I Found the Truth in Her Phone—And Walked Away Before Sunrise

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1:00Hello, I'm welcome to cheating all the time. Glad you are here. Let's get into this next crazy cheat. It's the loft that gets me first. Light, easy, the kind of unguarded sound that flows up and out from someone's chest when they don't know they're being watched. I stand just outside the kiln room at the back of the community center, one hand on the push-bar door, feeling like an intruder in my own weekend. Sunlight from the high gym windows brightens the main room, but back here it's caused the pottery wheels are cleaned, the glazed jaws stacked, just the hum of the building's ventilation and the bubble of voices behind the closed kiln room door. Ten minutes ago, Priya told me to go warm up the car. She said she needed a few minutes to center herself. I phrased that's become her new airy catch all up there with it just being present and aminding my head. I tried not to let it prickle. After all, we've been doing these classes together every Saturday for six months' partner starger for college days, part effort at keeping things stitched. I was the only one packing up fast today, picking up the abandoned water bottles and putting away rolling pins while Priya hung back, her hands moving slower than usual as she washed

2:04at the sponges at the sinks. She'd looked over her shoulder at me smiling, but it was practiced. The car is idling out front. In a time it takes to pick it up and circle around. I kill ten minutes thumbing through the radio news, not really listening. When I work back in, footsteps echoing off the linoleum floor, I hear her laugh, then a muffled voice in a hush as if someone's just press the poles on their mood. The kiln room door is mostly closed, I think for a second about pushing it open, but I just wait. The door swings in. Priya steps out. A cheek's a high with color, her dark hair escaping its clip sure is cute at the shoulder. For a split second she doesn't see me. There you are, I say folding my arms half a smile on my face that feels tight. She blinks then grints too big, pulling her toe back up. Well sorry, I just lost track of time we were talking about. Ahm, new glazes were Janet, she says. Sound of like a fun conversation. She just breezes past, brushing a clump of hair away from her face. It's nothing I can be just get home, I'm starving. When I glance back, someone saw what true her hand, I think the new guy slipped

3:05from the kiln room to the back hallway. I make a little note of it, not willing to admit to myself why. On the drive home, Priya hums along with the radio acting perfectly normal. But once you notice the seam in something, every song lyric and the red stoplight starts to chave. Before Saturday's meant togetherness, her leg tapping in time, her hand dropping over to rest on my knee, laughter soft and inside her car. Today she taps out messages on her phone between the gear shifts. She offers nothing up for conversation, just what was a silence with the tired wasn't class busy today and a weather update. Days blur but certain moments stick with me. Wednesday morning, she stands by the kitchen window, mug clutched in both hands, the lemon in her tea-steeping so long the water was gone brown. I ask what's up, and she says, just thinking about what to do for my next pottery piece may be something in that deep turquoise we saw Janet use. I don't tell her the class hasn't ordered nuclear yet. A memory floats up while I wash our mugs, easy days. On our fifth anniversary, we bike down to the river park before sunrise, thermoses in hand, shivering in the wind, laughing at the ducks. I leaned on her shoulder,

4:06her hair tickling my face, and we shout homemade muffins, feeling like the world was a treasure built for two. Saturday, pottery grew out of that habit the urge to carve out circle, a weekly ritual and stained by work email or life's exhausting details. We text through the day when we are apart. We have dumb in jokes, like a codeword porcupine for passive aggressive co-workers, and a standing schedule to attack the Sunday crossword together, side by side in the living room floor. 10 years together, each season pressing its mark. Prey always used to finish her pieces early, pushing first to walk home hand in hand. She tees me for shaping the same mug every week, claim I was sculpt truly risk-averse. On holidays, we made mugs for everyone her parents, my sister, and between us, it was understood, nothing to hide, nothing to keep separate. But that Saturday, after the class, my mind caught on that barely shut Kilmerum door the easy comfort starts bending. Tiny things accumulate. Prey lingers after class more, offers to help the instructor pack up, even when everyone else is long gone. I find myself standing in the silent car, watching stray watercolor streaks on her jeans, noticing her quick phone glances,

5:07half-head and up-turn of her lips. Once, I ask who she's texting. This mirror, just about arranging the next volunteer meeting, she says, sliding her phone away so quickly the screen shows nothing but her lot back around her and me, back at Holy Last Spring, Carlos mirrored on our faces, arms wrapped so tight you think no one could wage between us. The more I ask, the stiffer she gets. When I bring up pottery asking whether she's tried that spiral bottle technique Janet likes, or if the new glazes have arrived, she answers in fragments distracted. Maybe not sure, I think it's being ordered, she says quickly, gaze drifting to her notifications. One week, she comes home wearing a loose white button up with streaks of color turquoise mostly and a dust humor in a lawn once leave. I almost let it pass, but the color is too bold. Did they finally break out those new color clays? I ask scrubby my own hands at the kitchen sink. She looks away, brow creasing. No, I was just, experimenting on my own, she mutters, tucking her sleeve down almost too quickly. With turquoise, I thought it was all off tones left. She freezes, then snaps. You don't have to keep back checking me every second, okay, it's just

6:10clay. Her voice, sudden and sharp, bridges the gap between us in the worst way. We finished even quietly, scrolling through a phone on the other corner of the couch, fingers moving fast. Other patterns shift. She starts driving her own cow to class, claiming traffic core errands as excuses. I just need to decompress after some time of being in a crowd all morning leaves me cranky. She tells me, already half out the door. After class, she waves me off, saying, go on ahead, I'll catch up, errorly, phone already unlocked in her hand. She adds a passcode to her phone, a tiny change that lands like a weight in my chest. I couldn't say exactly how I know the code just noticed the numbers once out of the corner of my eye when she ordered take-up. Around the time this starts, the cuddling in bed slows. She's gentle, always polite, but there's a coolness to the way she pats my hand or kisses my cheek goodnight. She started making new playlists on Spotify at least three in the last month, all full of indie music and Hindi love ballads I've never heard her mention. She plays them in the car, earphones and even as she's packing her pottery tote before class. A week passes with me telling myself it's all my own insecurities. Maybe it is. Everyone has a

7:15funk, I tell myself maybe work pressure, maybe hormones, maybe just spring digging its claws in. But the feeling persists prickly and alive under my skin. One Saturday, I convinced myself to show up to class a few minutes early under the thin pretence, I forgot my apron in the drying room last week I'm on to look for it. The air in the center is still cool, the big studio smelling of wet clay and cleaning spray. Inside, Rohan is at the sink with Priya clearing out a pile of brushes. They laugh in her head tip back, clay dust streaking her jaw, his hand hovering closer to her as they scrub the same bowl. There's an easiness about it, a cocoon that doesn't include the rest of the world. Rohan glances up when I come in. He's in his early thirties stocky, with a wild mop of hair and a perpetual five o'clock shadow. A little sheepish, he smiles. Hey man, Priya just saved me from ruining all these detail brushes. Priya's smile flick is genuine, but with an edge. I was just telling Rohan about the time you ruined that entire batch of handles trying to make them extra ergonomic, remember. She gives me a look almost asking me not to push it. I laugh politely, but the moment's thin. We all walk to our tables. She plops down next to

8:19mirror and not me. I can't shake the sense that something shifted as soon as I entered. The laughter is gone, replaced by small talk and a deflection of eyes. By the end of class, Priya's cleaned up and standing at the door, glancing over at Rohan while pretending to check the time. She nearly forgets her phone on the work table. That afternoon, in the car ride home, she's distracted to type in text out in bursts. The faintest of smiles killing on her lips as she stares at her lap. When I tried to break in, asking about dinner plans or how the class went, she keeps her answer short. This tension beneath the surface, like the thumb of a kettle just before the whistle. The next week she insists on driving separately. I just need a little more space, and besides, I might swing by the farmer's market after class, or maybe meet mirror for coffee. I not, feeling the confirmation by a seat itself in my ribs. I try to trust her I really do. But as I'm scrolling through Facebook one evening, a new post from the pottery class group pops up a group photo, everyone smiling amid claysplatters. There's Priya front row hip press close to Rohan's. His arms around her, casual but not accidental, her own arm resting behind him.

9:22On the table before them, two mugs, both and finished, two half drunk coffers, one with the lipstick marker recognised from Priya's favourite shade. The angle is off slightly blurry, but it's the closeness the way Helene's in, the way the others on bridging the gap that radiates out from the photo. My thought grows dry. Had she even mentioned that picture, that moment? Later that night, I bring it up off end. Saw the group photo, looks like everyone was having fun. She pulls her hair back. Yeah, it was after you left mirror wanted to mark the last week of her injured class. We all crammed together, it was so loud. Her tone is dismissive, but her eyes flick away. You and Rohan seem pretty tight. Her brow fur is just a little, a practice annoyance taking shape. Don't start, she sighs, dropping her phone face down on the kitchen table. He's just the easiest person to talk to during class. Not everything has to mean something. They don't start the echoes. I let it drop, but the seed inside me is growing branches, determinedly. I start noticing receipts in the kitchen trash. Café lottes, almond calls, a stine stump said don't line up with her story about running errands for the studio supply run. One labeled a caffé green

10:25127-pum. Another from a lunch bought a few blocks over from the centre. The handwriting next to her hero or to go says in strong blockscript for pee. Sometimes two drinks or a sandwich that she never mentions when I ask about her day. One afternoon I find a tiny folded receipt tucked into her purses inside zip. I would feel wrong, but it slips out while I'm hunting for an emergency advelle. The time lines up an iron after class. On a Saturday, when she swore up and down that she just needed air walking by the river before coming home. When she comes in, I try to keep my voice light and my face open. Have fun at the cafe with me or this weekend. I ask casual as possible. She stiffens. Are you keeping touts on me now? Jesus, do you seriously track where I eat lunch? My hands go cold. It's just a question, Priya. She shakes her head, crossing her arms tight. You know what? I think I'm going to shower. This real anger there was something uncanfully close to fear. And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car

11:26insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show. Hey everyone, check out this guy in his bird. What is this your first date? Oh no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Ah! Me too a human, him to a bird. Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways. Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com. This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. Last year I went through many different life changes. I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the inside to better show up for the ones who need me to be my best version of myself. When you're navigating life's changes, Talkspace can help. Talkspace is the number one rated online therapy, bringing you professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatry providers that you can access anytime, anywhere. Living a busy life, navigating a long distance relationship, becoming a first step father, Talkspace made all of those journeys possible. I could speak with my therapist in the office,

12:28I could speak with my therapist in the comfort of my home. I was never alone. Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a zero dollar copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off your first month with promo code space80 when you go to Talkspace.com. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com. Save $80 with code space80 at Talkspace.com. She starts spending more time up late, hunched over her laptop, blue glare painting her features. When I turn in, she's often still awake, typing quickly, only to snap the screen close when she hears my footsteps. I'm watching a show, it's not your thing, she'll say shrugging, layering her tone to sound breezy. Pice, I hear a ping from her phone in the kitchen after midnight by the time I get up the courage to glance at it has been silenced and moved. Percent changes to her faint sweetness on her clothes that's not her usual ocean of perfume. One night after class, she hugs me good night, and there's a whiff of the cologne-rohaned wares the kind that's all sandalwood and cardamom the scent that hangs stubbornly in the studio long after he's left. For a second, an image crashes over me that hands covered in clay, perushing up against each other,

13:31laughed to close, none of it meant for me. I want to shake it off, but I start keeping track. At dinner, she puts her phone face down, screened toward the wood. When it lights up with a new notification, she mutes her quickly, barely gонzing at me, let's press together into a thin line. A subtle division grows. She makes up excuses to not come home directly after class some new errand, some friend in need. Friday night, she spends longer out with colleagues, but she never has details when I ask about how work drinks went. She says she's tired, not up for our old board game nights, and laughs off my suggestions for a movie. Her eyes never quite meet mine for long. I try for weeks to put us back into rhythm. I reschedule work calls, cook new recipes for dinner, buy lilies for the kitchen table, remembering they were always her favorite. I suggest a Saturday night out a place we both love, a kind of small, warm beastard that smells of butter and old brick, where we use split dessert and talk through all the weeks chaos. She agrees at first. But an eye before we're supposed to leave, as I'm pulling on my best shirt, she comes into the hole I phone already in hand. I'm so sorry I just my head is pounding and I feel so off, can we do a rain check?

14:35I rub her back, feeling the angles of her shoulder blades wanting to believe her. Of course, want tea. She shakes her head. No, I think I'll just read in bed for a bit. As she walks to the bedroom, I catch the glint of her phone screen in the mirror. A message notification wrote in and a preview blows as she taps it away, but I can't help but decide for the fragment I see, I still feel your hands on my, my heart stutters. I stand locked in place for a moment, then force myself to move, gathering up the uneaten snacks and trying to summon logic, anything to keep from imagining the rest of that message. I don't let myself ask, not yet. Instead, I pull myself a drink and sit in the couch with a book I can't focus on, half listening as water runs for her bath, dreading the silence more than a fight. I now, at each Saturday morning, feels like a field test. I wake jittery, hyper aware. I watch a preview more than the wheel. She keeps her phone close, only unlocking it to tie a fast message, then pitching it to the bottom of her toad. Class runs as usual, but she always picks a seat farther down the table, laughing with the others, polite but cagey toward

15:35me. One week, I forget my water bottle at a studio, and it feels, honestly, like the universe is giving me a set up. I tell a preview I'll be right back and double back to the communities into 20 minutes later, after classed spursus. The hall was hollow, door shut, the heat settled up for the evening. From around the back by the kiln room, I hear voices soft but distinct. I pause heartbeat jackhammering in my throat. It's Priya in Rohan. The voices are low, so quiet I can barely pick out words unless I get criminally close to the door. I risk it. Priya is saying something about wanting to help, and Rohan's voice is etched with the need I can't in here. I wish we could just go away together, do do. Rohan says, the longing in his voice they could sugar. I can only make out scraps, not a full conversation. There are no sounds of kissing, nothing that would clear anyone doubt forever, but when I peek through the thin window in the door, I catch them standing close, Priya's hand lay gentle on Rohan's forearm, his eyes on her mouth. The rest of the room is tidy, nothing out of place, but they are between them chivers with something I refuse to name just yet. I back away as quietly as possible, grabbing my bottle from

16:38the lost and fan shelf near the front lobby and driving her home with my body numb and my head alive with panic. I tell myself, maybe it's just an intense friendship. Maybe Rohan is having a hard time, maybe Priya is being her usual kind self. Maybe I'm seeing things that aren't there. That night I try to bring it up. Under the soft yellow light in the dining room, I say you seem close with Rohan lately, is he okay? You guys always seem deep in conversation when I see you together. She tenses, tapping her knife to her fork. He's just going through a rough patch. That's all she says, not meeting my eyes. I've just been supporting him, he need to friend, that's all it is. And the late lunch is the walking home to get the death? Before I can finish, she pushes back from her chair. Her eyes spark with frustration. What would you rather I just ignore someone who need support? I thought you trusted me. There's a desperation in her atona plea as if I'm the one shattering something fragile. I back down swallowing a rising bitterness. Of course, I just worry about you about us. She nods to flee and makes herself busy with chores, telling me she's wiped out

17:39and disappears to the bedroom. For a flicker of time, things settle. We finish the week in a truce, routines cooling into lukewarm water. She's more withdrawn, chatty only about work, never about pottery or class or anything that might lead back to that studio room. But the tension doesn't drain. It only grows for coil now in the corners of every day. I taste the house more, start to double check things I always took for granted. The google map tap on her card dashboard, add or receipts, the timing of every call that lights up her phone. I recognize the signs I'm not proud. I go out of my way to be generous to tell myself she just wants space, that heavy marriage is crack and men again all the time. But when I clean up the kitchen, I notice one of my favorite mugs chipped and shoved to the back of the shelf. I imagine pre-ociting with Rowan at some corner table, hands wrapped over pottery she should have made with me. A week later, after another class were pre-abairly made eye contact, I reach adult certainty the kind that pushes you out of your own ethical boundaries. While she's showering, the water pounding in the upstairs bathroom, I pick up her phone from the coffee table. I hesitate for half a second, feeling sick. But I enter the code Hinesis Berthier, easy to recall and it unlocks. Inside,

18:45nothing is obvious at first. Standard homescreen at folders. But there's a hidden photo folder, one I only see by searching. When it opens, my breath sticks in my throat. Priya and Rohan harm in arm at the studio. The photo is blurry, faces leaning under the terrible fluorescent lights, but their expressions are raw the kind of joy you don't pretend. Another photo of them inside boothic fake green, her hand on his cheek, both of them mid laugh, completely lost in each other. There's a series of stuff as one late at night, grainy camera flash, Rohan kissing her neck, Priya's lits parted, one eye on the lens. The rest of the album is a compressed history, mugs wet and unfinished, clay stained hands tangled together on the work table, one of her bare shoulder, artfully framed, picture after picture of moments stolen, as if to prove what I'd refuse to see. Then the messages. They're saved in a hidden chat folder under her old Gmail handle. I force myself to read them, each line more explicit than the last, her telling him how alive he makes her feel, how she waits for Saturday all week just to see his messy, beautiful hands, him calling her his wildhawk, talking about how he can't stand seeing her walk away at the end of each class. There's a video shaky and intimate

19:49of them working together after class alone in the studio. They giggle smashing clay together, then he draws her in arms around her waist, and she whispers, I could stay like this forever. He answers something I can't hear the video ends with her head on his shoulder, eyes closed, his smile a secret kept from me. The horror and the grief slice me open, but I snap her phone shut by instinct the second the shower shuts off upstairs. She comes down, hair wet and loose, humming that indie ballad I never knew the words to. She looks at me and smiles, easy like nothing's wrong, like the world hasn't already been peeled under my feet. I stare at her, everything's suddenly obvious and raw, the way her eyes bounce away from mine, the tremble in her hands, the way she clings to the illusion of our home, our routines, our very decade of trust. I know, now know too much, but I don't move yet. I sit, motionless, caught between rage and heartbreak in the deep, nauseating fear of what comes next. I wait for a time to speak, and as the evening stretches before us, thick and silent, I imagine the confrontation as a wall, implocable, leaving just beyond the lusts of her routine, the world that will break where I finally step through. Dinner is a quiet, miserable affair.

20:52I push vegetable curry around my plate, trying to swallow. Preachats about her work, something about the mayors, and you campaign to repaint the town playground and asks after my weakest if nothing has split open between us. She offers to pour more rice on my plate. I nod silently, feeling the strange pressure of performance in my own kitchen. Her fingertips brush my wrist as she passes, the bolt of me, her nails painted the same rune shade a soft street across her sleeve last week. It takes everything I have not to flinch. After, she heads to the living room with her book, legs tapped underneath her. I try to focus on emails, but my eyes trail back to the glow of her phone each time it lights up in her lap. She types a reply quick as a thief, her thumb moving in elliptical sweeps. I pretend to scan his spreadsheet. She shifts slightly, angling the screen away. A hundred invisible threads run between us, too fragile to pull, but too numerous to ignore a slight upturn at the corners of her lips. Lower when she is with me, the way her laughter comes bright and round in the studio, but things to a third beside at home. I try to remember the last time she sought me out just to share something small. It's been weeks, maybe months if I'm honest.

21:55Now I trail her through our routines, as if I'm studying a species gun feral, hoping to catch a flicker of the animal I once knew. Saturday comes again, great and moody outside, spring rains streaking the bakery windows. I get to the center early this time, telling myself I just want to finish my mug from last week, the real reason no less silent all teeth. Prey's car is already in a lot, a little silver smudge in the puddles. Inside, the studio feels cavernous. Rohan and Prey are at the sink, bent close over a slab of rocley. When they see me, warm fanishes from the air. Rohan tries to play it off. Hey, man, Prey is explaining the difference between underglaze and slip again a guess I've got a learning curve. She laughs, but hides her mouth behind the back of her hand. My spot at the table is conspicuously empty, she's placed her bag in the seat next to mirror. Morning, she calls over bright, not coming there. I take my old seat. Work moves fast. From emails and reports to proposals and updates, you're expected to think clearly, write confidently, and get it right the first time, and every message counts.

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23:55Hey everyone, check out this guy in his bird. What is this your first date? Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Ah! Meet a human, him to a bird. Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways. Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com. For the rest of class, Priya keeps her gaze fixed on the bowl she's turning, shoulder squared away from me. Rohan jerks with Janet about glaze, thickness, pre-members ascent. Occasionally, she leans into Rohan to Joe privately, as if they have a language no one else speaks. I catch her hand brushing his elbow by accident, or maybe not. Mirror sees it too, I browse pinched. At cleanup, I wait by the door, keys jangling, watching Priya and Rohan hover together at the back as the rest of us pack away a gear. They stay, rearranging shelves, talking low. When I step closer, the conversation breaks off mid-word. Rohan clears his throat, swipes a flick of clay from Priya's cheek she lets him, then laughs shyly ducking her head. I'm heading out, I say, for a slaughter of an eye intent.

24:57Priya jumps. Okay, I'll be right behind to just need to finish helping Janet with some bulb labels for the kiln, five minutes max. But it's 20 before she comes out. My car is still running, deathboard fogged. She hops in, snapping her seatbelt without looking at me. Silence radiates between us for three full blocks before I break down an ask. That was a long cleanup, Janet sure puts you to work. She nods, pulling her hair up. The kiln was acting up just trying to get the schedule sorted, you know Janet, she worries about the next batch of firings. Yeah, but you left your own stuff half packed up. It's not always about me, you know, she says, for spicy. I grip the wheel tighter, everywhere now scab. We ride the last mile home soundless, the third of wipe is Mark and Tine. Later that afternoon, when I take out recycling, I spot her phone on the steps, screen a glow with a chat notification, Rohan's contact photo, a little smirk, the message read Monsieur Clever hands already. I feel heat flush up my neck. When I go back inside, Prius right there scooping up her phone, measures smile pin to her face. That evening, I try again,

25:58do you want to walk like before, down past the park? The hope in my voices embarrassing. She closes her laptop slowly, like it physically hurts. It's raining, she says. We can take umbrellas. She sighs. I just want to finish up some things, you go all donate to a promise. I force myself to walk alone, counting ever squaltched through the puddles, lost weighing each step. When I circle back, Prius still inside, feet cold under her, eyes distant behind a wall of unreadable calm. Tis pass. Each morning, our old sunrise coffee ritual, once automatic, becomes a lesson in restraint. She's up first distracted, already texting before her tea bag is even out of the mug. The first few times I try to reach over her run my thumb along her palm, but she reels back just slightly, apologising as if I'm crowding her. All I taste is the culpritang of dread. I keep replaying the video, the kisses, the messages in my head, because I can't look again without the urge to held the phone across the room. I go through motions, work, meals, sleep pretending at normality. At the studio the following week, I watch Prius from a distance,

27:00unable to stop myself. She glances at Rohan constantly. He seems to jump here around me now, smile extra wide, eyes not quite meeting mine. He makes too many jokes about the legendary pottery couple, and when Mira asks Prius she wants to try to stay in glass workshop with her on Sunday, Prius fumbles for an excuse, then quickly glances at Rohan. The schedule written in looks. Other things, too, receipts for new glazes, supplies I never see at home suddenly appear in her bag. A short clay note scrolled in a new hand of a lock is tucked into her phone case. I see it only by accident when it flops out with her keys. On a lark or maybe desperation, I ask Janet after class, did Prius help out much today, she always says he keeps her running circuits. Janet looks up smile uncertain. Though, uh, Prius, Rohan stayed back to mop and lock up, nice of them, honestly, I was out in the parking lot chatting with Mira, so I just left them the keys this time. Why, did something get misplaced? I shake my head, feeling sick as she waves goodbye. At work, I break a mug and old one Prius made, ivory with a blue spiral handle.

28:00I scoop up the shards, unable to look at them, wondering if there will be a day when each chef and fisher doesn't feel personal. My colleague asks if everything's alright. I smile until my cheeks ache. The next Saturday, a thicker work meeting planning instead to circle the studio after class. Through the rain smeared windows, I watch as Prius, Rohan and Mira laugh, packing up their things. When Mira waves goodbye and leaves, Prius and Rohan linger, hands brushing as they split a box of tools. They stand by the clay sink, Rohan saying something that makes Prius laugh, loud and delighted. I crouched lower behind my car's dashboard. When they walk side by side toward Rohan's car, she leans in, hand-dropping to his back. He opens her passenger door for her a little courtly bow. I snap a photo and hate myself for it. That night, I barely sleep. I toss an odd-bad sheets tangle. Prius, beside me, scrolling through her phone, body turned away. I saw you leave with Rohan today. I say quietly, desperate. She doesn't move. He needed a ride to pick up his prescription at the pharmacy. His car was low on gas. There's this 20 questions now. Or what? She spits, low entire. It just seemed like you two are closer

29:06lately. That's all. There's a long pause. She puts her phone down, size, and rubbed her eyes. Rohan's having a hard time. He wouldn't get it. He just needs some friends. And it's nice to have someone in class who gets it. I'm allowed to be there for a friend, aren't I? Or is that against the rules now? Each word falls between us with a weight I can't shoulder. I rolled to my side, facing the wall, blinking into the blue-lit dock. Following week, his punctuated bust small croutes. A fold pre is laundry while she works late, and notice a new shirt white linen, slit high on the sides that isn't one of her usual pickups. I find a faint line of what looks like reddish-cladest a lawn at him. She never mentions buying it. She gets a new phone charger, keeps it at the studio. Sishe forgets her so often it's just more efficient to leave one there. It's the kind of explanation that used to make sense now at Rin's Hollow. Saturday we don't couple having for almost a month. She texts as she leaves, running late, forgot my wallet, don't wait a bit after. I walk to class muscle memory and bitterness in every stride. She's already immersed at a back table. Bro and Cedar just stood at her left. Mid class,

30:10during a group project, Janet divides us for a team wheel for her in contest, purposely pairing me with pre is of to force a bridge. We work in near silence. She stays in to his back for me. When I try a light joke about the older economic candles, she gives a half-smile, hollow as an empty bull. After, she flees to row inside, his hand at the small of her back public, but brief, almost plausible inability, but not quite. Mirror's eyes catch mine, and dart away. I wonder what rumors will circulate before alarm. In the following days, pre is passing of late bedtime's deepens. She sets up her laptop at the kitchen table, headphones gluing. I bring her tea, trying to reclaim some sliver of kindness. She offers a distracted thanks, eyes never returning to me. After a week like this chasing shadows, I make a decision. I'll confront her, but not yet. First, I need to be certain to hold it in my hands undeniable. I go through her foam when she's in the shower. It is worse than I thought. It takes me a minute to find the folder again, despite having found it before. When I open it, my hands shake so badly I nearly drop the foam. There are even more photos now, a new series

31:13at the studio, pre with clay on her face, row and making her laugh, their cheeks press close. A recent date stamp marks a selfie from inside Kfei Green. Sunlight's lighting over pre is exposed collarbone as Rohan's head nestles into her shoulder, whispering in her ear. Another video, recent from last Sunday, shows them behind the pottery wheel together. Her arms around his, his hands guiding her as both giggling in that gasping way only total comfort allows. After that the words, hidden chats, riffs of longing and secret plans. Her soft declarations of miss you already, it is bound to about days dragging without you. Snatch shots of plans to skip plus and meet out at a trail I know they must have worked together. When he writes, can't wait to see if we can sneak off next weekend, she responds, counting ires, let's not waste a second. It hurts worse that the words are so casual, like a language built for them alone, no strain, no guilt evident. By the time Priya comes downstairs, I'm frozen on the couch, her phone returned to the charger by sheer self-control. I look at her at the familiar arch of her eyebrows as she asks what I want for dinner, how she catches her low lip between her teeth the way she always does one word. I wonder if she feels anything, any flicker of the terror I

32:17felt. When she leans into tap my knee, her eyes are so big, so easy that the sod perfect. It feels like I'm underwater, a world on mute. Do I scream or just let it happen, let it slide by? She suggests take a die-grey. She asks if I want to pick the movie I say whatever you want. Her smile is gentle. I want to erase it, but instead I just nod, numb. In the days that follow, I study her like a stranger in my home, rehearsing the words I'll need. I play out the confrontation, imaging every response, denial, outrage, tears, maybe indifference. The evidence sits heavy, a secret mass under the floorboards. I watch Priya print in the mirror for pottery styling her hair in new way. Unaccounted as a slip of paper with Rohan's handwriting, can't wait for tomorrow's secret challenger waits, three she tucks it into her jeans pocket, hamming, and I want to crush something, anything. That night she goes out for a walk to clean my head. I watch from the window where she types a message, phones greener glow. She slips out into the dusk, coat not quite sipped, her silhouette fluttering at the end of the drive as she disappears around the corner. Minus later, my phone buzzes with a throttle up from the credit card she's

33:20bought two coffers of cafe green again. I give up on sleep all together. The house is quieter and you chill in the rooms. Her slippers and a whole look like artifacts. She leaves little notes for me, don't forget milk to be back late, love you though love you now scribble small and practiced. One early morning, I catch a reflection in the glass, the two of us sitting at opposite ends of the breakfast table, each wrapped in our own glowing devices, both pretending. For a second, the business leaves me lonely exhaustion remains. I wish she'd just say it, just cut through the slow suffocation, but every time she meets my gaze her faces compose the expert lies mask. So I do nothing for now. I gather my proof, make copies tuck them away. I watch her gather her pottery tools, select new earrings, glance at her full. Another Saturday approaches on the confrontation moves closer as inevitable sunrise. And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show. Hey everyone, check out this guy in his bird. What is this your first date?

34:23Oh no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Ah! Meet a human, him to a bird. Yeah, the bird looks out of your leg anyways. Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com. Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Bubble Wallace here from 2311 Racing. You know what's slower than a pace car? Waiting at the car wash. That's when I fire up Chamba Casino. It turns those slow minutes into fast fun. With new games every week, you'll never get bored. Next time you're stuck in the slow lane, speed up with Chamba. Play now at chambacasino.com. Let's Chamba. Sponsored by Chamba Casino, no purchase necessary, VGW GroupFord, where prohibited by law, 21 plus terms and conditions apply. In the meantime, Priya comes home after midnight on a Thursday, looking lost in thought, but humming faintly. I pretend I'm asleep. She changes quietly, slips into bed, never quite touching me. It's almost a relief finally to know. The pain is real, but so is the clarity.

35:24I wait I wait for one more moment, the last piece to drop, the final shattering fall I know is almost here. I lie in bed and listen to her breath. Her back is turned to me, and I can't tell if she's asleep or just pretending, holding it still as a statue. Nearer of us moves. It's almost foreign the morning by the faded glow of my phone, and the house is so quiet I can hear the hum of the fridge downstairs. My heart is a rock in my chest, heavy, oddly steady in the aftermath of the hurricane I've kept inside for weeks. I can't even bring myself to close my eyes, there's nothing in the dark worth finding. Outside, rain thrums weakly on the window. I feel like I'm suspended, but my own life watching myself fly here, still breathing in the sire air of what used to be a room. Every small detail is sharpened by adrenaline, the faint smell of her camomile lotion, the indentation, where her hips rest in the mattress as stray earring on the nightstand. I reach out, on autopilot, for the glass of water I keep dear. My hand stutters. I don't take a sip. Don't dare to risk the sun. When the alarm finally drops, awkward and unnecessary on a Saturday, preer rolls away, stretching with a little groan. She checks her phone,

36:27thumb flicking to read new messages. I watch her watch the private smile that ghost over her lips, the quick, secretive tap of her fingers. She doesn't look at me as she swings her legs out of bed. Didn't sleep much, huh? She says blindly, pulling her robe from the hook. No, what I answer, and I'm stunned at how normal my voice sounds. She moves through the motion shower, tea, finding him as matched pair of socks while I just sit, frozen, listening to each tiny moment she pretends there's nothing wrong. I know I'm about to kick out the last support beam holding up this crumbling bridge. Just not yet, not with the day so nearly awake, sky gray, everything tire. It feels like giving up a piece of breathing. At breakfast, our two mugs sit side by side. Preer butters are toast with quiet, concentrated movements then slides the plate between us as if nothing's different. Her phone never far lights up again. She flaps it over of screen down and starts to say something about the grocery list before trailing off into an excuse about a headache. The tension is a living thing coiling tighter by the minute. Both of us keep to our own corners, me half-bearered in the paper, a scrolling, answering a

37:28work email or probably something else entirely. The steam from the mugs drifts up and neither of us takes a sip. She heads out to pottery not long after to beg pat with more care than the occasion deserves. I'll see you after. Yeah, she says, voice falsely light, hanging in the doorway a little too long. I look at her really looking nod. Yes, see you. She smiles then, a soft, familiar twist of her mouth, the same one she used all those years when we were still us. Then she's gone, out of the door, the car rumbling in the drive. I listen to it disappear down the block. For a while, I just sit. I can't eat, can't move. The house is cold, the walls then. Every surface feels contaminated with all that's happened to the phone charger. Her jacket's slung on the banister if it oughten't been rolling under the kitchen table. My hands itch with the urge to do something, anything, but there's nothing to do except wait out the eyes until I know she'll be home. It's cowardly, maybe, but I just want to meet her in a clarity of daylight, not in this washout done. Around noon, I get up, move slowly through our routines as if I could still make the day normal. I fold laundry, sort the bills, wipe down crumbs from the counter.

38:30My mind moves in ugly loops, returning again and again to the photos, the messages. Sometimes a memory of pre-alafing hall and true flashes up, and I feel like I might choke. I catch my reflection in the kitchen window, eyes puffy, jaw slack, and wonder who I'm even looking at. I feel old. Too old for this. This fury somewhere under the exhaustion, but it's numbed by my own sense of impotence. My phone dings, a useless work reminder. I swipe it away, stare at nothing, let time use past. I replay our last conversation over in my mind, how calculated she seemed, how gentle my own voice was, how desperate. As the day wanes, I hear the familiar crunch of gravel in the driveway. For a second, I want to run to go anywhere but here to leave the confrontation waiting in the cold shadows. I steady myself instead, standing, moving into the kitchen, where I've laid out her phone and a small stack of printed photos and screenshots. I don't even need to practice what I'll say. The truth is so close to the surface now I can't keep it hidden my hands are shaking with the effort of staying still. She comes in, kicking off her shoes by the door. Her hair is dumped from

39:31the rain, cheeks pink. Something about the side of her, so familiar, makes everything in me lurch. She glances at the table, sees the phone, sees me. Hey, she says, too careful, and I know no without question that she feels the charge in the air. I don't dance her. I gesture at the table with my chin. Sit, I say, harsher than I meant. My voice cracks. She hesitates, eyes flicking to the items in front of her realization dawning bright and violent. She sits slowly and folds her hands in her lap. What's going on? She tries. My throat is bone dry. I slide the photos closer to her. You want to explain this? My hands tremble, but I keep my gaze locked on her, forcing her to see me to see what she's done. Her face changes first, a flicker of confusion, then dread, then a flush as she realizes what she's looking at. She shuffles through them, voicemail and pitiful. This isn't. It's not what you think. I don't let her finish. It's exactly what I think. I saw everything, Priat, the photos, the messages, the videos. I know Rohan, Kafei Greene, the studio, he lied over

40:32and over. She shouts tears, brimming, standing at the edge of an answer. It wasn't she starts, voice cracking. It wasn't supposed to get like this. I didn't. Don't. I interrupt, flat and quiet. Don't insult me by pretending it wasn't a choice. She fumbles both hands in her lap, finners twisting around themselves. For a second, it looks like she'll hold the lie, but she breaks. I'm sorry, she breathes. I'm so sorry, I never wanted to hurt you. I was just a Rohan made me feel alive. I felt seen for the first time in years, and I couldn't stop once it started, and then I was just stuck her. I let her words pour out, listening into disbelief and some strange relief that the spell is finally broken. She blames the monotony, the crushing routines, says she felt neglected, craving something new. She says she never meant to destroy us, but that she couldn't breathe, couldn't say no. She describes how it happened at the studio, how it made her feel awake for the first time in forever. The rationalisations come in a river, so dense I could scarcely breathe in the middle of them. I stare at her until she starts to cry ugly, shaking soaps that make her whole body fold and on itself. She begs for understanding,

41:34for time to figure things out, pleads that it wasn't about me, not exactly. I feel everything rarage, grief, regret, bitter laugh to clogging my throat, but most of all, empty. The more she explains, the less I hear. When she finally stops, when the apologists load to a sputter, I get out, moving too quietly to seem real. I turn from her, walking to the sink. The thought comes and bidden, this is happening, it's really over. She stands, inches behind me, it arms out and sure. Please don't go, not now, not like this, we can talk, we can but a cahr off with a look so cold she shrinks back. For a long moment, we don't say anything. Only her quiet crying fills the room. I go to the hallway, open the linen closet. I pull my overnight back down from the shelf, fingers mechanical, as if they belong to someone else. I start tossing clothes in jeans, shirts, or toothbrush, socks with mismatched patterns in no order at all. Downstairs, preer silent, except for the occasional troop breath. I zip the bag. I move for each room, grabbing the things I'll need, nothing extra. I pause at the side table where her favorite

42:36lamp sits hand-lingering over the card we kept from our wedding day, still wedged between the books. I leave it untouched. She is at the bottom of the stairs, when I come down, eyes red, haired around her face, standing in a frame of the front door like she's prepared to block my way. She speaks in a whisper, please, please just tuck to me. Her hands twist at the hem of her sweatshirt. I shape my head. I can't, I can't stay here tonight, I can't even look at you. She starts to sob again, one hand pressed to her mouth, body leaning forward as if swirling me to stay by gravity alone. But I edge past her carefully, reaching for my coat and the car keys. The kitchen is marked by the wreckage of our conversation her phone on the table, photosplayed like warning signs, one mug toppled. For the first time, the place feels deeply unfamiliar. I open the front door, the dusk air cold on my cheek. I do not turn when she calls my name, only pause for a moment and the stooped steady my breathing. My hands are stiff on the strap of my back. The world is smaller than ever just street light and silence in the fact of my own feet in the porch. Preer is framed in the hallway, backlit in trunk and armed rap tied around herself,

43:39watching. I want to say something final, but the words are spent. I step out into the night closing the door behind me with a soft click. The sound rings out loud with an I mean it to, punctrating everything. I walk to the car, chest aching, every nerve-wrong. I slide behind the wheel, start the engine and let the shaky breath out, watching the house through the windshield one final time. Preer's face is a blur in the window dark eye, broken. She hugs herself and stares and moving. I put the car in gear and back down the driveway, had light sweeping across the hedge then straight out into the waiting road. Just past the stop sign, a park for a second and sit with the engine running. The bag is heavy in my lap, digging into my thighs, my hands still locked around the steering wheel. I could call my sister, I think. I could keep driving. For a moment I don't move, just try to breathe, try not to shake. I grip the wheel so tight my knuckles sting. I realize the skin under my eyes is still damp. In my chest, something caves in, but I force myself to turn left toward my sisters, engine humming beneath me and drive into the night without looking back again. The road ahead is empty. I see the house shrink in my rear view,

44:43feel my heart pump and uselessly against my ribs, taste the loss and anger for what it is real, undeniable, carve clean as the line between then and now. It's almost a surprise to realise I'd started driving again. The trance of movement pulls me forward, blocked by block, past little houses with a porch lumps lit, then the shadowed front of the high school, the intersection where we used to wait for the duck parade in spring. The radio was silent. I keep picturing Preer in the kitchen window, but her outline grows fainter each time I blink, dissolving into everything I said. I follow muscle memory through town, the road's blurry with new rain. Each red light offers a pulse too short to think, too long to avoid my own reflection in the windshield. It's only once I hit the main road toward my sisters, neighbourhood the day adrenaline loosens its grip and exhaustion starts to worm its way in, heavy as which sand. I keep my hands at ten and two, I'll fix stare on the empty divide head. I want a scream, but all that comes out is a strange labour-breath. The phone vibrates, loud against the console and message from Preer. At first I ignore it, then, at the next stoplight, I look just long enough to see her name stretch across the lock screen, followed by a single pleading line, please, just tell me you safe.

45:46I turn the phone face down, a reflex now, profusant to write back. I picture her pace in the living room, another set of headlights passing through the blind, her feet tapping a frantic pattern across a cream rug we picked out together. I wonder if she's searching for what was my bring me back or if she knows that none will. My sister's street is quiet, the trees along the curb dripping gently in the dusk. She's out a friend for the night, her porch lump left burning from me a bulb hailer behind the glass. I park at the curb, not quite ready to kill the engine. I say there with my hands locked on my knees, debating even stepping out. For the briefest moment, the urge to turn back pulses inside me. But home isn't home now. There's no real direction before it. I gather the bag from the passenger seat, take one steady breath, and make my way up the steps. The spare key is still under the faded flower pot by the door. I open up, step inside her tidy hallway, and allow the quiet to swallow me. I don't bother turning on any lights. I leave the bag beside the whole table, shoes kicked off haphazardly in the entryway. There's a hollowness to the space, but it's clean and burdened and not a single artifact

46:47of my life cluttering the corners. I don't check my phone again. I move to the guest room, drop onto the made-up bed without removing my jacket, and stare at the ceiling, hands folded across my chest as if bracing for impact. Somewhere, fridge coils hum. A while passes, or maybe just a few minutes. I realize I can still make up for his broken voice, the edge in her defiance, the waver is everything finally crashed down the sound of her pleading, asking for undostanding for forgiveness, stumbling in her own sorry logic. It swells in my head with each nausea tick of the old walk-lock. The images cycle over and over, her hunched at the kitchen table, foretoes scattered, her hands frantic. Was there ever actually a moment she would have chosen not to lie? I wonder. Was there ever split seconds doubt in her mind before she crossed over to secret then betrayal? The teak settles in the pit of my stomach, but sleep doesn't come. I sense the shift from acute pain to a kind of dollic through reality that I can't escape the next stage, that time will move forward, whether I wanted to or not. My mind conjures the string of consequences, inaudible unpacking, the conversations that will need to happen with family, spitting of routines and property,

47:48and all the little things of a shared life. I picture her, still sitting alone at our kitchen table, her solbs echoing down the stairwell, the tremor in her hands growing worse in the emptiness that left behind. I force myself to imagine her without Rohan to, the affair exposed, the shine worn away, nothing left but the cold debris. My phone lights up again and non-committal pain, another message from Priya, then another. I switch it to silent and place it half under a pillow. For a moment, I consider blocking her, but the act feels final in a way I'm not ready to absorb. That to try. Let the words pile up, unread, and unreturn. There's nothing left to say, and everything that might have mattered about the past 10 years now collapses under the weight of her choices. Still, I know this is only the first night. Consequences, hard, and unavoidable, will come for both of us. The next hour blows. I walk through my sister's kitchen, pour a glass of water, then pour out and touched. The lamp above the table goes softly, luminating neat stacks of male at a bowl of keys. I wonder whether I'll ever see our home the same way, if I'll ever sit at my own table without pressing any of the fractures in the surface because I can't sign down.

48:51Finally, I return to the guest room, twitching the little bit side lamp, and sit on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands. The only thing I know for sure is that nothing in me wants to patch what's broken. The energy to reach to confront her again to chase closure on Mercy is spent. But last time, I check the phone, Priya's final message hangs, and acknowledge the last little pixel of her desperation I can't tell which. I turn the screen off, let the device slide into the side pocket of my bag, then fold down the blankets, climb beneath, and stare up into the heavy dark. I imagine how semtipa for her presence, her guilt, her tears replaying the same patterns on a loop. For the briefest moment, an image, my own outline, visible in the glow from the street light, reflected in the window, moving forward and away. Somewhere in the quiet, morning will arrive. But for now, trust lies buried under the ruin of small, ordinary lies and the space between what was and what's left John's wider than ever. And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next one. And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on

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