Cable to Nothing

The orange ball bounced against the glass wall, a rhythmic thud that matched the hollow ache in my chest. I'd been playing padel alone for forty minutes, a pathetic spectacle at the club where Marcus and I used to dominate Friday nights. The pro shop had stopped staring weeks ago.

I was thirty-nine, freshly separated, and moving through life like a zombie — automated, numb, somehow still functioning. The apartment echoed with half-packed boxes. Marcus had left behind his ethernet cable, a thick black snake coiled mockingly on the floor where his desk used to be. I kept stepping over it, too exhausted to bend down and finally cut the connection.

'You're bearing up well,' my sister had said over coffee yesterday, her careful tone suggesting otherwise. She didn't know about the nights I sat on the balcony fully dressed, unable to move, watching the orange smudge of sunset bleed into darkness until streetlights flickered on.

The padel ball sailed into the corner. I didn't chase it. Instead, I leaned against the warm glass, suddenly furious at everything — at Marcus for leaving, at myself for becoming this hollowed-out version of a person, at the casual way lives unravel like that frayed cable still tangled on my bedroom floor.

My phone vibrated. Marcus: 'Left my running shoes. Can I come by Sunday?'

I stared at the message until the screen dimmed. The orange ball rested in the corner, abandoned. I wasn't a zombie anymore. Zombies didn't feel this sharply, this completely. The numbness was burning off, and what remained was something worse: clarity.

I texted back: 'Leave them in the mailbox.' Then I blocked his number, picked up my bag, and walked out of the club into the blazing afternoon light, finally ready to bear the weight of whatever came next.