Speaker 1: There was a time not that long ago, when I
Speaker 1: would have arrived anywhere with Mark by my side, and
Speaker 1: assumed it on some buried, steady frequency, that the knight
Speaker 1: would unfold seamlessly, that people would see us together and nod,
Speaker 1: even smile, because somewhere along the way we had become
Speaker 1: the kind of couple. I carried the confidence into so
Speaker 1: many places, crowded basement art shaws, wine splatted loft parties,
Speaker 1: even grocery runs that ended with us harmonizing along with
Speaker 1: the radio. I never thought about not having it. So
Speaker 1: the absence came slowly, quietly at first, and then one
Speaker 1: night it landed heavy, all at once. Friday night, our
Speaker 1: old haunted the neighborhood Arts Center. I rushed in, cheeks
Speaker 1: pink from the cold, pulse still, and even from hustling
Speaker 1: down brick sidewalks. Inside the boy buzzed with the kind
Speaker 1: of raucous collective anticipation scars being a wound Indy theater
Speaker 1: takes hugging in groups, a whiff of coffee and cheap
Speaker 1: ear Sneaking through the crack of the back curtain, I
Speaker 1: scanned the crowd for Mark. Habit more than need, he
Speaker 1: always claimed first DIBs on the best seats, usually texting
Speaker 1: me a running play by play while a gage at
Speaker 1: the concession stole. But this time the sequence was off.
Speaker 1: I was here, seat left empty except for my battered
Speaker 1: canvas bag, my fum buzz just as the house lights flickered.
Speaker 1: Are not the usual Mark commentary, but running late might
Speaker 1: not make it huge work thing. Seconds later, a follow up,
Speaker 1: don't wait, I'll try to sneak in if I can.
Speaker 1: I held the phone a little too long, as if
Speaker 1: it might vibrate again and correct itself. But our group
Speaker 1: text normally alight with Mark Swisguck's, were strangely silent. I
Speaker 1: saw Leelah, familiar and quick, smiling, already in her seat
Speaker 1: on the opposite aisle. She spotted me grin gave a
Speaker 1: little come over at wave, but I hesitated, even though
Speaker 1: should be my friend since designs call, even though Mark
Speaker 1: can have folded her into every Corkie tradition we'd ever made.
Speaker 1: Something about the way she glanced at the seat beside me,
Speaker 1: then quickly away made my heart's stutter. Mark's absence hung
Speaker 1: between us like an unclaimed coat. I forced a smile,
Speaker 1: slid into my seat, and tried to earnestly to imrrorse
Speaker 1: myself in the play. This was supposed to be our thing.
Speaker 1: He loved theater even more than I did. The improvisational mischief,
Speaker 1: the awkward community actors with borrowed costumes and dark tape props.
Speaker 1: I remembered with a little sting of nostalgia when he
Speaker 1: first insisted we volunteer at ticket tables, flinging open doors
Speaker 1: for donors, like we were co hosts of a glittering gala,
Speaker 1: not a pair of paint splatted missids. The performance churned
Speaker 1: on one liner, was bouncing off the black walls, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't settle. I kept glancing at the empty seat,
Speaker 1: at the stage lights, at Lilla, who laughed, maybe too brightly,
Speaker 1: then glanced away. When our eyes met, the whole night
Speaker 1: fell in a way I couldn't articulate to myself, yet
Speaker 1: lesser than before, as if something pressed upon our small
Speaker 1: shared well from the edges, something fishing quietly just under foot. Afterward,
Speaker 1: I walked home alone, street light's plain tricks with my shadow.
Speaker 1: I passed a new mural half finished on the corner
Speaker 1: wall's loppy bright colors, a wild fox leaping through a
Speaker 1: tangle of geometric trees. I pause, looking for the little details,
Speaker 1: the signature and looping paint paint, the layer of spray
Speaker 1: under the brushtrouos, just the kind of thing Mark love
Speaker 1: to diasect. Last year we spent a whole night out
Speaker 1: in the street with the artists, passing brushes and beers around,
Speaker 1: talking about color theory and city politics, on which hydrant
Speaker 1: made the best seed. Now the mural looked unfinished in
Speaker 1: the lamp light. Or maybe I just felt and finish,
Speaker 1: aching in the space between what was and what I
Speaker 1: feared might never return. On my walk, the memory reel
Speaker 1: played times when everything had fit, gallery openings where he
Speaker 1: knew every bartender, how he'd staged with Sperdrukx just for
Speaker 1: me in darkened seats, The quick, confident squeeze of his
Speaker 1: hand under a table, the sudden spin onto the dance
Speaker 1: floor at a wedding, grinning as if surprised by happiness.
Speaker 1: I remembered all the times we stood shoulder to shoulder
Speaker 1: at the kitchen Island pain fleck from a day's work,
Speaker 1: daydreamain about hosting rooft up dinners were starting a tiny
Speaker 1: Jim Bookster cafe. It wasn't the past I miss exactly.
Speaker 1: I missed a certainty, the quiet and thinking comfort. Mark
Speaker 1: hadn't always been this distracted. When his consultant gigs started
Speaker 1: ramping up the late nights, felt like a cork of
Speaker 1: the industry took people in their urban legend pro dates.
Speaker 1: As he used to say, he tumble home with stories
Speaker 1: Ludak's client requests and scrutable acronyms, elaborary powpoindecks nobody would read.
Speaker 1: We laughed about it, planned holidays around his travel schedule,
Speaker 1: and kept our creative traditions going strong open mics, gallery walks,
Speaker 1: film fest pop ups. He always made space for the
Speaker 1: life rebuilt. He was the one who pushed me to
Speaker 1: hand my prince downtown, who handed out my cards behind
Speaker 1: my back at every open studio, who told anyone who
Speaker 1: listened that his wife was a real artist. Even when
Speaker 1: I switched from a full time designed job to freelance
Speaker 1: sketch stiff for months afterward, he never made me feel
Speaker 1: like I jeopardized us wherein this As a team, he
Speaker 1: would say, Steady is a drumbeat. But in the last
Speaker 1: couple months, little things slipped. He started counseling on dinners,
Speaker 1: showing up late to the Yark call sign up. We
Speaker 1: always made a ritual if he barely remembered it until
Speaker 1: I reminded him, and even then he frowned at the calendar,
Speaker 1: muttling about meetings nights. He once spence broiled across our
Speaker 1: rug marking up sketches with me, got replaced by arrows.
Speaker 1: Hunched over his phone in the other room, had funds
Speaker 1: in light from the holeway pouring across his profile. I'd
Speaker 1: pad out stare at him, trying to read his face,
Speaker 1: but he'd just look up distract as the hand half
Speaker 1: raised morthing almost done. I tried not to mind I
Speaker 1: had made big changes to whom my schedule was suddenly elastic,
Speaker 1: days mixing in to night's. No one tracking my hours
Speaker 1: but myself. I buried myself in commissions fort Frielance. Anxiety
Speaker 1: was spread chee and cold, and told myself what We've
Speaker 1: settled back into routine soon enough. Lea still came by often.
Speaker 1: Her own work as an event curator meant she was
Speaker 1: always popping in with fliers, writing deadlines or some new
Speaker 1: gallery gossip. She and Mark got along sometimes better than
Speaker 1: Mark and I did. When it came to logistics once,
Speaker 1: after a wine soaked planning meeting, I found them making
Speaker 1: each other laugh so hard over an inside jerk that
Speaker 1: I had to nudge them back on topic. I wasn't jealous.
Speaker 1: It made me happy seeing two people all cared about
Speaker 1: spark that way. I thought I understood the lines around
Speaker 1: our world. I trusted the spaces between us. I thought
Speaker 1: I could read them. After the play, I cut through
Speaker 1: the choir sodium lethali behind our building. My mind took
Speaker 1: through the night again and again, Mark's text, Leelah's glance,
Speaker 1: the hum of distance behind his words. That morning, as
Speaker 1: he'd left, barely kissing me goodbye before he disappeared, messenger
Speaker 1: backs slung over his shoulder, steps clipped At home, The
Speaker 1: apartment was warm but empty. I hum my coat, set
Speaker 1: my back by the door, and stared at the wall
Speaker 1: of Prince we'd home last fall. Everything looked curated me,
Speaker 1: meaning for small traces of us in every frame. My
Speaker 1: phone chime Mark again, Sorry, still at the office. You up?
Speaker 1: Don't wait up? I typed home now, Hope the meeting
Speaker 1: was okay, Love you. The reply took a long time.
Speaker 1: Love you too, Talk tomorrow, I told myself to let
Speaker 1: it go, curled up under a scratchy flecked blanket, but
Speaker 1: I stayed awake, mind tracing lines on the ceiling. Every
Speaker 1: sound in the building suddenly too pronounced. A week blurred
Speaker 1: by the stacking up, each less familiar than the one before.
Speaker 1: Mark started opting out of more little things, carrying the
Speaker 1: air of a man too busy. Ten us skipping our
Speaker 1: favorite cafe, saying no to the pop up design show.
Speaker 1: We both used to geek out over brushing off, but
Speaker 1: club as too much right now. His eyes grew harder
Speaker 1: to reach. Sometimes I'd say something I thought was hilarious
Speaker 1: and he just blinket his phone distracted. That Thursday, tossing
Speaker 1: another deadline aside, asked if he wanted to go to
Speaker 1: the new pop up gallery downtown, fresh talent, friends from
Speaker 1: the art call all our people, He hesitated, glancing toward
Speaker 1: his laptop. Can't babe, another one of those dinners, he muttered,
Speaker 1: already half way through his emails. Last minute, Sorry, rain check,
Speaker 1: I bristled, but forced a smile. He sure these people
Speaker 1: really need you every night? He didn't even look up.
Speaker 1: You know how these sorts are never saddle anything by
Speaker 1: email it'll die down soon, promise. That night, windows rattling
Speaker 1: to a distant train. I sat at my desk in
Speaker 1: a pool of lamp light, sketched it open, lapped up,
Speaker 1: streaming mine as old sitcoms alone. I finished free thumbnails
Speaker 1: for an overdee branding job, fiddled with color or erase,
Speaker 1: lines were filled my tea cup. It was past midnight
Speaker 1: when I heard the apartment door on lock and not
Speaker 1: very quiet, sighed Mark let himself in. He moved quickly
Speaker 1: through the hallway, pausing just at the edge of the
Speaker 1: kitchen shadow. I caught the outline of him in the doorway,
Speaker 1: coat rumpled, hair massed. He seemed strangely, almost startled to
Speaker 1: see me awake, not guilty, not exactly, just as if
Speaker 1: he'd brace for empty space and found a Bardian's dead. Hey,
Speaker 1: he said, shaking off his coat. Couldn't sleep. I shrugged,
Speaker 1: not wanting to sound needy. Late night for both of us.
Speaker 1: I guess how is dinner? He hesitated, rummaging for a glass.
Speaker 1: You know, the usual pitchet, small talk, boring client staff,
Speaker 1: nothing exciting. He poured water, eyes fixed on the faucet stream.
Speaker 1: I watched him, tried to plumb the space between nothing
Speaker 1: exciting and his keyed up energy, his glances that skittered
Speaker 1: away from mine. Eventually, he padded to bed without asking
Speaker 1: about my night, falling asleep with his back turn the
Speaker 1: wall clock taking loud above our heads. The next day
Speaker 1: at I work from the kitchen, headphones in chasing after
Speaker 1: one of those rare creative flows that made hours disappear.
Speaker 1: When I went to tidy up around lunch time, I
Speaker 1: tripped a remarks old leather messenger, back half sipped and
Speaker 1: splayed in front of the bench. I bent to pick
Speaker 1: it up, intending only to move it aside, but an
Speaker 1: envelope tumbled out, glossy and safe, an invitation drenched in
Speaker 1: deep burgundy faunster, an exclusive gallery galer by invitation only.
Speaker 1: The date leaped out two nights ago. The corners curled,
Speaker 1: a red wine stain bloomed across the golden boss ladders
Speaker 1: marketed stuffy artgalers always called them carpet at Eagle shows.
Speaker 1: And yet not only had he attended, he hadn't mentioned
Speaker 1: a were. That night, he texted from some Madantown bistro,
Speaker 1: crilling clients over needles. I pressed my thumb into the paper,
Speaker 1: releasing a faint perfume of something expensive. I chided myself
Speaker 1: for snooping and put it back, careful not to re
Speaker 1: arrange anything. The doubt, though, refused to settle. Maybe he'd
Speaker 1: gone at the last minute, didn't want to admit it,
Speaker 1: didn't think it mattered. Freelancers like me craved too much routine.
Speaker 1: Maybe people in tech live them, or everyone knew that.
Speaker 1: Still a pressure built in my chest. I told myself,
Speaker 1: don't spiral. He deserves his own life to I repeated
Speaker 1: it throughout the day, distracting myself with deadlines, with errands,
Speaker 1: with endless crouling. But the question didn't quite leave Ei.
Speaker 1: The week end, our routines, the small binding habits that
Speaker 1: had knit our partnership were thinning. At the scenes, Marv
Speaker 1: missed the street ark coal registration for the first time
Speaker 1: since we moved into ALOFT. I reminded him, teasing and
Speaker 1: watched confusions spread across his face. Shit, he said, thumbing
Speaker 1: through his planner. I can't. I have to be in
Speaker 1: Boston for work that week. Just crept up, Sorry, Dee.
Speaker 1: I waited for the usual remorse, the offer to reschedule.
Speaker 1: He just cleared his throat. I'll make it up to you.
Speaker 1: But honestly, it's chaos. Lately. We could just do our
Speaker 1: own paint walk just us that better. It should have
Speaker 1: been enough, But as he spoke, my mind snagged on
Speaker 1: one tiny gap where in Boston. I thought your clients
Speaker 1: were all local? He hesitated. It's complicated, some investor thing. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I haven't nailed down the details. Early morning's, late night
Speaker 1: all a blur. He picked at a hang nail, face shuddered.
Speaker 1: The silence that followed felt jagged. I felled it with
Speaker 1: busy work, making coffee, rearranging print orders, submitting edits, but
Speaker 1: the distance between us was no longer Fuzzyate at sharp teeth.
Speaker 1: The next night, I tried to reclaim normalcy. I made
Speaker 1: his favorite garlic pasta, earthy mushrooms. The wine we saved
Speaker 1: for small celebrations. The kitchen simmered with hopeful rituals, old playlists, laughter, unkieu,
Speaker 1: but Mark barely touched his plate. His phone flickered with
Speaker 1: relentless notifications. Every forkful was a distraction, every vibrate a
Speaker 1: short sigh. I'm here, he said, catching my look. Just
Speaker 1: he gestured at his phone. It won't let up. I
Speaker 1: wanted to scream, but I only managed, when's it going to?
Speaker 1: He didn't answer. I let him go early to bed,
Speaker 1: plate still half full, sauce congealing in the pan alone.
Speaker 1: As crolled through our calendar, clicking on events we once
Speaker 1: marked as do not miss, they become optional, skipped someone
Speaker 1: else's stories. A Sunday, I was brittle, couldn't shake the
Speaker 1: sense that only half my sentences landed, that I was
Speaker 1: holding my breath even in my own home. Mark mumbled apologies,
Speaker 1: But in some ways his irritability was more honest than
Speaker 1: his reassurances. Why are we talking about this again? He
Speaker 1: snapped once when I brought up a dinner with his
Speaker 1: clients that ran three hours late. It work, Dana, not
Speaker 1: a conspiracy. I let it drop, but the fracture remained.
Speaker 1: A few days later, sunlight streaming through the kitchen, I
Speaker 1: decided to escape for a while and run errands at
Speaker 1: the art supply. Shot down the block. The sweet, chalky
Speaker 1: air and luby classical music steadied me. As I grazed
Speaker 1: the paint towels, I nearly bumped into Leela. Both of
Speaker 1: us startled enough to laugh. She looked just as she
Speaker 1: always did. Vintage jacket eyes ringed with coal, finger smudged
Speaker 1: with pastel. That made her nervous flutter all the more obvious.
Speaker 1: She adjusted her bag's strap, glancing toward the window as
Speaker 1: if timing herself for an exit. So she asked, are
Speaker 1: you prepping for the commissions? You landed at Kraal still
Speaker 1: killing it? I bet, I smiled, grateful for a familiar cadence.
Speaker 1: You're trying anyway. Mark keeps promising he'll let me redesign
Speaker 1: his consulting site. But yo, when I rolled my eyes, gentle,
Speaker 1: he's glad to client meetings these days. You two haven't
Speaker 1: caught up in a while, right, she blinked, voice lighted
Speaker 1: than usual. Yea, every one's in motion, running on fumes.
Speaker 1: Then too quickly you hear about that mural funning grand
Speaker 1: there's talk of rerouting it. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: you're in Let's get Martinez soon, just us. The subject changed, Leelah,
Speaker 1: moving briskly toward the paper section, something about the exchange. Duck.
Speaker 1: I'll let her go, weighing the friction in her voice,
Speaker 1: the slight recall at Mark's name, hurry to change subjects.
Speaker 1: It wasn't her usual vibe, but I told myself. It's distress.
Speaker 1: Every one's busy, or maybe I was the one meeting
Speaker 1: into everything primed for clues. Our group dinner came later
Speaker 1: that week, friends from our out crawl, the usual constellation
Speaker 1: of faces. Mark texted that he be late, then arrived
Speaker 1: to twenty minutes after the rest of us, wind blunt, apologetic.
Speaker 1: Leelah was already seated, laughing with Andrew from the writer's group.
Speaker 1: I figured they'd reconnect, but Mark barely glanced her way,
Speaker 1: instead choosing a seat wedged on the far side of
Speaker 1: the table. Anyone else wouldn't have registered it, except I knew.
Speaker 1: He was always the social glue, bridging notes between Leelah
Speaker 1: and me, making introductions, filling conversation caps. Now both avoided
Speaker 1: each other's eyes, trading only a quick Jude smile. Hey,
Speaker 1: I watched, trying to read the new choreography, the offbeat gestures. Later,
Speaker 1: as conversation drifted, Mark's phone buzz on the table, He
Speaker 1: flipped it face down. Walking home. I brought it up casual.
Speaker 1: You and Leelah seemed rudely out of sync. Tonight, Mark
Speaker 1: shrugged too fast, Ben ages everyone's falling out of rhythm,
Speaker 1: Ye know how it is ye too, always laugh at
Speaker 1: my expense. I tease, trying to lighten the mood. He
Speaker 1: forced to chuckle. Maybe matured finally not everything's a bit
Speaker 1: de When we let ourselves into the apartment, Mark turned
Speaker 1: in early, claiming exhaustion, shoulder slumped. I stayed up, scrolling
Speaker 1: through old foroto was the three of us making faces
Speaker 1: at and opened my glass summer Mark with his arm
Speaker 1: lislie around both of us lelaphanning a grin full of
Speaker 1: fake indignation. Had that really been so effortless? Later, tidying up,
Speaker 1: I paused at the kitchen counter, bills and receipts scattered
Speaker 1: from my quarterly freelance taxes. Sorting through the mess, I
Speaker 1: glanced at too recent dinner receipts from the spruce a
Speaker 1: bar witteraryum molls that Mark's sale was too cool for us.
Speaker 1: Both board the same date three weeks ago, two tabs,
Speaker 1: one time stamp, both signed in mark sleeping script table
Speaker 1: for two dinner Cartel's dessert. That night, he texted he
Speaker 1: was grabbing solo rawmen. After the meeting, I tested my
Speaker 1: own memory, wondering if I had mistaken the date, but
Speaker 1: it was clear he'd been there with some one and
Speaker 1: not apparently eating alone. I tried to swallow my irritation.
Speaker 1: When Mark got home, I slid a single question into
Speaker 1: our winding post dinner conversation. Did you end up tranks
Speaker 1: rouse that night? You ran so late? Was it worth
Speaker 1: the hype? He made a face, laughing, I probably did. God,
Speaker 1: I barely remember. It was just one of those long
Speaker 1: dune nights with a colleague. I'm so burned out. I
Speaker 1: don't taste anything any more. He grinned, then, as if
Speaker 1: to sell the point should have brought you next time. Okay,
Speaker 1: I nodded, but the hollow rung louder. His laughter was edged, dodging,
Speaker 1: not quite reaching his eyes. By then, the distance had
Speaker 1: become visceral. We used to unwind at night, each sharing
Speaker 1: small victories or defeats, long after our plates were empty,
Speaker 1: talking until the conversation wandered off to sleep. Now he
Speaker 1: mostly scrolled through about slack threads, eyelids heavy, distracted to
Speaker 1: the bone. Our bed felt large, blank spaces opening up.
Speaker 1: Markol near the far edge, sheets between us, a warbly border.
Speaker 1: On two occasions I reached for him in the dark,
Speaker 1: hand tracing a hopeful gesture along his back. He flinched once,
Speaker 1: then pretended to snore. I let my hand ho her
Speaker 1: in the cool air before tacking it beneath my pillar.
Speaker 1: I grew anxious, not just suspicious, but tethered, as if
Speaker 1: the coordinates of our whole life, the shared trivia reatured
Speaker 1: Juls jokes had been russ. I took to walking long
Speaker 1: routes through the city, headphones in, just to exhaust my
Speaker 1: brain into sleep. It was around then I met with
Speaker 1: my sister, her presence a bomb, a recalibration. We found
Speaker 1: a window seat at our usual cafe, conversation, meandering through
Speaker 1: dead lines and parents without thinking, I let frustrations bill out.
Speaker 1: Things feel off lately. I can't put my finger on it,
Speaker 1: marks just not present. I twisted the napkin into little
Speaker 1: paper ribbons. My sister'll listen. Show bad stress can do
Speaker 1: a lot. Is he just busy or is he hiding
Speaker 1: something that's just that I don't know. I get it
Speaker 1: if he was just distant, but it's more than that.
Speaker 1: With leader to its like there's this weird charge when
Speaker 1: they're together, like there avoiding each other. Was it like that?
Speaker 1: At the mural Gala, I couldn't go that deadline. Did
Speaker 1: you notice she sipped her coffee? Paused funny? Actually they
Speaker 1: were both at the after party, came in together. I
Speaker 1: think got a little cozy during the group photos. I
Speaker 1: thought maybe they just hitched a ride together. Normal stuff
Speaker 1: didn't seem weird until now. I tried to mask the
Speaker 1: flicker of discomfort in my face. My sister leaned forward,
Speaker 1: Gentle but progmatic. You know Mark, He says what's on
Speaker 1: his mind. Maybe he's unraveling under pressure. But don't let
Speaker 1: your mind spin you out for nothing. Just ask him.
Speaker 1: I promise I would, But my mind kept turning, replaying
Speaker 1: every interaction, scanning for codes. Was this about me, my
Speaker 1: leap to freelancing? I fear that maybe I'd depended our rhythm,
Speaker 1: or was I missing something obvious, something everyone else could see.
Speaker 1: Later that week, my freelance taxes came due the kind
Speaker 1: of mine numbing task I resented enough to do all
Speaker 1: at once certain critic cart transactions, A flowed business luntry
Speaker 1: seats off a supply sploat is then froze multiple yuper charges,
Speaker 1: all from late nights, all beginning just north of downtown.
Speaker 1: Mark rarely took all the ride, he walked, biked, or
Speaker 1: split lift with colleagues. These charges Tuesday, Friday, then another
Speaker 1: Wednesday started near Leela's block, same time, stamp midnight, then
Speaker 1: nearly one in the morning. My hand shook as I
Speaker 1: taed through my own calendar locks. He claimed, happy hour
Speaker 1: with the team. Then bike wasn't working. Walking home another night,
Speaker 1: too wiped a bike just troofed it. The explanation's vague, confident,
Speaker 1: never a detailed Could it be coincidence? Our circle was tight, barroers,
Speaker 1: apartments of communal hangouts all blurred together, But each time
Speaker 1: I tried to rationalize, the brick settled heavier in my chest.
Speaker 1: I paced, ignoring the heap of receipts on the table,
Speaker 1: then shut my laptop with a snap. The air in
Speaker 1: the apartment felt thick, stifling, as if alls filled with
Speaker 1: our collages and polaroids had started pressing inward, making the
Speaker 1: space feel too curated, too heavy with memory. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask Mark directly, but every time he came home,
Speaker 1: I stopped short of words. The silence between us had
Speaker 1: become its own weather. He seemed carved by exhaustion, duck
Speaker 1: hollows under his eyes, smiled thin as thread. On the
Speaker 1: nights we ended up in the same room for dinner.
Speaker 1: Every sentence felt waited, as if some unspoken price hung overhead. Finally,
Speaker 1: after letting my anxiety chair Inet's book and for too long,
Speaker 1: I decided to try gentleness and olive branch, not an inquisition.
Speaker 1: I brought up the Mistock Kral couch and half jokes.
Speaker 1: We're getting rusty, babe, remember when we used to be
Speaker 1: chronic overjoiners. I notched his foot under the table with mine.
Speaker 1: Mark's face softened, but only for an instant. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm sorry. Life's just bigger lately. Clients don't
Speaker 1: want to reschedule, startups want to pivot every week. My
Speaker 1: inbox is abyssal. I know I'm not showing up. He
Speaker 1: went so long the gallery night. I feel guilty about
Speaker 1: missing that too. I just I don't know how to
Speaker 1: keep up with it all. I reached over, covering his
Speaker 1: hand with mine. You don't need to be everything, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. Just let me in sometimes. He squeezed back, gazed,
Speaker 1: finally meeting mine. I promise after this month, I'll be
Speaker 1: less of a ghost. I just need you to trust me.
Speaker 1: I barely even trust myself. Right now, the words landed
Speaker 1: half right. I want of relief, and so I let
Speaker 1: them soothe me, let myself believe this was just a
Speaker 1: pocket of stress, a patch that would mend itself. Mark
Speaker 1: was soft before a few days. He surprised me on
Speaker 1: a cloudy Sunday, slipping into my pop up show with flowers,
Speaker 1: whisking me into a swirl of our old routines, holding
Speaker 1: court with our friends, smiling in all his practiced, affable warm.
Speaker 1: He drank too much wine, told stories, made the runs
Speaker 1: like he was the host. For a few hours, I
Speaker 1: forgot everything, the absence, the tension, the list of receipts
Speaker 1: folded into my walleer. It almost worked. Later, catch my
Speaker 1: breath at the bevererge table, I caught the tail end
Speaker 1: of a conversation. Mock and Leelah closted in a corner.
Speaker 1: Leelah pale, eyes rimmed red, voiced just above a whisper.
Speaker 1: They paused abruptly when I cleared my throat. Leah looked
Speaker 1: away first, dabbing at her eyes, muttered something about kneading air.
Speaker 1: Mark force a smile, folding his arms across his chest.
Speaker 1: Oh hey, you okay, I asked, trying to sound light.
Speaker 1: Leelah mumbled sorry, bad allergies, then made her way through
Speaker 1: the crowd, leaving quietly by the side door. Mark kept
Speaker 1: his eyes on the drinks. I waited for him to
Speaker 1: fill in the blank. Instead, he scolded his features and
Speaker 1: asked if I was ready to go home. I tried
Speaker 1: to shake it off on the walk back, but the
Speaker 1: knot in my chest had returned, tight and urgent. Every
Speaker 1: explanation I'd accepted, his stress, her nerves. My own knees
Speaker 1: now felt like scaffolding belt over a hollow. Something was
Speaker 1: fundamentally and sable, and I couldn't pretend not to feel
Speaker 1: it any more. For the next few nights, I played
Speaker 1: a tenter spouse. I watched Mark without appearing to I
Speaker 1: cataloged the rhythms of our house lights on our off
Speaker 1: throne screens, angled away the silence after I asked even
Speaker 1: the most innocent seeming questions. Tuesday night, I call a
Speaker 1: flicker of a Texas. Mark left his phone on the
Speaker 1: bathroom sink, just a preview, no content, just a hard
Speaker 1: emoji sender's initial. I swallowed hard, retreating to the kitchen
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't accidentally see more the whole. Next day,
Speaker 1: alone with our share of laptop for a walk submission,
Speaker 1: the open browser window taunted me with its promise of harmlessness.
Speaker 1: I told myself not to pry. I failed galet building
Speaker 1: as I clicked through the history, just once, just a little.
Speaker 1: A hotel reservation downtown from two weeks ago, another canceled
Speaker 1: for last month, both on knights. Mark pleaded late meetings,
Speaker 1: his arrival home marked by brisck apology and the scent
Speaker 1: of sorp I wanted to believe it meant nothing, maybe
Speaker 1: just a client perk, a friend visiting a booking that
Speaker 1: never got used. But the crumbs formed a pattern, one
Speaker 1: that felt sickeningly deliberate. Once I began connecting them, the
Speaker 1: threads began to narrow, every explanation, every ye know how
Speaker 1: it is sounding less like comfort and more like the
Speaker 1: fraying tale of a lie. My insomnia sharpened. I stopped
Speaker 1: eating full dinners, spent afternoon staring at blank sketch paper,
Speaker 1: reapling conversations. Then one night Mark announced an the client dinner.
Speaker 1: Another late walk home. He left with mechanical practiced ease,
Speaker 1: kissing my hair at the door, worrying cologne he only
Speaker 1: used for big meetings. As soon as he was gone,
Speaker 1: adrenaline sparking in my veins, I did what I'd sworn
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I texted Leelah, Hey, are you free to
Speaker 1: talk later? Can we meet for a coffee or something soon?
Speaker 1: For a long time, no reply, then finally a short,
Speaker 1: flustered yes, let's do tomorrow. I'm arone after four Cafe Tempo.
Speaker 1: I could sense the tension in her words. That night
Speaker 1: I sept badly, my entangled heart galloping every scenario played out.
Speaker 1: I'd made a fool of myself, must read everything ruin
Speaker 1: the friendship for no reason or worse. I'd let myself
Speaker 1: linger at the edge of something I could have stopped
Speaker 1: if only i'd faced it earlier. When morning came, I
Speaker 1: spend hours pretending to work, erasing more lines than I drew,
Speaker 1: waiting for noon, then one, then three, stomach churning, hands
Speaker 1: cold all afternoon. At four fifteen, I bundled up against
Speaker 1: the wind, walking the eight blocks to Cafe Tempo. The
Speaker 1: light was hard, the city's bustle, distant. Music in the cafe,
Speaker 1: just loud enough to drown out stray thoughts. I picked
Speaker 1: a table near the window, ordered Cameme out to steady myself.
Speaker 1: My phone buzzed Leela running late, be there in five.
Speaker 1: When she arrived, Lila was a study in novous motion,
Speaker 1: scofflined a little too tight, eyes flicking toward the pastry case,
Speaker 1: towards her shoes, anywhere but my face. She set her
Speaker 1: bag on the floor, awkwardly choosing a seat across from me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming, I managed, unsure how much warmth muster.
Speaker 1: She tried to smile, mostly failed, of course. Sorry about
Speaker 1: the message. Your show bout timing with the allergies or whatever.
Speaker 1: Crazy week. We wasted a few minutes on small talk, scheduling,
Speaker 1: aught gossip, but the gap yawned wider each time we
Speaker 1: drifted back toward silence. Finally, I stared into my cooling
Speaker 1: tea voiced tramping. Despite my best efforts, Leela, I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask, is something off between you and Mark? You
Speaker 1: both seemed tense and I something's changed. I'm not angry,
Speaker 1: I just I need to know what's going on. Please.
Speaker 1: Leela's eyes filled with panic, she twisted a napkin gaze,
Speaker 1: bouncing everywhere but mine. The dana iy I didn't want
Speaker 1: it to go this way, she whispered, voice cracking. I
Speaker 1: never wanted any one to get hurt. It just stuff happened. Okay.
Speaker 1: One night we were working, laid on that ground, drinks, jokes,
Speaker 1: we were tired. One thing led to another. We kissed,
Speaker 1: he kissed me. It only happened once. I promise it
Speaker 1: was stupid, and I told him afterward it couldn't happen again.
Speaker 1: I struggle for air pressure blooming behind my eyes when
Speaker 1: she stuttered out a month march, he'd gone home to
Speaker 1: visit your mom. I shouldn't have stayed so late. We
Speaker 1: both knew better. He apologized a million times. I ignored
Speaker 1: his messages. Then he kept reaching out. I begged him
Speaker 1: to stop. I thought he would. I just didn't want
Speaker 1: to lose either of you. My hands shook under the table.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask more, but I couldn't. Every instinct
Speaker 1: screamed at me to run, to escape the cafe, the city,
Speaker 1: my own skin. Instead, I thanked her coldly, politely, as
Speaker 1: if accepting a rain check, as as some script must
Speaker 1: be followed, even as the world unravel. I barely remember
Speaker 1: how I got home, footsteps echoing behind me, street light
Speaker 1: spinning at home, I sat in a shadowy apartment, every
Speaker 1: sound laud and present, the war of the fridge, the
Speaker 1: neighbor's dog, my own breathing. I stared at our wall
Speaker 1: of Prince, at the neat gallery of our life, one,
Speaker 1: wondering how many pieces had been remade, colored, and by
Speaker 1: someone else's hand. I waited for mark, thunderclouds gathering in
Speaker 1: my chest, But as the evening deepened, a thin, brittle
Speaker 1: anger mingled with heart break, coiling tighter. He would walk
Speaker 1: through the door soon. I still didn't know what I
Speaker 1: would say, And somewhere before the collapse, I tried to
Speaker 1: memorize what had been as before. Everything familiar became unrecognizable,
Speaker 1: and lines, once trusted, blurred beyond repair. The apartment didn't
Speaker 1: feel like mine any more. It smelt faintly of cardomm
Speaker 1: and turpentine, the left of hers of a day spent
Speaker 1: half painting, half waiting. I had set out a new
Speaker 1: canvas before heading to the cafe, but lost my nerve
Speaker 1: to touch it. Now. It stared back at me from
Speaker 1: the studio corner, accusing in its blankness. Outside, the city
Speaker 1: started humming into night time. I left the lights off,
Speaker 1: letting the orange streak low creep across our open plant space,
Speaker 1: watching pattent scatter across the floorboards. A part of me
Speaker 1: expected to see Mark's silhoett passed by the high windows,
Speaker 1: for his familiar shuffling gait to echoed down the hallway,
Speaker 1: keys rattling in that pocket of his coat. He never mended,
Speaker 1: I wondered, absurdly if I would even recognize him tonight.
Speaker 1: Would have tried to play normal until he handed me
Speaker 1: some light halt, or with something in my face, give
Speaker 1: it all away before any words had the chance. I
Speaker 1: tried for a moment to reconstruct the timeline in my mind.
Speaker 1: It dates times, the small shifts. How close had I
Speaker 1: really been to seeing it? Was I complicit in the hiding,
Speaker 1: in all my efforts to pretend us Stress and grown
Speaker 1: up setbacks explained everything. Maybe I'd been too hungry to believe,
Speaker 1: too unwilling to look beneath the ven ear of a
Speaker 1: just hide and a new project. Be patient. A car
Speaker 1: pulled up below. I heard doors slam, voices calling to
Speaker 1: one another. Then Mark's laugh practiced lo the way he
Speaker 1: always sounded it when he wanted to put some one
Speaker 1: at ease, never too loud, always finishing with a mumble.
Speaker 1: I braced myself, standing in the shadowed, always so if
Speaker 1: he wouldn't see me right away. The door clicked open.
Speaker 1: Mark stepped in, cut half off fuhone, nearly tumbling from
Speaker 1: his hand, humming a tune I barely recognized. He flaked
Speaker 1: on the entry lamp and froze midstep, Seeing me watching
Speaker 1: from the kitchen, There was a moment's seconds but endless
Speaker 1: when he looked genuinely startled, as if he'd expected me
Speaker 1: to be elsewhere, or perhaps hoped he'd have a chance
Speaker 1: to rest compose wearing his story. Hey Dee, he said, nervously,
Speaker 1: running a hand through his hair. Long day, I thought
Speaker 1: you'd be at your desk. I didn't answer immediately, just
Speaker 1: watched him. He hung his coat with deliberate care, forced
Speaker 1: a smile, then drifted across the room, as if searching
Speaker 1: for something to do with his hands. Everything okay, he asked,
Speaker 1: after a minute, testing the distance between us. I saw Leelah,
Speaker 1: I said, carefully, refusing to look away. We talked. Whatever
Speaker 1: faint warmth he'd managed to conjure evaporated. He stopped midstride,
Speaker 1: hands still hovering over the mail pile. I could see
Speaker 1: his shoulders, tents, breath caw. A single muscle ticked at
Speaker 1: his jaw as he stared at the floor. He tried
Speaker 1: to recover with practiced nonchalance. Oh that's good. I know
Speaker 1: things were weird at your show. I should probably apologize
Speaker 1: to her for being so distracted. I didn't let him
Speaker 1: skate off so easily. It was more than that. She
Speaker 1: told me about what happened about the night you work
Speaker 1: laid on that ground, about the two of you. His
Speaker 1: head lifted, and for the first and only time in years,
Speaker 1: I saw a genuine fear flicker in his eyes. There
Speaker 1: human and guarded the mask failing. He opened his mind
Speaker 1: closed it. When he did speak, his voice was achingly small. Okay,
Speaker 1: he whispered, Okay, I guess I can't talk my way
Speaker 1: out of this. I pressed my ponds into the edge
Speaker 1: of the countertop, desperate to stay grounded. How long my
Speaker 1: voice was too calm? I hated how small it sounded.
Speaker 1: There was a pause. He crossed the living room, close
Speaker 1: but not close enough to touch a dana. It didn't
Speaker 1: mean anything. We were just late night, too many drinks.
Speaker 1: We got carried away once once, and I hated myself
Speaker 1: for it right after. He wouldn't look directly at me,
Speaker 1: gazing somewhat just over my left shoulder. I let silence
Speaker 1: do the work. So why did it keep happening? I asked,
Speaker 1: my hands trembling. Why were there all those ubers at
Speaker 1: the hotel, the receipts? Why did she tell me you
Speaker 1: were the one who kept reaching out? He looked cornered, sick,
Speaker 1: his charm finally crumbling under the weight of the specifics.
Speaker 1: It was complicated. We tried to stop after that night.
Speaker 1: We agreed we had to. I swear I tried, but
Speaker 1: I don't know, Dana. Honestly, I felt something was missing,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to admit it to myself, let
Speaker 1: alone you. I was stupids, so stupid. The sound of
Speaker 1: his voice bounced off the hard walls. I felt my
Speaker 1: own anger building a deep pulsing thing. It's contos hot.
Speaker 1: What was missing? I demanded, swallowing around the tight not
Speaker 1: in my chest. He never even told me you were unhappy.
Speaker 1: We talked about everything, except apparently your actual feelings. He
Speaker 1: started to pace, gesturing helplessly. I don't know. I was scared.
Speaker 1: What was out of control? Everything spinning? When you left
Speaker 1: your job. I felt like I had to hold everything
Speaker 1: together for both of us, and then I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: kept pretending it was fine, but every mistake at walk
Speaker 1: felt like another reason I was failing you, failing us
Speaker 1: leele as she was there and we could talk about
Speaker 1: art or work without all the pressure. Then it crossed
Speaker 1: the line. I thought I could just lock it away
Speaker 1: and move on. He sat down hard on the couch,
Speaker 1: head and hands. But then I'd lie to you. I
Speaker 1: had to keep lying. I managed to convince myself you
Speaker 1: were too busy, you didn't want to know, or or
Speaker 1: that you'd moved on to I stayed standing. If I sat,
Speaker 1: I'd collapse. Don't you dare blame this on me, I hissed.
Speaker 1: I trusted you. I worked my ass off trying to
Speaker 1: keep things afloat to you, looking back. Every time I
Speaker 1: I asked, he said, you were fine. Why did you
Speaker 1: drag it out instead of just omitting it? His chaw
Speaker 1: clenched the air pulse with a dozen things, unsaid. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, he said, voice raw. I know it's useless
Speaker 1: to say it, but I really I didn't want to
Speaker 1: lose you, or her or the picture of what we had.
Speaker 1: I kept hoping it would stop mattering, that I could
Speaker 1: fix it on my own, that you'd never have to
Speaker 1: know I'm a coward. You are right about that. I spat.
Speaker 1: We stared at one another, the ref finally visible, a
Speaker 1: massed achered between us. He reached forward, hands outstretched, almost pleading.
Speaker 1: I'll do anything. I'll go to therapy, I'll tell you everything. Please, Dana,
Speaker 1: don't give up on us. I never stopped loving you.
Speaker 1: It was a mistake. Stop saying mistake. I voys shooked
Speaker 1: the window panes. Our mistake is tripping over the curb.
Speaker 1: You made choices over and over. Don't reduce it to
Speaker 1: one night. You kept lying, kept hiding. He took away
Speaker 1: my choices, and for what embarrassment your ego? He recoiled,
Speaker 1: as if struck, as red rimmed. We circled the details,
Speaker 1: poic's fraying, grief and anger coiling tider. At some point
Speaker 1: he admitted to more, more meetings, more late night texts.
Speaker 1: I didn't sleep with her, I swear, just kissing, talking, wandering,
Speaker 1: but I kept wishing the ears would fade, and it did.
Speaker 1: I kept her on the line because it made me
Speaker 1: feel I don't know, like I was still wanted like
Speaker 1: nothing had changed, even though everything had. That pierced something
Speaker 1: deeper than rage. I tried, honest to God to summon
Speaker 1: a reply that wasn't just a howl of pain, but
Speaker 1: nothing came. Instead, I asked the ugliest question on my mind.
Speaker 1: Are you in love with her? He looked away, tortured.
Speaker 1: I wanted to think no, But maybe I just wanted out,
Speaker 1: not out of us, but out of this pressure, this scared,
Speaker 1: brittle version of myself. She felt like a loophole, not
Speaker 1: a new life. I guess that sounds even worse. I nodded,
Speaker 1: biting the inside of my cheek, trying not to cry.
Speaker 1: You could have told me, I whispered quieter. Now he
Speaker 1: could have talked to me instead of tearing us down
Speaker 1: from the inside. He moved closer, desperate, but I pulled away.
Speaker 1: I don't silence stretched in it. I've realized there was
Speaker 1: no one doing the shift. I couldn't picture the world
Speaker 1: we'd shared, knit together again, not after so many layers
Speaker 1: of hiding. He looked ruined, but I was the one
Speaker 1: gadded a long, heavy pause. He packed a bag, stuffed
Speaker 1: things and without order, muttering apologies that sounded more like
Speaker 1: self pitied and contrition. Should I go to a hotel,
Speaker 1: he asked. Boord Andrews said I could crash if needed,
Speaker 1: go wherever you like. I can't see you now, I said,
Speaker 1: voice barely a whisper. He hovered by the door, shadowed,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I wish I could a knew everything. I
Speaker 1: wish I told you the truth. I wish. He trailed off, shoulder, slumping, gaze,
Speaker 1: watery and vacant. The door clicked behind him for a moment.
Speaker 1: I stood perfectly still. The apartment, cavernous in its hush,
Speaker 1: felt like a stageband enough to the show, a set
Speaker 1: full of props, but no skirt left follow. I walked
Speaker 1: through each room, touching the cookbooks, the thrifted vases, the coatthooks.
Speaker 1: My hands moved briskly, almost methodically. I buried his concert
Speaker 1: shirts at the back of the closet. I took our
Speaker 1: wall of ticket studs down, stacking the frames on the
Speaker 1: studio window, sill our lives collage, dismantled, each fragment, suddenly
Speaker 1: too heavy with meaning. I called my sister. My voice
Speaker 1: when she answered un entirely unlike methin and high, trembling, watery.
Speaker 1: She whispered her sympathy, told me to breathe, to call
Speaker 1: again if I needed her. I heard the worry in
Speaker 1: her pause before she offered to come by, BUTTHER said no,
Speaker 1: I needed this stillness. I needed not to perform pain
Speaker 1: for any one else, not yet. I drafted a message
Speaker 1: to lilaneix, my fingers stubbornly steady. I was brief, direct,
Speaker 1: I need space, Please don't contact me. She didn't reply,
Speaker 1: not that night, not the next morning. Dr the sun
Speaker 1: was up before I even managed to sleep. I left
Speaker 1: the bedroom, attached, slept and said on the couch, limbs tangled,
Speaker 1: waking every hour to that low level panic that I'd
Speaker 1: missed something obvious, that I might wake up to find
Speaker 1: it never happened, after all. Mark texted early, a line
Speaker 1: of apologies, promises, fragments. Sorry I left it so long.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, Dee. I'll do anything. Just tell me
Speaker 1: what to do. I pressed my phone to my forehead,
Speaker 1: let myself cry for all the days i'd wisted, doubting myself,
Speaker 1: for every tiny detail I'd were written to protect the
Speaker 1: version of us I was desperate to believe in. When
Speaker 1: I answered, I was clinical. I any time and space
Speaker 1: to decide if there was anything left at all. The
Speaker 1: next hour was felt elaborately slow. Every sound in the
Speaker 1: apartment replayed back to me, first meditative, then unbearable. I
Speaker 1: caught myself re arranging paint tubes, lining up by stars,
Speaker 1: putting every little thing just so, as if forda could
Speaker 1: replace belonging. Mid afternoon, sunlight crept across the studio, illuminating
Speaker 1: the untouched canvas had avoided for days. I stared at it,
Speaker 1: paralyzed by its emptiness. Eventually I sank to my knees
Speaker 1: in front of it, brush in hand, colors lined up
Speaker 1: like apologies. The first time in months, I didn't care
Speaker 1: if any of it made sense to any one but me.
Speaker 1: I doubt. A single stroke, then another, each gesture more
Speaker 1: certain than the last. The silence was new, but not unendurable,
Speaker 1: without mark the loft echo, but it also felt oddly,
Speaker 1: grimly honest, like a home after a flood stripped Bay,
Speaker 1: finally visible in its winds and its possibility. I let
Speaker 1: the hours move as they wanted. I painted until my
Speaker 1: body ached, until the sun left the walls and the
Speaker 1: city bled back into evening. There in the hush, I
Speaker 1: realized I didn't know what came next. For once that
Speaker 1: in so and he didn't crush me ollly felt real.
Speaker 1: I remembered the mural I'd passed on my walk home,
Speaker 1: the wild fox leaping through the geometric trees and complete
Speaker 1: but alive with possibility. The artists would return to finish it,
Speaker 1: or maybe they wouldn't. The city would keep moving, some
Speaker 1: things would recover somewhat, stay altered forever. My hands, steady,
Speaker 1: sleeve streaked with blue and ochre. I stood in the
Speaker 1: center of the room we once built together, broken and honest,
Speaker 1: alone but unburdened by anyone else's secrets. I took another breath,
Speaker 1: then another, each one a little less haunted. In the last,
Speaker 1: the silence pressed close, but for the first time I
Speaker 1: felt like ages it was mine. I didn't sleep. Every
Speaker 1: time I closed my eyes, the apartment rearranged itself in memory,
Speaker 1: the echo of Mark's voice telling me secrets. When we
Speaker 1: first moved, in the low hum of Leyela's loft from
Speaker 1: the kitchen, the way the sunrise used to dust our
Speaker 1: windows in a warm gold that made everything, even our
Speaker 1: everyday mess, seem intentional. Now dawn crept through in sharper fragments,
Speaker 1: splintering my sleeplessness into something wrought and unfixiable. By morning,
Speaker 1: my body settled into a kind of subdued hum, heavy alert,
Speaker 1: drifting through the rituals of a day that used to
Speaker 1: be ours. I moved mechanics, showered with the door half open,
Speaker 1: left coffee on the stove too long, picked a toast,
Speaker 1: but gave up before even biting. My phone blinked at
Speaker 1: me each on red badge, another small weight pressing on
Speaker 1: the inside of my skull. Mark's absence did not bring
Speaker 1: quieter relief. Instead, it made space for all the small
Speaker 1: realities that now demanded attention. The stack of art supplies
Speaker 1: I intended to organize glared at me from the studio table,
Speaker 1: his shoes by the door, his favorite ship mug in
Speaker 1: the sink, his pen lying across the rent statement, as
Speaker 1: if waiting for his signature. I stepped carefully around these things,
Speaker 1: afraid to touch them, afraid not to. My sister called
Speaker 1: twice before I finally picked up, her voice, full of
Speaker 1: fury at Mark and worry for me. Crushed through the line.
Speaker 1: I let her runt, biting back the urge to scream
Speaker 1: or weep into her words. When she fell silent, I said,
Speaker 1: as calmly as I could manage. I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do next. I'm just here. You don't have to
Speaker 1: do anything yet, she replied, just stay, just breathe. That
Speaker 1: was the kind of advice people gave. Nobody told you
Speaker 1: what to do with the hours, the endless slow return
Speaker 1: of morning inter afternoon, the need to move, but not
Speaker 1: knowing where to begin. Ranyun. I realized I hadn't checked
Speaker 1: my email in days. Part of me dried of finding
Speaker 1: messages from Leelah, apologies too later, explanations I didn't want,
Speaker 1: or worse business as usual, discount cod fliers, life marching
Speaker 1: forward as if nothing sizemic had happened. Instead, there were
Speaker 1: only reminders for client reviews and overdue inverses. One from
Speaker 1: the Art's Council, a thank ye note from someone I
Speaker 1: barely knew who bought a print last month. Nothing from
Speaker 1: Marko o'leela. I sat at my desk, staring at my
Speaker 1: screen long enough that the light changed and the reflection
Speaker 1: of my face grew more distinct in the glass. I
Speaker 1: didn't recognize myself, cheeks gaunt, eyes rimmed, red and puffy
Speaker 1: hair escaping. It's not in a friezy tangle. I remembered
Speaker 1: a time when Mark would come up behind me, kiss
Speaker 1: the top of my head and tease me about my
Speaker 1: ferocious pain, which look the memory landed like a bruise.
Speaker 1: The doorbell buzzed at two thirty. I startled, heart stuttering
Speaker 1: for a moment. I pictured Mark on the other side
Speaker 1: of the intercom suit case in hand. Apologies, ready is hopeful,
Speaker 1: batted bird expression practiced to perfection. But it was a
Speaker 1: delivery from the art supply shop, an online order I
Speaker 1: had placed weeks ago. Before all this. I signed for
Speaker 1: the box, hands trembling, barely murmured thanks to the courier's
Speaker 1: hurry to take care. For a long stretch of minutes,
Speaker 1: I simply stood with the box cradle to my chest,
Speaker 1: as if waiting for instructions. Back inside, I unpacked it mechanically.
Speaker 1: More brushes and new palette pastels. I'd once promise myself
Speaker 1: at experiment with every object was a promise from a
Speaker 1: different life. I arranged them neatly in a row, then
Speaker 1: pushed them away, unable to muster energy for anything. Creative
Speaker 1: phone messages pin steadily, friends softly checking in some oblivious
Speaker 1: others cryptic in their concern. I ignored them instead, scrolling
Speaker 1: aimlessly through all photos on my phone. Mark and me
Speaker 1: splattered and pained in the park, arms around each other,
Speaker 1: faces alive, with some joke now lost, Leela clowning and
Speaker 1: a beret balancing a Chacuterorie plate, laughter in her eyes.
Speaker 1: I tried to locate the moment when the joke soured,
Speaker 1: when the air shifted and I stopped being the center
Speaker 1: of our story. I wanted to hate them both, but
Speaker 1: the anger that came was diffuse, more fog than fire.
Speaker 1: Grief circled back instead, each passed lower enclose o to
Speaker 1: the bomb. Mid afternoon, as sunlight striped the apot, my
Speaker 1: phone buzzed urgently mock again. The message was different this time,
Speaker 1: When can I come get some clothes? I need to
Speaker 1: see you? Please, Dana, can we talk? I stared at
Speaker 1: the screen, fingers hovering over the keys, considering every possible answer.
Speaker 1: I typed, deleted, typed again. Finally, I wrote, you can
Speaker 1: come tonight, but I don't know if I'll be here
Speaker 1: when you do. Leave the key on the hooks. A
Speaker 1: minute passed. Then please can we just talk? I think
Speaker 1: you deserve that. I'm so sorry. I didn't reply. The
Speaker 1: hours passed, I busied myself cleaning, wiping surfaces that didn't
Speaker 1: need wiping, tossing expired condiments, stacking mail into precise little towers.
Speaker 1: A strange, determined energy overtook me, ruthless and electric. I
Speaker 1: pulled Mark's records out of the milk crate and piled
Speaker 1: them by the door. I box up the running shoes
Speaker 1: he abandoned beneath our bed. Every item IM new felt
Speaker 1: like a declaration. I am not a victim. I am
Speaker 1: not going to wait for you to decide what happens next.
Speaker 1: Near evening, I ordered takeout from the newdle place little
Speaker 1: once called Our's secondary kitchen, just to see if I
Speaker 1: could choke it down. The fruit was lucorn by the
Speaker 1: time I managed a few bites, the taste was ash
Speaker 1: in my mouth. At seven, Marked texted and downstairs. I paced,
Speaker 1: then texted back, I'll basy in. I'll be in the studio.
Speaker 1: He arrived a few minutes later at the door, creaking
Speaker 1: open foost its purposely softened the hardwood. I heard him
Speaker 1: pause in the entryway, as if in jul whether or
Speaker 1: not he had the right to move freely to space
Speaker 1: he'd once claimed as his own. I went on rearranging
Speaker 1: paint tubes, making a show of intent focus. He lingered
Speaker 1: at the doorway to the studio. I could feel his
Speaker 1: gaze heavy on my back, Dana, he said, voice wrecked.
Speaker 1: Can we just please, can we talk? I still didn't turn.
Speaker 1: I heard him set his back down, then shuffle barefoot
Speaker 1: toward the living room. After a long, taut silence, he
Speaker 1: spoke again. I know you don't want to see me,
Speaker 1: but I had to come now, just it. He stopped, words,
Speaker 1: tripping and motion, gumming his voice. I kept my movements low, careful.
Speaker 1: You have about fifteen minutes, take what you need and go.
Speaker 1: He didn't argue. I listened as he moved through the bedroom,
Speaker 1: the closet, brifling through drawers, the crackle of a grocery bag,
Speaker 1: the mudic clang of hangers. I waited, not trusting myself
Speaker 1: to speak, until he was nearly done. When he reappeared,
Speaker 1: bag over his shoulder, Mark was crying, not performative, not angry,
Speaker 1: just tired, quite, tears pulling along his cheeks and jaw.
Speaker 1: He stood a respectful distance away, careful not to cross
Speaker 1: the towel line. Between the hallway and the studio, waiting
Speaker 1: for permission that would not come. I'm sorry, he managed.
Speaker 1: I wish God, I wish I could go back. I
Speaker 1: know you hate me. I can't fix that, but I
Speaker 1: need to say it to your face. Say what I pressed.
Speaker 1: He looked every word, but at me. I heard ye.
Speaker 1: Because I was selfish. I knew what I was doing
Speaker 1: was wrong every single time. There's no excuse, not work,
Speaker 1: not stress, not any of it. I just I liked
Speaker 1: how easy she made it. How knew how different from
Speaker 1: the mess I felt inside myself, and I wasn't strong
Speaker 1: enough to choose you. Instead, I just drifted, hoping you
Speaker 1: wouldn't notice. Even when Leela begged me to stop, I
Speaker 1: told myself it would fade, that I could have everything
Speaker 1: and nothing would break. But that isn't real, not for
Speaker 1: any one. His voice grew steadier, more painful in its honesty.
Speaker 1: I miss you, Dana. I'll miss you for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life, but I know that's not a reason
Speaker 1: to stay. The air between us was electric, brittle, impossible.
Speaker 1: I brushed past him into the living room, forcing myself
Speaker 1: to speak without trembling. You can leave the key by
Speaker 1: the door don't text me unless it's about the apartment
Speaker 1: or bills. That can't promise anything else. He nodded. I
Speaker 1: could see anguish, but no protest, no last minute plea.
Speaker 1: His will was spent. He placed the key quietly by
Speaker 1: the door. From outside, I heard footstep's receipt, then the
Speaker 1: metallic climb of the main entrance closing behind him. Night
Speaker 1: came un fast. The city buzzed outside, caused hurrying by
Speaker 1: a siren trailing off toward the river. Inside, I saw
Speaker 1: perfectly still, breathing slow and shallow, feeling a strange surge
Speaker 1: of relief behind the misery. In the days that followed,
Speaker 1: the consequences of Mark's betrayals bun out in ways I
Speaker 1: hadn't anticipated. I left messages in the red, ignored calls
Speaker 1: from mutual friends, except my sister, who became a lifeline,
Speaker 1: dropping off groceries, urging me to eat, listen to music,
Speaker 1: let the pain move through rather than overtake Still the
Speaker 1: world ways to break through my isolation. I started getting
Speaker 1: invitations from friends we'd once entertained as adieu, dinner offers,
Speaker 1: open studio nights, all well meaning, all reminders of how
Speaker 1: public heartbreak can be in a life so deeply entwined.
Speaker 1: Everywhere I went, echoes of Mark and Lele lingered. At
Speaker 1: the coffee shop, the borist asked after Mark, forcing an
Speaker 1: awkward smile when I only shrugged. At the Saturday at walk,
Speaker 1: people scanned behind me, expectation flickering in their eyes that
Speaker 1: I'd be flanked by the rest of my team. I
Speaker 1: learned to deflect, to narrow myself to the barest possible presence, quickillos,
Speaker 1: quick escapes, My energy contracted. My world had one night
Speaker 1: scrolling numbly through the neighborhood for him, I saw a
Speaker 1: new community event pop up, a block party committee, third
Speaker 1: light by Aleelah. Seeing her name the familiarity of her
Speaker 1: cheery summary felt like reading news of a stranger. I
Speaker 1: hovered over the RCP fields, hand frozen. My absence would
Speaker 1: be noticed, My presence would be unbearable. I closed the
Speaker 1: window without responding, realizing how much was gone lost Beneath
Speaker 1: the ruins of one irrevocable choice. Bills and paper were kitnxed,
Speaker 1: our finances were tangled, split rent during streaming accounts, the
Speaker 1: grotesque normalcy of untangling a life mark of a practical
Speaker 1: now emailed spreadsheets with his share of expenses and a
Speaker 1: proposal to transfer the lease or move out. Each message
Speaker 1: was matter of fact, unembellish, containing only the minimal words needed.
Speaker 1: I responded in kind, as if conducting business with a
Speaker 1: distant colleague. Only once reading a reply where he'd accidentally
Speaker 1: signed off with them, did I feel the old late
Speaker 1: twist up again. Leela reached out only once more, a
Speaker 1: brief female. I wish she didn't have to carry all
Speaker 1: this alone. I didn't reply. There was nothing else to say,
Speaker 1: not yet, maybe not of her. But consequences bled outside
Speaker 1: my apartment. The arts committee now land mine of mutual friends,
Speaker 1: move meetings to zoom at my requests, citing scheduled conflict.
Speaker 1: I saw my world fracturing, friendships dividing into cautious parallel tracts,
Speaker 1: people picking size or worse, retreating from both of us,
Speaker 1: even in public. I worried every stolen glance was a judgment.
Speaker 1: Grief gave way to humiliation, then a brittle, perverse defiance.
Speaker 1: I would not disappear. I would not be the one
Speaker 1: who had to bear shame alone. One evening, when I
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep, I found myself on a long walk through
Speaker 1: the city, headphones in rain, starting to mister long the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: It was nearing midnight, and the blocks were unfamiliar. Construction
Speaker 1: signs scattered across fresh pavement. The cities less were building,
Speaker 1: always making space for something unrecognizable. I meandered until my
Speaker 1: feet hurt, passing the mural from before, the fox now
Speaker 1: finished bright against the brake, leaping fierce. I felt something
Speaker 1: catch in my chest, a pulse of longing for a
Speaker 1: time when change had merely meant repainting a wall, not
Speaker 1: living inside the aftershook of some one else's choices. Returning home,
Speaker 1: drenched and shaking, I realized I could only avoid forward
Speaker 1: momentum for so long. I could hide grief, shut everyone out,
Speaker 1: but I could not unlive what had happened. And in
Speaker 1: the closing hours of the sleepest night, I took up
Speaker 1: my sketch, becn spoiled new lines across fresh pages, not
Speaker 1: to forget, but to declare what came next would belong
Speaker 1: to me. A week filtered by on the slow drip
Speaker 1: of small, necessary choices, the work of unspooling some one
Speaker 1: else's chaos, sorting what was mine and what must be
Speaker 1: left behind, then laid On the following Friday, the doorbell
Speaker 1: rang again. I didn't expect any one had told every
Speaker 1: one I needed quiet. My sister was out of town,
Speaker 1: no delivery scheduled. Hesitant, I opened the intercom, ready to
Speaker 1: send whoever it was away. Mark's voice, then, unhesitant, I
Speaker 1: left a few things last time. Can I come up
Speaker 1: to get them? Every instinct screamed no. But something dull
Speaker 1: in me, a vestige of civility or exhaustion, led me
Speaker 1: to buzz him men. I didn't unlock the door. Instead,
Speaker 1: I stood on the other side, listening to his footsteps.
Speaker 1: THI shuffle and pause of some one now and sure
Speaker 1: in his movements. He rapped softly Diana a long beat.
Speaker 1: I just need my headphones in the biquy. I must
Speaker 1: here for anything else, please. I slid open the door
Speaker 1: in inch, handed out his headphones and the key attached
Speaker 1: to the batted blue linard, the one Leela had given
Speaker 1: him last Christmas, I realized later, with an adnorate of bitterness.
Speaker 1: I tried not to meet his gaze, but his hand
Speaker 1: brushed mine unintentional skin heart from the colder outside. He
Speaker 1: stood there, weighed down by the awkwardness. The last ties
Speaker 1: of our shared life in his hands. Thank you, he said,
Speaker 1: then quickly, are you or you o K? The surge
Speaker 1: of unfamiliar strength filled me, steadying my voice. I'm getting there.
Speaker 1: You should go. He nodded for a second, longing and
Speaker 1: regret word on his face, but he said nothing more.
Speaker 1: He crossed the threshold, lingering for a fraction too long,
Speaker 1: then let the door close softly between us. I waited
Speaker 1: until his footsteps had faded down the stairs, then locked
Speaker 1: the door with a firm final click. My breathing evened out,
Speaker 1: shaky but resolute. I realized, standing there that every small
Speaker 1: severing was also a step towards something else, even if
Speaker 1: I couldn't see what that would be. After he was gone,
Speaker 1: the apartment felt light or not, a marked but less oppressive.
Speaker 1: I wandered into the studio. The canvas from before, waiting
Speaker 1: half finish, its colors strange and brash, and the page.
Speaker 1: I touched the surface, tracing the dry swell of paint,
Speaker 1: feeling for lines that might join what remained. On impulse,
Speaker 1: I took dumb one of the framed photos from our wall,
Speaker 1: a candid of Mark and me, laughing arms and twined
Speaker 1: blustly oblivies, old summer light drenching us in gold. I
Speaker 1: pressed it face down on the counter. I pulled the
Speaker 1: last bottle of wine from the kitchen shelf and port
Speaker 1: of glass. The city throbbed beyond our windows Friday night
Speaker 1: in motion. My studio filled with a faint, familiar smell
Speaker 1: of turpentine and linseed oil. I inhaled, then exhaled, the
Speaker 1: sound more clear than night expected. For the first time
Speaker 1: in weeks, I put on music, something with horns and
Speaker 1: shuffled percussion, background noise, alive with possibility. I rolled up
Speaker 1: my sleeves, squeezed a fresh color, and stood facing the canvas.
Speaker 1: Brush in hand. I painted not to forget, but to
Speaker 1: make claim to what remained, that small, vital fraction that
Speaker 1: was only mine. I painted until my hand cramped, until
Speaker 1: the city's night sunds melted into an indistinct tush behind
Speaker 1: my window, until the only rhythm was the brushous movement
Speaker 1: back and forth, back and forth, layering color overshadow. It
Speaker 1: wasn't about creating something beautiful. I didn't care about that
Speaker 1: any more. I just needed the mess and motion. The
Speaker 1: roughness of pigment under my nails proved that I was
Speaker 1: still here that I could still act. I filled the
Speaker 1: space mark once filled with stories, with the thrum of
Speaker 1: late podcast, bound with the swirl of paint and the
Speaker 1: scrape of the palette knife. My muscles listened to breath
Speaker 1: measure until somewhere around midnight, I debt back and realized, exhausted,
Speaker 1: hand stained, I hadn't checked my phone in ours, hadn't
Speaker 1: thought once about who might be thinking of me. The
Speaker 1: canvass was a storm of blue and ochre burely form,
Speaker 1: but it belonged to me, not to any one else's expectation.
Speaker 1: I left the window cracked, letting in the night time chill.
Speaker 1: My body ached, but it was a clean ache, tangible
Speaker 1: and deserved. I showered, letting the water scald away the
Speaker 1: rescue of turpertine and memory, then collapsed on the couch,
Speaker 1: sleep finally barreling down over me. When I woke for
Speaker 1: a brief moment, there was a sliver of peace, an
Speaker 1: empty loft to painting mid Berth, a morning not yet
Speaker 1: demanded by any one else's need. Still, the world outside
Speaker 1: hadn't shifted to match mine. By noon, reality pressed back
Speaker 1: in emails from clients, a call from my landlord, asking
Speaker 1: when Mark was moving his name off the lease. Two
Speaker 1: more thinking of you text from old friends, now newly
Speaker 1: invested in my day to day. Each message was a
Speaker 1: thread tracing back to the life I'd spend years building,
Speaker 1: every one of faint irritation against my skin. In their
Speaker 1: own way, they reminded me that my rupture was public,
Speaker 1: partitioned and tallowed by the very people whose approval I
Speaker 1: had once craved. I tried venturing beyond the apartment. I
Speaker 1: stopped by a corner store for Martee, only for the
Speaker 1: cashier woman he'd always tease me about snagging the last
Speaker 1: jelly doughnut, who never quite remembered Mark's order to quint
Speaker 1: at me. Lits pressed together as she handed me my change.
Speaker 1: Haven't seen you in your guy lately? He traveled in again.
Speaker 1: I nodded, murmuring something unintelligible. Shame bled into frustration. I
Speaker 1: wanted to explain, to renounce, to tell her what he'd done.
Speaker 1: But what would that fix. It wasn't her business, and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't make our home less empty, our story less broken.
Speaker 1: That evening, her group chat with the usual suspects lit up.
Speaker 1: Lilah was in it too, of course, along with Andrew
Speaker 1: and a few others from the old Mule crew. Some
Speaker 1: one suggested a picnic at the new Sculpture Park. Laughter
Speaker 1: Emerji's piling up between discussions of who'd bringwot my finger
Speaker 1: hevered over the screen, knowing I should say something bow out,
Speaker 1: explained myself, but I couldn't. I muted the threat, set
Speaker 1: the phone face down. Later, my sister called again. She
Speaker 1: had news, a job interview, something hopeful. She wanted to
Speaker 1: know how I was holding up, and I heard her hesitate,
Speaker 1: not sure what version of me would pick up to day.
Speaker 1: He don't have to make decisions yet, d It's allowed
Speaker 1: to be messied, You're allowed to not know what you want.
Speaker 1: I just want it not to be a story for
Speaker 1: everyone else. I've blewd it before I could stop myself.
Speaker 1: I want to matter to myself, not as collateral as
Speaker 1: some one else's crisis. She didn't try to reassure me,
Speaker 1: didn't fill the silence with platitude, and I loved her
Speaker 1: for it. We stayed on the line, not talking, just
Speaker 1: letting the static confirm neither of us was going anywhere.
Speaker 1: Work got tangled, focus impossible. Every new commission arrived with
Speaker 1: an edge of distrust in my own taste. What did
Speaker 1: I want any more? What belonged to me? Untouched by
Speaker 1: Mark's opinion, by a Leela's encouragement, by our shared gallery
Speaker 1: of dreams, Collers felt thin Lyon's hesitant. I forced myself
Speaker 1: to push through, letting the mechanical habits save me where
Speaker 1: inspiration failed. The next night, a friend from the arts
Speaker 1: board knocked on my door, collecting our preach flowers. She
Speaker 1: stood in the hallway, hovering voice low, Hey, we all
Speaker 1: miss seeing you two together, but if you want to
Speaker 1: join a committee again, you're always welcome. Marks stepping down
Speaker 1: for a while anyway, the implied message Howarda's basemaid sides chosen,
Speaker 1: sympathy granted. I nodded, unsure if I felt relief orkspot
Speaker 1: When she left her footsteps, I could in the stairwell,
Speaker 1: underlining how public our unraveling already was. Saturday, in a
Speaker 1: late effort to claim routine, I went to the farmer's
Speaker 1: market alone. The sun was sharp, the stalls Vibert did
Speaker 1: with laughter guitar, the clatter of neighbors making small, optimistic purchases.
Speaker 1: Twenty steps in I ran into Andrew. He gave me
Speaker 1: a long, appraising look, not flirtatious, not pitying, but uncertain. DNA,
Speaker 1: Hey haven't seen you in a minute. Hope you're getting
Speaker 1: through whatever's well. Here for you if you need anything.
Speaker 1: He didn't say Mark's name, didn't say leelas. It was
Speaker 1: both kindness and a reminder. I was now a solo act,
Speaker 1: a rupture. Everyone pretended not to try it too closely.
Speaker 1: I bought strawberries, impulse tulips, fled before anyone else could
Speaker 1: press himtheontom me, my sense of being observed, measured, replaced
Speaker 1: the freedom I'd once claimed in public. Grief was no
Speaker 1: longer just an interior ache. It was a choreography I
Speaker 1: performed for the world each time I felt invisible alongside Mark.
Speaker 1: That sense of ease, I realized now was privilege, the
Speaker 1: sort that shatters on impact. Back at home, I tidy
Speaker 1: paid Bill's proof of how show the life can be
Speaker 1: until it's not. Mark's emails arrived mechanically, details about bank transfers,
Speaker 1: internet plans, moving out dates. They were brief, business like.
Speaker 1: He didn't plead any more. It didn't reminisce. I recognized
Speaker 1: something bitter in myself, relief he'd stopped trying sadness at
Speaker 1: how easily we both could act like strangers. I blocked
Speaker 1: Leela's number, but every now and then I'd wonder if
Speaker 1: she passed by our building. Wondered if she wrote at
Speaker 1: a long apology emails she never sent. Wondered if she
Speaker 1: pished our old inside jokes to some one else, rebuilding
Speaker 1: her own version of before. The thought hollowed me up,
Speaker 1: but dulled with each passing day. Still at night, when
Speaker 1: the city sounds faded, the questions crawled in. When did
Speaker 1: love become a performance to be kept spotless? Why hadn't
Speaker 1: I seen the line as it was crossed, or been
Speaker 1: brave enough to name the fracture? Would my next beginning
Speaker 1: be better guarded? Or would it only feel more cautious?
Speaker 1: A week after our last face to face, Mark texted,
Speaker 1: can I pick up my things Sunday? Niin there's a dresser,
Speaker 1: the extra lamp, some files in the office. I replied, simply,
Speaker 1: I'll be out, leave you a key on the counter,
Speaker 1: take what you need. Some day arrived unceremoniously, I pat
Speaker 1: my things for the afternoon, a book, sketch, book edvons,
Speaker 1: and left early, locking up behind me, angry, at myself
Speaker 1: for dreading the return. Walking through the city, nowhere to go,
Speaker 1: I ducked into a diner, the kind of place Mark
Speaker 1: and I had once spent lazy Sunday's nursing coffee, sketching
Speaker 1: characters in the margins do Menie's. I sat at a
Speaker 1: back booth and tried to read, to sketch, to steady
Speaker 1: the shaking in my hands. I ordered pancakes and barely
Speaker 1: touched them. I time my return so I wouldn't run
Speaker 1: into him, waiting until the building's law be emptied, until
Speaker 1: I could reclaim my solitude. When now returned, the apartment
Speaker 1: was noticeably lighter, the dresser gone, the lamp missing from
Speaker 1: the corner, his files swept from the drawers, the milk
Speaker 1: rate of records had vanished. A note rested on the
Speaker 1: dining table, Mark's handwriting, neat and adorn't done. Thank you
Speaker 1: for everything. I hope you find piece in this place,
Speaker 1: even if it's without me. I stared at it as
Speaker 1: long as I could bear, then crumpled it, tossing it
Speaker 1: in the recycling. For a long time, maybe an hour,
Speaker 1: maybe half the afternoon, I sat crosslegged on the bare
Speaker 1: wood of the living room lighting the line slant low
Speaker 1: and golden, filling the places where furniture had been. I
Speaker 1: played the opening notes of a favorite playlists, just to
Speaker 1: fill the air, then let it fade. I walked to
Speaker 1: the bedroom, his side of the closet empty. The hang
Speaker 1: is still clattering in the draft. Not an absence, but
Speaker 1: a release. Something had shifted, a painful shlation, yes, and
Speaker 1: also a clearing out, a return of space that might
Speaker 1: possibly be remade. I stood at the bathroom sink, staring
Speaker 1: at my own face, feeling the loneliness of the moment
Speaker 1: pulse against the tiny pulse of possibility. Maybe this would
Speaker 1: become my home again, alive with a different kind of certainty.
Speaker 1: I didn't tell any one Mark had moved out for good,
Speaker 1: not yet. I kept a private my own news, unwilling
Speaker 1: to make it a declaration for public consumption. Only my
Speaker 1: sister guessed checking in that evening, with the muted thinking
Speaker 1: of you let me know if you want company or
Speaker 1: just pizza delivery. I answered only to night, I'm okay,
Speaker 1: being by myself. Later, I opened the windows wide, letting
Speaker 1: the night ere roar in let the cold chase at
Speaker 1: the last traces of stale emotion the city was alive,
Speaker 1: the distant sound of laughter and engines a kind of
Speaker 1: untune lullaby. The quite the followed. I gathered up my
Speaker 1: brushes and faced the and finished canvas waiting in the
Speaker 1: other room. Its colors were muddled, its lines unresolved, but
Speaker 1: I saw in its wild jumble the raw beginnings of
Speaker 1: something new and planned, malformed but deeply and only mine.
Speaker 1: I set out a cup of tea, adjusted my lamp,
Speaker 1: and planted myself in front of the blank space, brush
Speaker 1: hovering over the surface. There was nothing in everything left
Speaker 1: to say. I made my first mark, uncert and trembling
Speaker 1: a little but unmistakably forward. The room was silent, but
Speaker 1: not empty. There was breathing, there was motion, and there
Speaker 1: was a slow, raggured return of my own story. And
Speaker 1: that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I
Speaker 1: will see you in the next one.