Charging Cable at the End of the World

The frayed iPhone cable dangled from the airport outlet, charging at the speed of desperation. Eleanor had been sitting here for forty-five minutes, watching the battery percentage creep upward in one-percent increments, as if each digit were a year of her life she'd never get back.

Her phone buzzed—a message from Mark. *I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry.*

Eleanor stared at the screen, the fluorescent lighting reflecting off the bull-shaped keychain Mark had bought her in Pamplona last summer. They'd run with the bulls, or rather, they'd watched from a balcony while nursing gin and tonics, both too drunk and too sensible to actually step onto the cobblestones. That was the joke between them: we're cowards, but at least we're honest cowards.

The bull on her keychain seemed to mock her now. Some honesty.

She'd worn her best hat to the airport—the fedora she'd splurged on in Milan during that conference where Mark had presented their joint research. He'd told her she looked like a film noir femme fatale. He'd said he loved a woman who could pull off a hat.

That was eight months, two failed grant applications, and one increasingly cold bed ago.

A businessman's phone rang at the next gate, some jaunty pop ringtone that felt wrong in a terminal full of delayed flights and broken promises. Eleanor's phone battery hit 14%.

Enough.

She stood up, shoving the bull keychain deep into her pocket where it couldn't stare at her anymore. The hat stayed on her head—some performances demanded commitment. She would board this flight to Seattle alone, deliver her presentation alone, and become the kind of woman who didn't need someone else to tell her she looked like a film noir heroine.

The iPhone cable snapped as she yanked it from the wall. Perfect.

She dropped the broken cable into the trash bin—her last offering to a version of herself that would die somewhere over the Rockies—and walked toward Gate 23B without looking back at the outlet, the phone, or the ghost of the person she'd been when she'd sat down.