Months moved.
Maddy had started her channel and hit twenty thousand subscribers in two months. She'd found her format direct, dry, always put together without trying too hard. Brand inquiries were coming in and she was handling them herself. It was good to watch.
She recorded in the corner of my studio one afternoon while I worked. She finished a take and came and sat on my lap while I adjusted levels.
"I love you," she said. "You saved me."
"I didn't save you."
"Fine. Helped. Whatever."
She kissed me and said she was going to Kat's later. I said okay. She got up.
"Love you too," I said to the board.
I saw her smile in my peripheral.
* * *
Two days later I went into the studio at noon.
The track I'd been chasing for two weeks broke open around midnight. I stayed inside it. When I played it back all the way through at 6:47 in the morning I just sat there with my headphones still on.
That was the one.
I drove home windows down, early morning air, the city just waking up. I was floating. Too happy and too tired at the same time.
I came through the door.
Maddy was in the kitchen. Sleep clothes. Arms crossed. Standing like she'd been standing there for a while and had made up her mind about how this was going to go.
"Hey."
"Where were you."
Not a question.
"Studio."
"All night."
"Yeah. I was in a session, I lost —"
"I called you twice."
I stopped. "What?"
"Twice. I called you twice and you didn't pick up. I texted you at midnight and at three and you didn't respond. I've been up since four in the morning."
"My phone was in my bag. I was in the zone, I didn't —"
"You didn't what? Think to check it? Think about me at all?"
"Maddy —"
"I slept on the couch," she said. "Because I couldn't be in that room by myself not knowing if you were okay. I kept thinking about last year and the hospital and —" She stopped. "And you're standing here telling me you were just in the zone."
"I'm sorry. I should've texted you. You're right, I should've —"
"Don't. Don't just say I'm right and expect that to be enough."
"I'm not. I'm saying I'm sorry."
"You walked in here like it was a normal morning."
"Because I didn't know —"
"That's the problem!" Her voice went up. "You didn't know because you didn't think about it. Because you didn't think about me. I could've been dead and you would've found out tomorrow."
"That's not —"
"Let me see your phone."
"Maddy."
"Let me see it."
"I'm not doing that."
"Why not."
"Because we're not that couple. I'm not showing you my phone every time I come home late."
"Every time?" She laughed but it wasn't funny. "You've never come home at seven in the morning without a single word. That's not every time, that's the first time. And you won't let me see your phone."
"There's nothing on it."
"So show me."
"No. Because it's the principle."
"The principle," she repeated. Staring at me.
"If I show you every time you ask, that's a pattern. That's not something I'm building into this."
"I'm not asking every time. I'm asking this one time because you disappeared for nineteen hours."
"And I explained why."
"You gave me a reason. That's not the same as explaining."
I looked at her. She looked back. We were both tired and both too stubborn and neither of us was going to move.
"I'm going to sleep," I said.
"Great."
"We can talk when I wake up."
"Sure."
I went to the room. She stayed in the kitchen. I was asleep in minutes.
* * *
When I woke up at two she was gone.
She came back that evening. Didn't say anything when she walked in. Put her bag down, went to the bathroom, came out, sat on the couch. I was at the kitchen table. I said hey. She didn't answer. Not rudely. She just didn't answer. Like she hadn't heard me. Like I wasn't in the room.
Okay. Here we go.
I let it go. I went back to what I was doing.
* * *
Day two of the silent treatment was the same.
She moved through the loft like I was furniture. Not mean about it. Not performing anything. Just genuinely disconnected from me in a way that was worse than if she'd been yelling. At least yelling meant I was there.
I tried once.
"Maddy."
She looked up from her laptop.
"Can we talk?"
She looked at me for about two seconds. Then she looked back at her laptop.
Okay.
That evening I ordered from the Thai place. The green curry she always got. I set the bag on the counter and went to the studio.
I stayed in the studio.
* * *
Day three she ate the food again without acknowledging it.
I ordered the same thing. She ate it. We slept on opposite sides of the bed.
This was my fault .
Not just the not texting. All of it. I'd walked in and been defensive when I should've just listened. I'd made it about the phone when the phone wasn't the point. She was scared. She'd been scared for three hours in the dark and I'd turned it into an argument about principles.
I looked at the ceiling for a long time.
* * *
Day four I sat next to her on the couch and put my phone in her hand.
She looked at it. Then at me.
"Go through it," I said.
She held it for a second. Then she started going through it. Messages. DMs. Call log. Photo roll. She went slowly and I let her. I sat next to her and didn't say anything and didn't watch her do it.
When she was done she held it for another second.
Then she said, "You could've deleted it."
I looked at her.
"Before you came home," she said. "You had all morning."
I took the phone back from her. Opened my texts. Handed it back.
"Look at the timestamps," I said.
She looked. Every thread. The time stamps on everything going back weeks, the gaps in conversations where I was in sessions, the nothing that was actually nothing. She handed it back.
She didn't say anything.
She looked at the wall for a long time.
I sat next to her and waited.
She didn't talk to me the rest of the night. She went to bed early. I stayed in the studio.
* * *
Day five I sat her down at the kitchen table.
She sat. Arms on the table. Waiting.
"I'm not going to explain myself again," I said. "You know what happened."
She said nothing.
"What I did wrong wasn't just not texting you. I should've texted you. But when I walked in and you were upset I made it about me. I made it about the principle of the phone thing instead of just listening to what you were telling me. You were scared. You woke up and didn't know where I was and you'd already been through enough last year that that kind of not-knowing isn't small for you. I understood that and I still argued with you about it. That was wrong."
She was watching me.
"I'm sorry. For all of it. The not texting, the coming in like nothing happened, the phone argument. I'm sorry."
She didn't say anything for a moment.
"I'm going to try to never put you in that position again. Not just texting. Actually thinking about where you are and what it's like on your end when I disappear. You give me more room than most people would and I didn't use it right."
The kitchen was quiet.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"I hear you."
"But?"
She looked at him evenly. "You're going to have to prove it."
"I know."
"I'm not just going to take your word for it, Jordan. Saying sorry and meaning it are different things. I'll know the difference."
"I'm not asking you to take my word. I'm asking you to give me the chance to show you."
She held his gaze for a long moment. The kind where she was measuring something she hadn't decided on yet.
Then she exhaled.
"The food was good," she said.
"I know what you like."
"Don't."
"I'm not."
She looked at her hands on the table. Something in her shoulders had come down.
"I finished the track," I said.
She looked up.
"It's the one."
She was quiet for another second. Then she pushed back her chair and stood up.
"Play it for me."