker 1: was I pulling my wit? Was I just a long
Speaker 1: for her ride? Now, sitting in traffic the day's ghostly
Speaker 1: tennis match in my mind, I tried to recall the
Speaker 1: last time I'd felt in step with Emily. Our rituals
Speaker 1: had started to feel optional, our conversations seemed clipped at
Speaker 1: the edges. I shrugged it off every one hits her patch,
Speaker 1: but as I pulled into our garage, I couldn't quite
Speaker 1: shake the sting of Emily's brush off or Jenner's averted eyes. Rationally,
Speaker 1: I told myself, She's just busy, She's thriving. If anything,
Speaker 1: I should be happy. By the time I came upstairs,
Speaker 1: the brunch was still ongoing. A little after one, I
Speaker 1: texted how's it going? The notification marked as delivered, but
Speaker 1: no reply. I watched the clock through the afternoon, feeling
Speaker 1: both petulant and invisible, like a child left at school
Speaker 1: pick up. At three, my phone vibrated with another brief message,
Speaker 1: went great, so tired you no mention of who was
Speaker 1: there or how it went, no emoji, not even the
Speaker 1: usual string of exclamations she sent when something exciting happened.
Speaker 1: I sent back, let's order tight a night celebrate. The
Speaker 1: text went unread for an hour before she replied, maybe
Speaker 1: beat needs shower, see you soon. She got home in
Speaker 1: the washed out light of late afternoon, winded and pink cheeked,
Speaker 1: carrying the faint scent of some expensive perfume I didn't recognize.
Speaker 1: When I tried to meet her at the door, she
Speaker 1: brushed past me, dumping her purse and coat on the
Speaker 1: entry bench, something she usually hated to see. Cluttered. Her
Speaker 1: phone pinged twice before she silenced it, thumb flicking the
Speaker 1: side button. Big brunch. I tried casual, not sure how
Speaker 1: to bridge the distance. Ah, sorry, it ran over, she said,
Speaker 1: already moving toward the shower, head turned away. Long week.
Speaker 1: My brain's fried. Something was off, not wrong precisely, but tighter.
Speaker 1: I watched her go then notice the necklace. The chain
Speaker 1: was delicate, a geometric pendant I'd never seen, knew. I
Speaker 1: called after her. She didn't pause. Gift from the team,
Speaker 1: silly after the pitch. Later over take out noodles in
Speaker 1: the living room, no plates, just cartons and chopsticks. Emily
Speaker 1: picked at her food, mostly scrolling on her phone. From
Speaker 1: time to time, she'd stifle a laugh. Allan's sending memes again,
Speaker 1: she said, when she caught me watching. He's such a nerd. Allan.
Speaker 1: I pictured the name, not the face. I don't think
Speaker 1: i'd met a single Allan at her agency. I asked
Speaker 1: who made it to brunch. She shrugged, clients, mostly you
Speaker 1: wouldn't know them. Then she stood abruptly, Hey, can we
Speaker 1: watch something stupid? I can't think to night. But even
Speaker 1: as we watched t V, her mind seemed elsewhere. Face shuddered,
Speaker 1: answering texts out of my line of sight. At bedtime,
Speaker 1: I half expected her to curl up to me, but
Speaker 1: instead she perched on her edge of the mattress, flicking
Speaker 1: through emils. Every time I tried for a converse, she
Speaker 1: nodded off, half listening, or changed the topic entirely. Maybe
Speaker 1: I was needy, or maybe months of running on empty
Speaker 1: were catching up with us both. I told myself, it's typical.
Speaker 1: It's a busy season. She's just tired. Marriage a trick
Speaker 1: of persistence as much as joy, but the next few
Speaker 1: weeks made it impossible not to notice the shifts. Emily
Speaker 1: started skipping more than tennis. A standing Friday Lazy Pizza dissolved.
Speaker 1: She texted at six that she'd be late every single time,
Speaker 1: always with a plausible work emergency. She missed Jenna's movie
Speaker 1: night for a drink's thing with the agency and came
Speaker 1: home after midnight hair towsled and the remains of expensive
Speaker 1: lipstick on her mouth. She'd flop onto the sofa, grown
Speaker 1: about the politics at work and refused to give any detail,
Speaker 1: just deadlines, stress, or so much bullshit. One morning, I
Speaker 1: grabbed her coat to fetch something from the car and
Speaker 1: found two receipts jammed in the inner pocket, both from
Speaker 1: Bistro Montrue, the kind of place you needed a reservation
Speaker 1: for unless you liked eating at the bar. At four
Speaker 1: p m. One receipt, two entrees wine, pairing the total
Speaker 1: roughly enough for a small grocery trip. I texted her
Speaker 1: a photo in the spirit of teasing big spender. She replied,
Speaker 1: client lunch Allan likes to impress Allan Again. I tried
Speaker 1: to recall if I'd met Allan other than as the
Speaker 1: mean sender on her phone, but his existence remained a
Speaker 1: kind of shadow presence, mentioned but never seen. That week end,
Speaker 1: our friends threw a small get together at Liz and
Speaker 1: Clara's place. Jenna was there, hovering near the kitchen and
Speaker 1: nursing a single glass of wine. When I asked if
Speaker 1: Emily was coming, Jenna stammered, I think she's still at
Speaker 1: that pitch, you know, how it is. Her voice was brittle,
Speaker 1: suddenly fascinated by the contents of the cheese board. Nobody
Speaker 1: else mentioned it, but later I caught Jenna slipping her
Speaker 1: phone into her purse shoulders Tensed, I asked her if
Speaker 1: Emily was okay. Jenna nodded too quickly muttered, work's nuts
Speaker 1: right now, She'll come down soon. Watching Emily become more
Speaker 1: and more attached to her phone made me uneasy. She
Speaker 1: started putting her devices on do not disturb. In the evenings,
Speaker 1: if a call came through, she'd take it in the
Speaker 1: bedroom door politely but firmly closed. More and more often
Speaker 1: she crashed early with a headache or kneaded space to
Speaker 1: finish a deck. I brought up the idea of a
Speaker 1: week end get away to the lake, a plan we
Speaker 1: talked about for ages, just us away from all the noise.
Speaker 1: Emily wrinkled her nose, said she was totally swamped. I
Speaker 1: didn't push, just nodded. But that night, as I scrolled
Speaker 1: through Instagram, I saw tags of Emily and her co
Speaker 1: workers at an opening down town. Every One dressed like
Speaker 1: they'd co ordinated a new man at the center, arm
Speaker 1: draped around Emily's shoulder. In one photo, Allan tagged. He
Speaker 1: looked nothing like I'd expected, boyish, tall, with a loose
Speaker 1: grin and arm confident around her waist. It all snowballed.
Speaker 1: The rhythms of our social circle faded. Group texts trailed off,
Speaker 1: inside jokes stopped being updated, and invitations quieted. I made
Speaker 1: a note in my phone for date night, like always
Speaker 1: the first Friday of the month, but for the first time,
Speaker 1: I completely forgot. Emily didn't mention it at all. We
Speaker 1: both ended up at our desks late, eating separately, too
Speaker 1: tired to notice we'd simply missed it. We started having small,
Speaker 1: pointless arguments over who forgot to restock the coffee, which
Speaker 1: showed a watch, who would wash the car. None of
Speaker 1: them ended with an apology. They just run out of steam,
Speaker 1: leaving sore feelings and silence. We never circled back. Another night,
Speaker 1: I heard Emily laughing behind the bedroom door she d
Speaker 1: left it ajar. I lingered, a bit embarrassed by my
Speaker 1: own curiosity. She was on speakerphone with Allan, laughing about
Speaker 1: some obscure sci fi movie. When I asked her later
Speaker 1: about it, she said, just dumb agencies boring, but she'd
Speaker 1: never watched that movie with me. Paranoia or something close
Speaker 1: to it took hold. Maybe everyone in a long term
Speaker 1: partnership goes through the phase where you start counting receipts,
Speaker 1: acting like a detective in your own home. Or maybe
Speaker 1: deep down you know. I checked the bank's statements because
Speaker 1: I was simply put unwilling to accept that there might
Speaker 1: be anything to find under recent transactions. There was a
Speaker 1: charge Atlas Hotel lounge weekday afternoon, not a spot you
Speaker 1: went for coffee, more likely highballs and imported olives. Client presentation,
Speaker 1: she explained when I brought it up, barely looking up
Speaker 1: from her laptop. The agency loves to impress the tech guys.
Speaker 1: Allan was there, of course, but it stuck with me,
Speaker 1: filling the space where easy conversation used to be. Emily
Speaker 1: began declining invitations from my friends, feeling off or not
Speaker 1: up for it. She'd text whenever I pressed. She acted
Speaker 1: annoyed at the suggestion that she owed a more detailed answer.
Speaker 1: One Wednesday, frustrated and out of ways to keep spinning
Speaker 1: my wheels, I met Jenna for coffee, hoping for a
Speaker 1: direct answer about whether Emily was okay. Jenna seemed surprised.
Speaker 1: I texted, showed up late, and avoided eye contact the
Speaker 1: whole time. Emily's just she's burned out, Jenna offered, stirring
Speaker 1: her espresso until it was almost cold. She's working so hard.
Speaker 1: Don't put pressure on her. I pressed, Maybe too hard
Speaker 1: if she knew what was going on between Emily and Allan,
Speaker 1: Jenna's jaw set her, fingers tightening around her mug. It's
Speaker 1: just work, nick, I haven't really seen much of her either, Honestly.
Speaker 1: She left quickly. Our hug was stiff, barely a touch.
Speaker 1: I left feeling more isolated than ever. It was as
Speaker 1: though the whole world was holding its breath waiting for
Speaker 1: me to put the pieces together, but every potential answer
Speaker 1: was just out of reach. I tried, really tried to
Speaker 1: let things go for a while. The marriage ad vice
Speaker 1: columns say, lean in, so I cooked dinner, suggested movies,
Speaker 1: even brought us tickets to a comedy show. Each time
Speaker 1: Emily found a reason to reschedule or flat out declined,
Speaker 1: rain check turning into maybe next month. In a haze
Speaker 1: of meetings and mounting deadlines. Most nights, as we lay
Speaker 1: side by side, each with a screen in hand, I'd
Speaker 1: study the blue light flickering across her face, wondering what
Speaker 1: she was seeing or reading that made her smile to herself.
Speaker 1: While I stared blankly at an unread news article. Her
Speaker 1: laughter would ring out in the dark, sharp and private,
Speaker 1: only for her to catch herself when she noticed me watching.
Speaker 1: One Friday evening, I came home early, an actual miracle.
Speaker 1: My project had been delayed, and I picked up a
Speaker 1: bottle of wine on the way home. Feeling oddly nervous,
Speaker 1: I planned to surprise Emily make her favorite curry. The
Speaker 1: apartment was empty, her work bag and laptop were gone.
Speaker 1: I sent a quick home early where are you text,
Speaker 1: went and read for almost two hours. When she finally replied,
Speaker 1: she said, quick drinks with Allan and the intern team. Sorry,
Speaker 1: totally last minute, an image settled in my mind, the
Speaker 1: downtown bar, Emily's laughter, Allan leaning in, something exchanged that
Speaker 1: wasn't on any agency calendar. For days after, I cycled
Speaker 1: through feelings anger, guilt for not trusting her, embarrassment for snooping.
Speaker 1: Some nights I lay awake, reciting lists of reasons why
Speaker 1: none of this meant anything. Other couples had been through
Speaker 1: far worse. Maybe it was a rough patch, a product
Speaker 1: of too much ambition, not enough energy for each other.
Speaker 1: Then the cycle reversed itself. A week later, an invite
Speaker 1: to one of Emily's work functions landed in my inbox.
Speaker 1: Agency presentation cocktails after dress business casual. No Allan on
Speaker 1: the email, but he was listed as a team lead
Speaker 1: on the event's website. Feeling both ridiculous and determined, I
Speaker 1: decided I'd check in, if only to proved to myself
Speaker 1: there really was nothing, just a storm of suspicion conjured
Speaker 1: by my own ego I got there early, or a
Speaker 1: sport coat I hadn't dusted off since wedding season. The
Speaker 1: event was all staged lighting and sleek banners, the kind
Speaker 1: of thing Emily's agency excelled at. I found her in
Speaker 1: a cluster of colleagues, genuine smiles, laughter that reached her eyes.
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen that look in weeks. She was in command, graceful,
Speaker 1: directing traffic, Allan hovering near by, but never once breaking
Speaker 1: the gentle professionalism. I watched them, my anxiety draining away
Speaker 1: in increments. Allan was funny, self deprecating, but hardly the
Speaker 1: debonair home wrecker i'd pictured. He even stopped to shake
Speaker 1: my hand, expressed how lucky they were to have Emily
Speaker 1: running point after the event, Emily greeted me with warmth.
Speaker 1: For a split second, she felt like my old Emily, eyes,
Speaker 1: crinkling voice, giddy but controlled. She introduced me to the team,
Speaker 1: pulled me close, acted utterly at home, in her element.
Speaker 1: For a few days, things felt almost right. Emily lingered
Speaker 1: at home, brought take out on her way back from work,
Speaker 1: even joined in while I played the new playlist she'd made.
Speaker 1: Group texts picked up, Jenna sent me a meme about
Speaker 1: husband's trailing at work. Parties Laughter returned, not all at once,
Speaker 1: but in small, cautious installments. The relief was intoxicating, part guilt,
Speaker 1: part happiness. I apologized to Emily, for being distracted lately,
Speaker 1: said I d felt left out. She thanked me for
Speaker 1: understanding the pressure she'd been under, apologized for snapping at me,
Speaker 1: and we left it there. Maybe this was adulthood, cycles
Speaker 1: of misreading, then forgiveness. For a handful of nights, I
Speaker 1: marveled at how quickly things could be mended, but stability,
Speaker 1: it turned out, was fleeting. A week later, I was
Speaker 1: working from home and needed to grab an updated version
Speaker 1: of our travel spreadsheet. Emily's laptop sat on the kitchen island,
Speaker 1: logged in. I hesitated, but we often borrowed each other's devices.
Speaker 1: As I started searching for the document, a notification slid
Speaker 1: onto the corner of the screen, an email thread, subject
Speaker 1: line one more Secret. My stomach dropped before I even
Speaker 1: opened it, but I did. It was from allan time
Speaker 1: stamped just after midnight, a few nights before. The thread
Speaker 1: was long, equal parts work logistics and private jokes about
Speaker 1: escaping together. I scrolled pages of ongoing banter photos attached
Speaker 1: from what looked like their birthday dinner, not with other colleagues,
Speaker 1: but the two of them, at the kind of dimly
Speaker 1: lit restaurant that implied intimacy. I found a draft, unsent
Speaker 1: but saved on Emily's desktop, a letter addressed to Allan.
Speaker 1: The opening lines, It's like I'm finally seen, Like someone
Speaker 1: gets what it's like to be me when I'm not performing,
Speaker 1: mentions of finding light through late nights we said were
Speaker 1: about work but weren't, and a sign off that made
Speaker 1: me drop the mouse entirely. The next morning, Emily was
Speaker 1: cold again, short answers, eyes fixed somewhere past my face
Speaker 1: as she rushed through the motions of getting out the door.
Speaker 1: For the rest of the day, I hovered between shock
Speaker 1: and a kind of numb calculation. Maybe it was just emotional.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'd never crossed that line. If I confronted Allan,
Speaker 1: would he even admit it was? I missing something else?
Speaker 1: Was this payback for months of neglect? Then my phone
Speaker 1: buzzed Jenna out of the blue. I'm sorry. I thought
Speaker 1: she would end things. I can't be in the middle
Speaker 1: any more. My whole body tensed the wording end things.
Speaker 1: I texted back Jenna, what's happening? No answer, just three
Speaker 1: dots blinking then vanishing. Now dread pressed on me. Whatever
Speaker 1: was happening. Jenna knew and didn't want to be involved.
Speaker 1: Any more. I started rehearsing what to say. Should I
Speaker 1: wait for Emily that night, throw the emails at her
Speaker 1: demand specifics? Should I call Allan try to catch him
Speaker 1: off guard. My thoughts raised ahead of what my body
Speaker 1: could do. That evening, with Emily at her agency's wrap up,
Speaker 1: I sat on the couch, the old anxiety returning with reinforcements.
Speaker 1: When she got home, I'd planned to wait, play it cool,
Speaker 1: ask about her day, and see if she'd mention Allan,
Speaker 1: but plans dissolve quickly. When she walked in, she looked
Speaker 1: more exhausted than ever, her face lined with something heavier
Speaker 1: than stress. I asked her, quiet but direct about the emails.
Speaker 1: She froze for the first time in weeks. All pretense
Speaker 1: dropped from her face. It's not what it looks like,
Speaker 1: she said, voice too smooth to be true. We vent
Speaker 1: that's all Allan gets it. He's been through a break
Speaker 1: up too. She tried to paint it as mutual professional sympathy,
Speaker 1: said I was making it out to be more than
Speaker 1: it was. But that night, the final nail came Quietly.
Speaker 1: My phone buzzed with an anonymous message attached a photo
Speaker 1: from the art opening weeks earlier, Emily and Allan side
Speaker 1: by side, his arm across her back, her head tilted
Speaker 1: toward him, both smiling as if posing for no one
Speaker 1: but themselves. The intimacy of the gesture, the way their
Speaker 1: bodies collapsed into each other, told its own story. I
Speaker 1: felt like the world in that photo, off to the side,
Speaker 1: out of frame, watching a celebration I'd never been invited to.
Speaker 1: All I wanted was the truth, but all I felt
Speaker 1: was the closing of a chapter before I'd realized the
Speaker 1: book was even ending. The next morning, I woke grinding
Speaker 1: coffee beans, watching the grounds build in the filter, as
Speaker 1: though if I stared long enough, some answer would sift
Speaker 1: to the top. Emily was already gone. Her early call
Speaker 1: had become more the rule than the exception. She de
Speaker 1: left a sticky note on the fridge late to night again,
Speaker 1: breakfast in fridge, zoxo E. I peeled it off, feeling
Speaker 1: the papery chill where her handwriting should have felt warm.
Speaker 1: I set about my work with the automated quality of
Speaker 1: someone checking boxes, showering meetings, mail, the click and the
Speaker 1: hum of my keyboard all day, But that photo in
Speaker 1: my phone burned through every distraction. I wanted so badly
Speaker 1: to believe it was less than it looked. Maybe some
Speaker 1: one had caught the mid laugh. Maybe Allan had hugged
Speaker 1: every one like that in the way office friendships sometimes
Speaker 1: masquerade as real intimacy. But their body language was unmistakable.
Speaker 1: Allan's hand low at Emily's waist, not the safe hover
Speaker 1: of colleagues, but fingers pressing fully against the curve of
Speaker 1: her back. By lunch, I could barely focus slack pings
Speaker 1: overlaying notifications, the blue light harsh on my eyes. I
Speaker 1: wanted to call her, but my thumb hovered over her
Speaker 1: name and retreated. What would I even say? Tell me
Speaker 1: about Allan? Are you sleeping with him? The questions felt
Speaker 1: both too much and not enough. Instead, I scrolled through
Speaker 1: our shared calendar, looking for clues. Emily had three meetings
Speaker 1: stacked every day, half marked off site, with little else
Speaker 1: that in itself wasn't odd. Her agency bound between clients,
Speaker 1: happy hours, worked brunches constantly, But in every entry where
Speaker 1: Allan's name appeared, there was no one else listed. I
Speaker 1: paged back four weeks ago, client check in Atlas Hotel
Speaker 1: Allan three days after that lunch Montree, w Allen Ray, Uplink,
Speaker 1: pitch meetings stacked closely, never full team events. I debated
Speaker 1: screenshoting them, but it felt petty, as if archiving evidence
Speaker 1: would make any accusation more credible. I snapped my laptop's shut,
Speaker 1: catching my own face in the reflection, Hungry for answers
Speaker 1: and hollowed by the absence of trust. That afternoon, unable
Speaker 1: to sit still, I walked the neighborhood. I'd hoped being
Speaker 1: on the move would bleed off the pressure building in
Speaker 1: my chest, but everywhere I looked, I saw echoes of us.
Speaker 1: The bakery where we splurged on quassas when Emily landed
Speaker 1: her first big client, the wine bar we'd wandered into
Speaker 1: after closing on the condo, even the tired murals on
Speaker 1: the wall across from the train, the ones Emily always
Speaker 1: said made our neighborhood feel like someone's sketch book. It
Speaker 1: felt like I was living behind glass, present but unable
Speaker 1: to touch. My world, refracted and warped by doubt. I
Speaker 1: needed to talk to someone who was Jenna, not that
Speaker 1: she was picking up My last two texts went unread.
Speaker 1: I sat on a bench outside the coffee shop, scrolling
Speaker 1: through contacts, I considered ash, but he was the type
Speaker 1: to storm over to Allan's agency and demand answers on
Speaker 1: my behalf, a well intended but nuclear level approach. So
Speaker 1: I sat, letting the city noise fill the space in
Speaker 1: my head. A part of me wondered if this, the
Speaker 1: not knowing, the constantly almost finding out, was worse than
Speaker 1: the actual truth, whatever it turned out to be. When
Speaker 1: I got home, I saw Emily's heels by the front
Speaker 1: door and heard muffled talking in the bedroom. I set
Speaker 1: down my bag quietly, not wanting to announce I was
Speaker 1: home early. Her voice quiet but animated. No, it's fine,
Speaker 1: I'll send the deck to night. You're sweet, but don't
Speaker 1: worry about the time. Then pause, laughter, Well, if only
Speaker 1: you were my boss. Another pause. The air in the
Speaker 1: hallway felt too tight to breathe. I shuffled noisily, making
Speaker 1: enough sound to signal my presence. She popped out into
Speaker 1: the hall, phone pressed to her chest, cheeks flushed. Hey
Speaker 1: you're back already, she looked, genuinely, caught off guard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: meetings ended early, Everything okay, she shrugged, smiling tightly, just
Speaker 1: wrapping up a call agency stuff. She tucked her hair
Speaker 1: behind her ear, the newly familiar gesture she used when
Speaker 1: flustered hungry. I nodded, unable to trust my voice. Over dinner,
Speaker 1: she kept the conversation on safe ground, news about her
Speaker 1: friend from college moving to the city, a funny story
Speaker 1: about the agency dog causing chaos at a pitch. I
Speaker 1: waited for her to mention Allan, but his name didn't
Speaker 1: come up. She asked about my day, listening politely but
Speaker 1: without engagement, as though reciting an internal checklist. Later, I
Speaker 1: forced myself to ask, have you and Allan always worked
Speaker 1: this closely? She didn't look offended, just slightly amused, as
Speaker 1: if it was an odd question. We're team leads on
Speaker 1: a couple accounts. He's intense, but smart, kind of obnoxiously
Speaker 1: smart sometimes. She rolled her eyes, then changed the subject. Hey,
Speaker 1: did you ever email your mom about that Thanksgiving trip?
Speaker 1: The ease with which she side stepped the topic almost
Speaker 1: felt rehearsed. I let it drop, though my hands balled
Speaker 1: on my thighs under the table. She spent the rest
Speaker 1: of the evening on her laptop, headphones on, occasionally humming
Speaker 1: along with whatever she was playing, one of those new
Speaker 1: indie playlists she loved. I watched her, willing some small
Speaker 1: sign to flicker across her face. Instead, I got only
Speaker 1: the serene, focused look she always wore when deep into
Speaker 1: a project. When I finally crawled into bed, Emily was asleep,
Speaker 1: her phone face down on the night stand, a faint
Speaker 1: glow beneath. I wanted to reach for her, but felt ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Even the gesture now seemed suspect, tinged with questions, I
Speaker 1: didn't want a voice. On Saturday, I called Ash on
Speaker 1: the pretense of grabbing brunch, hoping for the distraction of
Speaker 1: talking about anything except Emily or work. But even as
Speaker 1: we debated where to eat, I could sense his hesitation.
Speaker 1: Everything good with you and em he asked casually as
Speaker 1: we waited for coffee. Haven't seen her at game night
Speaker 1: in forever? I shrug, tried to sound breezy. She's just busy,
Speaker 1: works wild right now, new pitch, I think, he nodded, unconvinced.
Speaker 1: If you need anything, man, I mean it, I almost laughed.
Speaker 1: What exactly would I ask for? Help? Going through her email?
Speaker 1: A chaperon for every after work event, advice for pretending
Speaker 1: everything was fine. When my gut in insisted otherwise. Back
Speaker 1: at home, I decided to finally confront the tech itself.
Speaker 1: I'm not proud of it, but marriage, at least ours
Speaker 1: had always operated under an unspoken policy of unlocked devices. Sure,
Speaker 1: sometimes Emily would forget her password, borrow mine to check
Speaker 1: a browser tab, the usual bleat together of digital lives.
Speaker 1: I stared at her phone on the entry table while
Speaker 1: she showered, debating the ethics of even touching it. By
Speaker 1: the time I'd worked myself up, she emerged from the
Speaker 1: bath room, wrapped in a towel, laughing that I always
Speaker 1: hog the good conditioner what she grinned, catching me mid stair,
Speaker 1: Nothing just spaced out, She nodded, opening her phone, screens
Speaker 1: shielded subtly scrolling through a flurry of notifications. You want
Speaker 1: to order in? Or should I cook? She asked, moving
Speaker 1: quickly to the kitchen, her movements efficient and brisk. That night,
Speaker 1: another agency emergency cropped up. Emily paced the living room,
Speaker 1: phone pressed tight to her ear, murmuring in half sentences.
Speaker 1: I tried not to listen, but the word reschedule and
Speaker 1: Alan's name slipped out twice in under minute. The call
Speaker 1: stretched on. Finally, she pressed end, sighing, theatrically. I caught
Speaker 1: her gaze. Everything okay? She mustered a smile, a shadow
Speaker 1: of her usual mischief promises, promises. Alan's never on top
Speaker 1: of the calendar, I swear, she said, tension pulling at
Speaker 1: her eyelids. She looked like she was about to say more,
Speaker 1: but then shook her head and reached for a glass
Speaker 1: of wine. Long week. At that moment, the condo intercom buzzed.
Speaker 1: It was a meal delivery she'd apparently ordered while still
Speaker 1: on the call TI food from the place we used
Speaker 1: to haunt on Fridays, just enough for two. Sitting cross
Speaker 1: legged on the living room floor, she started streaming The
Speaker 1: Office for the umpteenth time, making fun of MY favorite
Speaker 1: character choices. For an hour, life seemed normal again. She
Speaker 1: spooned extra curry into my bowl, her thigh pressed warm
Speaker 1: against mine. Half Way through the final episode, her phone
Speaker 1: buzzed and she excused herself to the bathroom, taking the
Speaker 1: device with her. I muted the TV, listening to the
Speaker 1: faint underton of her voice, too muffled to catch anything
Speaker 1: but the change in tone, a kind of low laughter.
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard from her in weeks. When she returned,
Speaker 1: I tried gently. Is everything really just work stress? Or
Speaker 1: is there something else going on? She paused, expression caught
Speaker 1: between surprise and calculation. Then Nick, you have to trust me.
Speaker 1: This promotion wasn't what I expected. Everyone needs more, faster,
Speaker 1: and I'm just tired. It's not you. I don't want
Speaker 1: you to feel shut out. I promise I'm okay. Her
Speaker 1: words were measured just enough to be reassuring if you
Speaker 1: wanted to be reassured. I wanted to believe her, and
Speaker 1: for a moment I almost did. But that night, lying
Speaker 1: in bed, I remembered how she used to insist on
Speaker 1: falling asleep tangle together. Lately she'd started sleeping with her
Speaker 1: back turned, one leg kicked out, a line drawn through
Speaker 1: the sheets. Sunday brought nothing but silence. Emily claimed she
Speaker 1: needed to catch up on work at a coffee shop,
Speaker 1: even though her laptop barely left her bag. I wandered
Speaker 1: the city, drinking coffee that tasted bitter, glancing at every
Speaker 1: couple and wondering who else had lived through a weak
Speaker 1: nd like this, two people sharing an apartment, but nothing else.
Speaker 1: On impulse, I stopped at a different cafe, hoping for
Speaker 1: a change in scenery. Sitting in the corner was Liz,
Speaker 1: our mutual friend, headphones tucked in but unmistakably waving. When
Speaker 1: she saw me, I joined her, forcing myself to act casual.
Speaker 1: She picked up on my mood quickly. Nick, you look
Speaker 1: like you've been steamrolled, she said, expertly, closing her laptop.
Speaker 1: I shrugged, fumbling for words. Yeah, just a lot going on.
Speaker 1: Have you seen Emily lately? She bit her lip, hesitated.
Speaker 1: Not much. She's been ghosting all of us. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: figured she was just swamped. Is something up? I waged
Speaker 1: whether to ask outright, but Liz was the kind of
Speaker 1: friend to respect lines unless you really pulled on them.
Speaker 1: I'm just worried about her. She seems off. Liz nodded,
Speaker 1: searching my face for something. Don't let her work herself
Speaker 1: into the ground. You too, are you know the couple.
Speaker 1: It'll settle down. She meant it kindly, but the couple
Speaker 1: felt like a curse. Every One expected us to work
Speaker 1: to set an example. I faked a smile, tried not
Speaker 1: to let the word echo home. That night, Emily came
Speaker 1: in late, caught in a rain burst, hair slicked to
Speaker 1: her temples. She looked younger suddenly and shiveringly worn out.
Speaker 1: I wrapped a towel around her shoulders, trying to tend
Speaker 1: to her, but she shook her head bone tired. We
Speaker 1: ate leftovers in silence. Later in the bath room, she
Speaker 1: hummed softly a song unfamiliar to me. As she passed me,
Speaker 1: she paused, studdied my face. Are you mad at me?
Speaker 1: She asked, voice brittle, No, just tired too, I guess,
Speaker 1: I said. She watched me, something like regret flickering over
Speaker 1: her features. Then she retreated, closing the bedroom door behind
Speaker 1: her without another word. The next week began with disjointed routines.
Speaker 1: Monday and Tuesday, Emily left for work before I woke.
Speaker 1: Her side of the closet started bulging with new clothes,
Speaker 1: sharper lines, brighter colors, the sort of outfits that said
Speaker 1: look at me. In a boardroom, I caught her posing
Speaker 1: in the mirror one evening, twisting to admire the fall
Speaker 1: of a new blazer. I stood in the doorway, teasing,
Speaker 1: trying to outdo your own agency. She tossed her hair, grinned,
Speaker 1: and replied, fake it till you make it right. Yet
Speaker 1: there was a stiffness, a defensive cheeriness that didn't mesh
Speaker 1: with the Emily I knew. By Wednesday, I decided to
Speaker 1: try again at our rituals. I ordered our usual for
Speaker 1: pizza night, set the living room the way she liked, blankets, folded,
Speaker 1: candles lit, Spotify queued up with her Friday Early Escape playlist.
Speaker 1: When Emily walked in, she seemed at first disarmed by
Speaker 1: the effort. This is nice, she said, voice uncertain, slipping
Speaker 1: off her shoes. I poured her a glass of red,
Speaker 1: tried to reignite our us. She settled onto the couch,
Speaker 1: but checked her phone five times before the pizza was
Speaker 1: even delivered. Every time her screen flashed with a notification,
Speaker 1: she stiffened, checked it, and tucked the phone away again,
Speaker 1: only for it to buzz again. Minutes later, half way
Speaker 1: through our meal, her phone rang, and with a muttered apology,
Speaker 1: she went out onto the balcony to answer. I watched
Speaker 1: her from the window, one arm crossed over her waist,
Speaker 1: phone pressed tight to her ear, brow furrowed in concentration.
Speaker 1: When she came back, I tried not to sound accusatory.
Speaker 1: Everything okay, the agency burning down again, She almost smiled
Speaker 1: a flash of the old mischief sort of just Allan
Speaker 1: trying to move a deadline. I swear he's allergic to
Speaker 1: project management software. She laughed, but it landed flat. I
Speaker 1: tried to draw her out. Jenna says, she misses your checkins.
Speaker 1: You two haven't done a wine night in weeks. At
Speaker 1: Jenna's mention, a cloud crossed Emily's face. She's been swamped too.
Speaker 1: We text, but Emily trailed off. Can we just I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk work any more to night? It
Speaker 1: was a plea, not for closeness, but for peace. I relented,
Speaker 1: but I could feel the ground shifting beneath us that
Speaker 1: night in bed, I reached out, slowly, laying a hand
Speaker 1: on her hip, but she tensed. Sorry, I'm not in
Speaker 1: the mood, she whispered back turned. There was apology in
Speaker 1: her voice, but also something final. Thursday brought another small fracture.
Speaker 1: Emily's phone, left behind for once as she dashed out
Speaker 1: for morning yoga, lit up with a text. Allan miss
Speaker 1: you at these early meetings survived last night's war. The
Speaker 1: text flashed again, this time you were amazing yesterday lunch.
Speaker 1: I didn't reply. When Emily got home, I told her
Speaker 1: she'd missed a text. Anything urgent, she asked, lightly, not
Speaker 1: quite meeting my eyes, just Allan, I said, more bluntly
Speaker 1: than i'd meant. She checked the screen too quickly, then shrugged.
Speaker 1: Work never stops, even outside the office. I didn't push then,
Speaker 1: but I watched her more closely the casual way. She
Speaker 1: now double checked every app called out with be right
Speaker 1: back for every incoming call. The rituals of suspicion became
Speaker 1: my new routines. I started logging her agency events, cross
Speaker 1: checking them on social media. Sometimes she was actually at
Speaker 1: the meeting, sometimes not. Once while she claimed to be
Speaker 1: deadlining at the office, an instagram stoped popped up her
Speaker 1: face in a grinning group selfie at a roof top bar,
Speaker 1: Allan prominent, his hand on the small of her back.
Speaker 1: The photo vanished after an hour. I screenshotted it irrationally,
Speaker 1: heart pounding and sure if it meant more than I feared.
Speaker 1: One Friday, after a week of Cold War, I cornered
Speaker 1: Jenna coming out of the wine shop. Can we talk?
Speaker 1: I asked. She looked startled, then resigned and followed me
Speaker 1: to a bench on the curb. She was tense, arms folded,
Speaker 1: eyes flicking away from mine. I dove in Jenna. I'm
Speaker 1: not asking for gossip, but something is happening with Emily.
Speaker 1: You know her better than anyone. Please, Am I crazy?
Speaker 1: She fiddled with her phone. Nick. I don't know everything,
Speaker 1: but I know she's under a lot of pressure. She
Speaker 1: she promised she'd be careful. That's all I can say.
Speaker 1: Careful of what a loaded silence. I'm not her. I
Speaker 1: can't explain. She loves you, you know that, right, but
Speaker 1: she's mickx up lately. I pressed, does this have to
Speaker 1: do with Allan? I thought she'd deny it, but Jenna
Speaker 1: just looked down. I can't, Nick, I shouldn't be in
Speaker 1: the middle. I thought she'd stop. I really did. My
Speaker 1: mouth had gone dry. Stop what her face crumpled? I'm sorry, Nick.
Speaker 1: I thought she would make the right call. She stood,
Speaker 1: hugged me stiffly, and walked away before I could ask
Speaker 1: another question. That night, I couldn't stay in the apartment.
Speaker 1: I walked the streets, ending up outside Emily's agency building,
Speaker 1: watching lights flick on in the top floors. I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell if she was inside or out, So I sat
Speaker 1: on a bench, scrolling my phone endlessly. Index finger numb
Speaker 1: from repetition. Finally, unable to help myself, I texted Emily,
Speaker 1: want company for your death March late shift. The bubble
Speaker 1: showed she was typing, then stopped. Rain Check buried love you,
Speaker 1: she replied, Even the love you felt distant, like something
Speaker 1: obliged rather than freely given. Days blurred. Emily operated in
Speaker 1: two worlds, one with me polite but cooled. Another I
Speaker 1: glimpsed in snatches, full bodied, alive, but elsewhere. Every work
Speaker 1: story now carried the whiff of a performance, polished and
Speaker 1: shorn of messy truth. The final push came the next Monday,
Speaker 1: when Emily blurted, I might need to travel for a
Speaker 1: client pitch. Allan and I are doing this tag team
Speaker 1: thing for the next phase, where I asked San Diego
Speaker 1: two nights may be three? She said it too quickly,
Speaker 1: as if rehearsed any one else from the agency going.
Speaker 1: She shook her head. Just us, It's a small pitch,
Speaker 1: super last minute. Why not the regular team? Her jaw twitched.
Speaker 1: Can we not do this? It's my job. Don't make
Speaker 1: me feel guilty for working hard. I nodded, biting back
Speaker 1: everything I wanted to shout. That afternoon, I checked our
Speaker 1: shared credit card, two flights booked, one after another. Emily's
Speaker 1: in business, Allan's right after on the manifest charges for
Speaker 1: a cocktail bar, the same Atlas hotel where that early
Speaker 1: receipt was from. I checked the map. The bar wasn't
Speaker 1: near the pitch venue at all, but by now the
Speaker 1: urge to play detective was overtaken by exhaustion. That night,
Speaker 1: Emily packed a new suit case with crisp shirts, wedges,
Speaker 1: subtle jewelry. She caught me watching and tried for a joke.
Speaker 1: You'd think I was going to can Allan will probably
Speaker 1: be wearing the same sneakers he wore to the holiday party,
Speaker 1: she snorted, but her eyes were far away. She left
Speaker 1: the next morning. Her good bye hug felt staged, careful,
Speaker 1: the kind you give your boss's wife at a dinner party.
Speaker 1: While she was gone, neither Jenna nor any of our
Speaker 1: friends reached out. I fielded a message or two from Ash,
Speaker 1: asking if I wanted to join trivia. I declined. I
Speaker 1: found myself pacing the apartment at midnight, turning the photo
Speaker 1: from the art opening over and over in my mind.
Speaker 1: Each night, Emily texted updates a restaurant selfie, a shot
Speaker 1: of her feet at the hotel pool. Always with client
Speaker 1: meetings went late. As a caption, Allan popped up in
Speaker 1: one story, his arm just visible at the edge of
Speaker 1: the frame. I tried to match her tone, but my
Speaker 1: replies sounded hollow, feigned excitement, and forced little hearts. On
Speaker 1: the third day, her texts went quiet. I stared at
Speaker 1: our empty bed, at the shirt she'd left discarded on
Speaker 1: her chair, and realized finally that something had ended without
Speaker 1: being spoken. When she returned, she was tanned and tired,
Speaker 1: tan lines at her collobun I couldn't map on to
Speaker 1: our calendar. I tried one last time to reach her,
Speaker 1: to find the thread to pull. Did you close the deal?
Speaker 1: A perfunctory nod. We made the short list. Allan did
Speaker 1: most of the heavy lifting. If I'd hoped for guilt
Speaker 1: for remorse, all I got was professional pride and practiced evasiveness.
Speaker 1: Shortly after, I found myself in front of Emily's laptop,
Speaker 1: the shared travel file open as an alibi. That's when
Speaker 1: the notification popped up, and the dam holding back all
Speaker 1: my denial finally burst. The late night Emil, the thread
Speaker 1: of private jokes, the attached dinner photos that mapped on
Speaker 1: to her client knights. The unsent draft letter so raw
Speaker 1: and personal it felt like walking in on a naked
Speaker 1: argument some one who sees me, she'd written, feels like
Speaker 1: I belonged for the first time in months. I scrolled down,
Speaker 1: nausea rising as I realized how much of our marriage
Speaker 1: had been played out off stage. The next morning, Emily
Speaker 1: was all brittle efficiency. She wouldn't look at me, barely
Speaker 1: spoke before dashing out the door, claiming teams waiting as
Speaker 1: her shield. I called Jenna. She didn't answer. A text
Speaker 1: came instead. I'm sorry. I thought she would end things.
Speaker 1: I can't be in the middle any more. There it
Speaker 1: was again, end things. I spent the day waiting, the anxiety,
Speaker 1: peeking every time I heard footsteps in the hall. When
Speaker 1: Emily finally came home late, she looked startled to see
Speaker 1: me there, as if hoping i'd be out, another sign
Speaker 1: of how far we'd drifted. She went through the motions,
Speaker 1: mail coat, mail again, water glass filled but forgotten on
Speaker 1: the counter. Finally, I moved to the living room, pulling
Speaker 1: the photo up on my phone, opening the EMIL thread
Speaker 1: on my laptop. When she entered, I held the phone out.
Speaker 1: My voice didn't shake. Tell me what this is? She stopped,
Speaker 1: eyes fixing on the image, then flicking to my face,
Speaker 1: searching for the least dangerous escape route. That's nothing. We
Speaker 1: we were at an opening. He put his arm around
Speaker 1: every one. Her hands shook as she tried to brush
Speaker 1: hair out of her face, failing to act nonchalant. You
Speaker 1: and Allan are just friends. My voice finally was small,
Speaker 1: but iron underneath. The mask dropped. Then she looked at
Speaker 1: the floor, then at me, at the phone. The draft
Speaker 1: letter now opened behind me on the screen, the weight
Speaker 1: of its settling between us. We talked. We got close.
Speaker 1: I needed someone nick, someone who doesn't. She shook her head,
Speaker 1: a bitter laugh half formed. It started as nothing, but
Speaker 1: it didn't stay that way. How far did it go?
Speaker 1: She stared at her feet. After the pitch, after my promotion,
Speaker 1: it got further. I tried to stop. I did, but physical,
Speaker 1: I asked, dreading both answers equally a silence, yes, she whispered.
Speaker 1: I felt myself flinch, not dramatically, but an involuntary tightening,
Speaker 1: as though someone had set a hook in my spy.
Speaker 1: My breaths came thin, each word, taking forever she started
Speaker 1: to explain, hands fluttering at her sides, trying to keep
Speaker 1: control of the narrative. I didn't plan it. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to ruin us. I was just lonely, and you
Speaker 1: felt a million miles away, and allan was her voice broke,
Speaker 1: their face, crumpling. He made me feel like everything was
Speaker 1: new again. For a while, I thought it would pass
Speaker 1: and we'd be stronger for surviving. But I cut her off,
Speaker 1: barely recognizing my own voice. Emily, you lied not just
Speaker 1: to me, but to Jenna, to every one, she pleaded, then,
Speaker 1: stepping forward, voice wavering between outrage and grief. Don't make
Speaker 1: me the villain. I tried, Nick, I tried so hard
Speaker 1: to keep everything together for everyone. I never meant to
Speaker 1: hurt you. I kept telling myself I could end it
Speaker 1: before it mattered. I shook my head, jaw locked tight.
Speaker 1: You already ended it. We sat there, unspeaking, the noise
Speaker 1: of evening traffic faint in the background. Her eyes pleaded
Speaker 1: for forgiveness, some balm to be offered so she could
Speaker 1: undo the last months. But between us, the old comfort
Speaker 1: was gone, replaced by the weight of the truth, the
Speaker 1: kind that steals the air from every room. You shared.
Speaker 1: I forced out one last question. Did Jenna know? She nodded,
Speaker 1: eyes filling. She begged me to stop. She told me
Speaker 1: she couldn't watch me do this to you. I said
Speaker 1: I would. I lied to her too. The word lie
Speaker 1: seemed to echo, rounding every memory we'd built into something
Speaker 1: sour and uncertain. In that moment, it was clear nothing,
Speaker 1: not even the right words, could pull us both out
Speaker 1: from the collapse. She reached out weakly for my hand.
Speaker 1: I didn't pull away, but I didn't clasp her fingers either.
Speaker 1: Can we fix this, she whispered, But any answer I
Speaker 1: might have had was drowned by the surge of humiliation anger.
Speaker 1: Even despite myself grief for what was clear clearly finally gone,
Speaker 1: Emily's question still hovered between us, thin and trembling. Can
Speaker 1: we fix this? But I couldn't reply, not with her
Speaker 1: hand outstretched, not with the draft letter to Allan burned
Speaker 1: into my head. Some part of me waited for anger
Speaker 1: to explode, to say something that would shatter the night,
Speaker 1: but I felt only the slow drag of exhaustion. My
Speaker 1: hands were steady as I gathered my phone and the laptop,
Speaker 1: snapping them closed, trying to find some kind of boundary.
Speaker 1: Emily stayed rooted at the edge of the rug, shoulders hunched,
Speaker 1: breathing shallow. As I moved past her into the short hallway,
Speaker 1: the only sound was the hum of the refrigerator, and
Speaker 1: somewhere in the walls the buildings heating kicking on for
Speaker 1: the night. I went into the bathroom, washed my face
Speaker 1: and stared at the man in the mirror. My jaw
Speaker 1: was set, my eyes were raw but dry. Underneath, something
Speaker 1: else simmered, a stubborn glint of relief, or maybe just
Speaker 1: the certainty that comes when all illusions break at once.
Speaker 1: When I came out, Emily was sitting with her knees
Speaker 1: drawn to her chest, back against the arm of the couch, silent.
Speaker 1: I walked to the bedroom, grabbing an overnight bag off
Speaker 1: the top shelf, hands moving as if on autopilot, I
Speaker 1: started tossing clothes in, a pair of jeans, four T shirts,
Speaker 1: some socks, a bottle of ibuprofen. I hesitated over my drawer,
Speaker 1: then swept all my charges and a paperback inside. Where
Speaker 1: are you going? Emily called from the living room. Her
Speaker 1: voice was caught between panic and resignation to ashes, I
Speaker 1: need time a sharp silence. Then how long? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I zipped the bag, moving into the entryway where my
Speaker 1: sneakers waited. One untied Emily followed, her eyes flicking to
Speaker 1: the bag, then to the floor. There was nothing left
Speaker 1: to say, but she tried anyway we can talk, Nick. Please,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. Now, I'll tell you everything you want
Speaker 1: to know. I didn't stop tying my shoes that time's passed.
Speaker 1: Her hand caught the door as I went to open it.
Speaker 1: For a second, I thought she'd block the way, but
Speaker 1: instead she just held on, as if the steel handle
Speaker 1: might anchor her to the floor. Please don't just leave
Speaker 1: like this. I looked at her, feeling the weight of
Speaker 1: all our shared years solidify into a single choice. I'm
Speaker 1: not the one who left first, I said quietly. I
Speaker 1: stepped into the hallway, letting the door click shut behind me,
Speaker 1: The echo flat and final. Outside the condo, the city
Speaker 1: air was cold against my skin, more biting than I
Speaker 1: wanted to admit. I texted Ash simple, not wanting to
Speaker 1: spell it out. Emergency, Can I crash a few nights?
Speaker 1: His reply came almost instantly. Come over, I'll put out
Speaker 1: fresh towels. As I made my way to the curb.
Speaker 1: My phone buzzed again, another text, this time from Jenna.
Speaker 1: Are you okay? I'm so sorry. I hate all of this,
Speaker 1: I answered with a single period, unable to manage more.
Speaker 1: Walking to my car, I saw the reflection of our
Speaker 1: front windows, one still lit, the silhouette inside unmoving. I
Speaker 1: tried not to think about how many times I had
Speaker 1: left through this door, traveling for work, coffee runs, random errands.
Speaker 1: This time, every step hurt, the short drive, winding through
Speaker 1: streets that suddenly felt emptier, the city escape carved of
Speaker 1: all its comfort. In Ash's lobby, I waited while he
Speaker 1: buzzed me in. He opened the door with a worried look.
Speaker 1: Want a beer, he asked, voice gentler than usual, maybe later.
Speaker 1: Thanks for this, Ash nodded, giving me space. He made
Speaker 1: up the pull out in his spare room, stacked towels
Speaker 1: at the end of the bed, set a glass of
Speaker 1: water on the night stand. I dropped my bag down,
Speaker 1: watched as Ash hovered in the doorway, searching for something
Speaker 1: to say. You want to talk, you know you can,
Speaker 1: but my brain wasn't ready. Not yet. Let's just watch
Speaker 1: something stupid. We sat in his kitchen the aroma of
Speaker 1: burnt toast, lingering. Ash queued up episodes of some old
Speaker 1: cartoon we'd watched back in college. I let the brightly
Speaker 1: colored characters wash over me, grateful for meaningless noise. An
Speaker 1: hour later I checked my phone again, three unread messages
Speaker 1: from Emily. Can we talk? Please? Let me know you're safe.
Speaker 1: I love you. I'm so sorry. I didn't answer, letting
Speaker 1: the screen go dark. Lying awake in the darkness, I
Speaker 1: listened to Ash breathing heavy in the room next door,
Speaker 1: the pipes clinking as the heat adjusted for the night.
Speaker 1: I turned the phone over in my palm, scrolling until
Speaker 1: my thumb was numb. I deleted Emily's last photo, then
Speaker 1: the next I hovered over our text chain, not yet
Speaker 1: able to erase the thread altogether. It felt too surgical,
Speaker 1: as if true erasure required waiting for another version of myself.
Speaker 1: I slipped into an uneasy sleep, images of Emily and
Speaker 1: Allan flickering in the shifting shadows behind my eyes. The
Speaker 1: next morning, my phone blew up family group chats, the
Speaker 1: usual blare of work pings, and then a new message chain,
Speaker 1: this time from my mother. Emily called what's happening? We
Speaker 1: love you, call us if you need to talk. The
Speaker 1: fact that Emily had called them before we'd even finished
Speaker 1: unraveling hit me like a bad punch line. By noon,
Speaker 1: my work inbox was overflowing, and the tightrope between pretending
Speaker 1: to function and wanting to punch a wall was getting thinner.
Speaker 1: I texted my manager asked if I could work from
Speaker 1: ash S for a few days. She responded that it
Speaker 1: was no problem. Sitting at Ash's kitchen table, my laptop open,
Speaker 1: deadlines cascading into each other, I could feel the shape
Speaker 1: of my old life fraying. Hour by hour. Work was
Speaker 1: at least something I could control, a matrix of tasks
Speaker 1: and outcomes. But every time the phone buzzed, I felt
Speaker 1: a new layer of adrenaline. Sometimes just junk mail, other
Speaker 1: times a name I dreaded seeing suddenly lighting up the
Speaker 1: entire room. Early afternoon, Jenna called I hesitated, then picked
Speaker 1: up Nick. Her voice was rushed, words falling over themselves.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I should have said something sooner. I
Speaker 1: should have. She stopped, breathless. Jenna, don't I get it.
Speaker 1: You didn't owe me the truth? She did silence. I
Speaker 1: just I kept thinking she'd stop. I kept thinking she'd
Speaker 1: realize what she was doing. It was like watching someone
Speaker 1: set their own house on fire and pretending it was
Speaker 1: just a candle. I almost laughed, but the ache in
Speaker 1: my chest made it sharp. How long have you known?
Speaker 1: Not everything? Not at first, but I saw them at
Speaker 1: that opening. I thought she'd listen if I pushed, but
Speaker 1: she kept saying it was nothing physical. Then when you
Speaker 1: started asking questions, I just froze. Did any one else know?
Speaker 1: No one else, at least not that I know. Some
Speaker 1: people had suspicions, Ash Clara maybe, but Emily kept things tight. Nick.
Speaker 1: I wish I cut her off, not unkindly. It doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: not now. Just take care of yourself. I don't want
Speaker 1: to pull you in any deeper. Nick. If you need
Speaker 1: anything anything, I know. Thanks. We hung up the space
Speaker 1: after feeling both emptier and lighter. I stared at the
Speaker 1: stack of unpaid bills Emily had texted me earlier that month,
Speaker 1: her way of keeping score on our joint life. I
Speaker 1: realized for the first time that none of it was sacred.
Speaker 1: The savings for travel, the mortgage, every party we'd thrown,
Speaker 1: these were all just trappings, a stage built over quicksand
Speaker 1: by mid afternoon, Emily texted again, I'm seeing Jenna. She says,
Speaker 1: you talked. Can you come home so we can talk
Speaker 1: in person? I didn't answer. Ash knocked gently, want anything
Speaker 1: from the store? Die at coke? He grinned, grateful for
Speaker 1: the normalcy. Later, I got a call from my father.
Speaker 1: Emily says, you're taking some time away. Do you want
Speaker 1: to talk about it? I offered only the bareest explanation, work, stress, miscommunication,
Speaker 1: the lie you give to worried parents who only want
Speaker 1: their son to be happy. Dad didn't pry, but the
Speaker 1: river of concern running beneath his words made me want
Speaker 1: to scream. Three hours later, the group chat of our
Speaker 1: friends lit up with confusion. Everything okay, where are you
Speaker 1: nich Emily canceled dinner, said things were up in the air.
Speaker 1: Clara texted, if you want to vent, I'm here. I
Speaker 1: thanked them, but didn't elaborate. The negotiation began almost immediately
Speaker 1: by dinner, Emily texted me a spreadsheet here s when
Speaker 1: I won't be in the condo. If you need things,
Speaker 1: can we talk sometime soon. She was trying to be practical,
Speaker 1: the same efficiency that made her a star at work,
Speaker 1: but all of It felt transactional, the ghost of courtesy
Speaker 1: where there ought to have been a marriage. Still breathing,
Speaker 1: news moved at its own pace, faster than feelings. Some
Speaker 1: friends knew other's guest by the next morning. I could
Speaker 1: sense the undercurrent, mutual friends taking sides, or more often
Speaker 1: just stepping back, hedging their bets in case of reconciliation
Speaker 1: or fallout. Each time someone texted, I fielded the same
Speaker 1: careful question, Are you all right? Do you want to talk?
Speaker 1: Is there anything I can do? There was nothing any
Speaker 1: one could do now. Day by day, the boundaries of
Speaker 1: our life together started to close in. I got a
Speaker 1: calendar link from Emily, days for picking up mail, scheduling cleaners,
Speaker 1: settling which of us would stay in the condo. When
Speaker 1: I looked it over, heart beating out a dull rhythm,
Speaker 1: and sent her times when I'd drop by. Returning to
Speaker 1: the condo the first time was like entering a mausoleum
Speaker 1: of my own former happiness. Everything was we'd left it,
Speaker 1: our shoes lined up by the door, the painting we
Speaker 1: bought in Montreal hung at a Rakish angle, a single
Speaker 1: sunflower in a blue vase on the table, wilted. I
Speaker 1: moved through the rooms quietly, as if not to wake
Speaker 1: something fragile. Emily was not there. Good I had texted
Speaker 1: my arrival time and she confirmed she would be out.
Speaker 1: I appreciated the distance a mercy neither of us could
Speaker 1: fully name. Packing my things, I hesitated at the closet.
Speaker 1: I wanted to take every last item, everything that might
Speaker 1: one day remind me of this collapse, but also wanted
Speaker 1: to leave something behind, a scar on the place where
Speaker 1: our life was built. In the end, I took only
Speaker 1: what I needed, a handful of buttondowns, my running shoes,
Speaker 1: the photo from our trip to Lisbon. I left our
Speaker 1: wedding album on the shelf, unable to face the cover.
Speaker 1: As I was collecting toiletries, my phone buzzed. Emily had
Speaker 1: sent a note, Jenna says, you're OK. I'll be at
Speaker 1: liz S If you need anything, Please don't hate me forever.
Speaker 1: I didn't answer, but pocketed the key. By the second week,
Speaker 1: practicalities took over. Utilities had to be split, accounts rebalanced,
Speaker 1: vacation requests canceled and reissued in separate names. With each arrangement,
Speaker 1: the sharp edges diminished and were replaced by a kind
Speaker 1: of numb professionalism until I got to the accounts and
Speaker 1: her emil pinged, can we keep the travel savings account
Speaker 1: open until we decide? No, some things were over and
Speaker 1: needed to end. Jenna checked in again, still apologizing by habit.
Speaker 1: I finally told her, you don't need to be in
Speaker 1: the middle anymore, Jenna, I'll handle my side. She can
Speaker 1: handle hers. She thanked me, relief and guilt mingling in
Speaker 1: her voice. Because of the fallout, Mutual friends extended invitations
Speaker 1: with careful language. If you feel up to it, you're
Speaker 1: always welcome. We love you both, and hope no oh
Speaker 1: one finished the sentence. One night, Clara called unexpectedly. Emily
Speaker 1: told you everything she asked. I hesitated enough. She's not herself.
Speaker 1: I just wanted you to know I see you Nick,
Speaker 1: if you want to come by, have dinner, whatever, Thank you,
Speaker 1: I said, grateful, but not ready. Even Ash, who never
Speaker 1: liked Emily as much as he liked having all of
Speaker 1: us in one place, gave me space but made it
Speaker 1: clear his spare room didn't have an expiration. You do
Speaker 1: what you need, man, doors open. If you want to
Speaker 1: get out of the city. We can go fishing next weekend.
Speaker 1: We didn't go fishing. I stayed in, decompressing as best
Speaker 1: I could, fielding Emily's logistical messages, deleting the more emotional
Speaker 1: ones unread. Every few days, some new small casualty of
Speaker 1: divorce by negotiations showed up. A friend group split on
Speaker 1: game night, someone's birthday party, now a carefully chapperoned event,
Speaker 1: the questionestion of weather to keep the coffee machine or
Speaker 1: split the wine. It struck me that the emotional damage
Speaker 1: didn't just radiate from Emily and me, but also pinwheeled
Speaker 1: through a dozen social lives, friends who'd built dinner tables
Speaker 1: and holidays around our togetherness. I answered each necessary question
Speaker 1: and let the rest go unreplied. My loyalty to Emily
Speaker 1: had become bureaucratic, a series of signatures, confirmations, divisions. Late
Speaker 1: one evening, my phone pinged with a new notification, this
Speaker 1: time an email, allan subject line apologies. I opened it,
Speaker 1: expecting excuses, but the email was short, perfunctory. Nick, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for my part in all this. I wish it
Speaker 1: hadn't happened this way. Please know that nothing was meant
Speaker 1: as a slight to you. I stared at it, then
Speaker 1: closed it without replying there was nothing Allan or any
Speaker 1: one else could say that would matter any more. Another day,
Speaker 1: another divided bank account, or unfollowed playlist. Each step was
Speaker 1: a small exorcism Emily's belongings, her scent on the pillow,
Speaker 1: the ring dish by the bathroom sink, all slowly disappearing
Speaker 1: as we worked through the last remains of a shared life.
Speaker 1: A final call with my parents that weakened. This time,
Speaker 1: I told them the truth in plain language. There were tears, frustration,
Speaker 1: and then, above all kind of quiet support, the steady
Speaker 1: presence that said You're still you. Dad offered to drive up.
Speaker 1: Mom promised to send soup, but I asked for space,
Speaker 1: promising I'd be all right. Ash was a witness to
Speaker 1: one last outburst. Plates smashed as I realized there'd never
Speaker 1: be another Friday Pizza night. He didn't offer platitudes, just
Speaker 1: swept up the pieces and made coffee the way real
Speaker 1: friends do. The ritual loss continued. Group texts fell into
Speaker 1: cold silence, no more just the two of us. Invitations,
Speaker 1: every pattern of life, every easy comfort now felt jagged
Speaker 1: and provisional. Even casual acquaintances tiptoed around the topic. Their
Speaker 1: glances heavy with unsaid questions. A few days later, I
Speaker 1: got a final message from Emily. I'm moving out for
Speaker 1: good Friday. I'll leave my set of keys in the dish.
Speaker 1: If you ever want to talk, I hope you'll reach out.
Speaker 1: I really did love you. I didn't reply. I read
Speaker 1: it once, then deleted it. That Friday, after work, I
Speaker 1: returned to the apartment for the first time since she'd
Speaker 1: officially moved. The rooms were half empty, echoing. No shoes
Speaker 1: by the door, no toothbrush beside mine, no faint laughter
Speaker 1: from the balcony. The only remnant of Emily was the
Speaker 1: wooden salad bowl we'd bought at a craft's fair, left
Speaker 1: behind on the counter with a note, figured you d
Speaker 1: used this more. Thanks for everything, e I stared at it,
Speaker 1: then opened the mail box to find two more wedding RSVPs,
Speaker 1: both addressed Nick and Emily. I closed them quiet, setting
Speaker 1: them atop the stack of things i'd need to amend.
Speaker 1: Jenna called once more voicemail. I'm sorry for how this ended.
Speaker 1: You didn't deserve any of it. Call if you want
Speaker 1: to yell at someone or just forget. I existed for
Speaker 1: a while. I didn't have the heart to answer. I understood,
Speaker 1: for her sake and mine, that some severances are mercy.
Speaker 1: That night, Ash and I stood in the kitchen, beer
Speaker 1: bottles sweating on the counter. Want to keep the salad bowl,
Speaker 1: he asked, and the simplicity of his question nearly undid me.
Speaker 1: I'll keep it, I said, voice low. Soon after, the
Speaker 1: final round of messages wound down. No dramatic final calls,
Speaker 1: no more explanations. Friends and family stepped back the house
Speaker 1: of cards, at last, having collapsed in full view for
Speaker 1: all to see. I woke early Saturday in Ash's place,
Speaker 1: the city still fog shrouded, light creeping along the window ledge.
Speaker 1: The little pockets of rage were receding, but in their absence,
Speaker 1: a kind of hollow clarity held, steady, rigid as bone.
Speaker 1: I placed my phone on the table, pressed the power button.
Speaker 1: The faint glow winked out, the screen going silent. At last,
Speaker 1: I stood at the kitchen sink in Ash's apartment, coffee
Speaker 1: mug pressed to my palms, the taste smoky and bittersweet.
Speaker 1: I faced the pale window, the city spread silent and
Speaker 1: blue beyond the glass. I picked up my phone again,
Speaker 1: scrolled to my last conversation with Emily. My thumb hovered,
Speaker 1: then made its choice. I deleted the thread, not slowly,
Speaker 1: not with ceremony, but with a final casual swipe. For
Speaker 1: a moment my hands shook, but then I placed the
Speaker 1: phone face down beside the mug let. The silence hold.
Speaker 1: The ache was familiar now, but as the first sunlight
Speaker 1: caught on the rust red water tower across the block,
Speaker 1: I felt something new, the world closing and just thinly
Speaker 1: beginning again. Somewhere in the block below Ash's window, a
Speaker 1: garbage truck idled, splintering the quiet with its dull rhythm.
Speaker 1: I cut the mug tighter, feeling every twitch of energy
Speaker 1: give way to something almost peaceful. No messages, no obligations.
Speaker 1: The city shivered into its routines without us, without Emily
Speaker 1: and Nick as an entity worth talking about, planning around,
Speaker 1: or believing in. I wouldn't say it was relief, not yet.
Speaker 1: There was too much debris, and as much as I
Speaker 1: tried to live in the smoothness of the present moment,
Speaker 1: the boundaries of what would need to be faced still
Speaker 1: lay ahead. The appointment with the condo lawyer, the dividing
Speaker 1: of one last asset, the way our joint world would
Speaker 1: shrink to paperwork, and then to nothing. Even the salad
Speaker 1: bowl felt like an epitaph our taste, rendered useless, the
Speaker 1: last thing left behind because it wasn't worth fighting for.
Speaker 1: Part of me wondered what Emily was doing right now.
Speaker 1: I imagined her at liz S explaining in measured tones,
Speaker 1: half defending herself, or collapsing into tears. Maybe she was
Speaker 1: rehearsing answers for her family, wondering at what point it
Speaker 1: had all started to slip past anything resembling control. Maybe
Speaker 1: for her this day was just as silent and stretched
Speaker 1: as mine. But I doubted it. I doubted it because
Speaker 1: people who build new lives in secrecy seemed to always
Speaker 1: be a step further along than the ones left behind
Speaker 1: scraping up the old one. The escalation kept coming, as
Speaker 1: though the actual break had given our social world some
Speaker 1: unspoken permission to rearrange. Throughout the afternoon, texts trickled in
Speaker 1: from mutual friends, some more urgent, some cautious. Clara messaged, first,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of you. Emily told us a version, but
Speaker 1: if you need anything, I'll listen. The word version stuck
Speaker 1: with me. People would choose their angles on this decide
Speaker 1: what the official narrative should be, smooth away the pieces
Speaker 1: that didn't fit their image of us. Even Ash, rarely sentimental,
Speaker 1: tiptoed around the details, just offering me silence and space,
Speaker 1: which I was in increasingly grateful for. By late afternoon,
Speaker 1: a new message from my work emil bleeped through an
Speaker 1: h R inquiry to confirm my address for end of
Speaker 1: year documents. An old college friend not heard from in months,
Speaker 1: tagged me in a group chat with the mildest attempt
Speaker 1: at a distraction trivia night ess on if you need
Speaker 1: a break from grown up drama. That last line made
Speaker 1: me grip my teeth, but delete nothing. There were even
Speaker 1: a few calls from unfamiliar numbers, presumably well meaning net
Speaker 1: work acquaintances, offering an ear if you want a guy's
Speaker 1: perspective or advice as someone who's been there. I ignored them.
Speaker 1: If there was one thing I knew, it was that
Speaker 1: advice from the perimeter was often just a form of
Speaker 1: story telling for the speaker's own sake. By early evening,
Speaker 1: the digital flood receded, somewhat, replaced by the practicalities. I
Speaker 1: set a reminder on my phone to cancel the utilities
Speaker 1: in the condo split by unit, but with auto payments
Speaker 1: still linked to our joint savings. I let the calender
Speaker 1: stay as it was, caught between wanting to raise every
Speaker 1: entry and realizing it didn't matter any more. Emily had
Speaker 1: already removed herself as an editor from the travel planning folder,
Speaker 1: a ghost operation that made the break irrefutable. Ash came
Speaker 1: home with groceries, moving through the kitchen quietly until he
Speaker 1: realized I hadn't so much as opened the fridge since morning.
Speaker 1: He unpacked oranges, cold cuts, a loaf of sourdough eat,
Speaker 1: he said, setting an orange in front of me. I obeyed,
Speaker 1: peeling the skin in ragged spirals, grateful for the tart bite.
Speaker 1: We didn't speak about Emily, about the split, or even
Speaker 1: what would happen next. Instead, Ash turned his bluetooth speaker
Speaker 1: on and let music fill the small space, a playlist
Speaker 1: from college, mostly songs I had almost forgotten we'd shared
Speaker 1: before our social circles got tangled up with the kind
Speaker 1: of relationships that promised for ever and delivered a few
Speaker 1: brittle years. My mind drifted. I let it. After dinner,
Speaker 1: I found myself on autopilot again, filling in a form
Speaker 1: for the condo association, listing myself as the sole resident contact.
Speaker 1: Emil switched from Emily nick At to just my own.
Speaker 1: It was mundane, the kind of thing that signaled not
Speaker 1: just change, but conclusion. There was no drama in a
Speaker 1: check box. A little before dark, my father called again.
Speaker 1: This time I answered. His words were brief, the tone anchoring.
Speaker 1: You don't have to do everything right now, son, Just
Speaker 1: the next thing, he said. Grief's a weird beast. Don't
Speaker 1: let it tell you that you're the broken one. It
Speaker 1: helped in a small way. When he hung up, I
Speaker 1: stayed at the window as the sky went from deep
Speaker 1: blue to indigo, city lights flickering awake outside. There was
Speaker 1: nothing left to chase that night, no final conversation, no
Speaker 1: more apologies to demand or refuse. Later, as I prepped
Speaker 1: for bed, Ash padded into the hall, his arms folded.
Speaker 1: You want me to stay up? Talk this out? He asked, No,
Speaker 1: I said, honestly, not to night. He nodded once, silently,
Speaker 1: granting what I needed most unremarkable company, the kind without
Speaker 1: pressure or expectation. It was nearing midnight when my phone
Speaker 1: vibrated one last time, A message from Emily. The preview
Speaker 1: read simply, I know it's pointless to say sorry again,
Speaker 1: but I hope you'll believe that I loved you even
Speaker 1: if I failed you. For a moment, I hovered over it,
Speaker 1: letting my thumb flicker at the edge of the notification.
Speaker 1: Then I pressed delete, the motion, feeling both futile and freeing.
Speaker 1: There was no miraculous reversal waiting at the end of
Speaker 1: all this, no cinematic closure, just unanswered questions and the
Speaker 1: knowledge that sometimes the hardest part isn't the betrayal, but
Speaker 1: the quiet after. The last practical hurdle that remained was
Speaker 1: the final hand off of Emily's keys. We'd agreed by
Speaker 1: text Sunday, late morning, when Ash would be out and
Speaker 1: the building mostly empty, I would meet her in the lobby,
Speaker 1: trade the spare set, and that would be it. Morning
Speaker 1: arrived sharp and bright, the air crisp. As I showered
Speaker 1: and dressed, putting on an old hoodie that Emily always
Speaker 1: said made me look like a college freshman. I walked
Speaker 1: the three blocks to the condo, hands in my pockets,
Speaker 1: scanning the sidewalk for any sign of her. Emily arrived
Speaker 1: a few minutes late, dressed simply, she looked smaller somehow,
Speaker 1: shoulders folded in as if protecting herself from the too
Speaker 1: bright world. She had the keys ready attached to the
Speaker 1: silly custom mountain keeching we'd bought in Vermont. No ceremony,
Speaker 1: just a muted here. We didn't make eye contact as
Speaker 1: we swapped the keys. She started to say something, voice trembling,
Speaker 1: and I heard what sounded like the prelude to another
Speaker 1: apology and a question I hadn't prepared for. Can I
Speaker 1: ask you something just for me? I waited. She swallowed,
Speaker 1: pinching the sleeve of her jacket. Are you going to
Speaker 1: be okay? The question was so bare, so free of argument,
Speaker 1: that I felt the wall inside me soften. I nodded once, steady.
Speaker 1: I don't know when, but yeah, I think so. I
Speaker 1: watched her shoulders drop, some of the tension draining. She nodded,
Speaker 1: blinking hard, and then lingered, as if hoping for permission
Speaker 1: to grieve a little together. But I couldn't find it,
Speaker 1: Not then, not standing in the lobby, the two of
Speaker 1: us stripped of context, shivering with all that couldn't be
Speaker 1: put back together. After a moment, she said, almost inaudibly,
Speaker 1: I really am sorry, Nick. Before I could reply, she
Speaker 1: was turning, heading for the door, her figure quickly swallowed
Speaker 1: by the sun bright cold morning outside. I stood there,
Speaker 1: keys in hand, alone in the echoing lobby, the click
Speaker 1: of her footsteps fading as surely as our life together.
Speaker 1: Only after she gone, after the door had sealed, without
Speaker 1: so much as a final glance, did I let myself
Speaker 1: sit on the steps for a minute, feeling the throb
Speaker 1: behind my ribs ebb and settle. No ceremony, no last look,
Speaker 1: only the knowledge that this was in fact the end.
Speaker 1: Back at Ashes, with the city glimmering through the window,
Speaker 1: I poured myself another mug of coffee and watched the
Speaker 1: steam curl. There was no text to send, no post
Speaker 1: to write, nothing left to explain or salvage. The silence
Speaker 1: wasn't empty any more. It was space, thin as new light,
Speaker 1: into which I could finally breathe