Connection Fault

The cable snakes through Elena's apartment like a black vein, pulsing with voices she stopped listening to months ago. She's supposed to be working but finds herself watching rain streak the window instead, counting the seconds between lightning flashes.

Three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five—crack.

The storm has been tracking up the coast for days. Somewhere outside, a tree falls. Somewhere else, a friend she hasn't spoken to since the divorce is probably watching the same weather channel, same forecast of destruction.

Her phone buzzes. Richard.

She considers letting it go to voicemail, his third missed call this week. Instead: "You're not my friend anymore, Richard. You're his friend. That's different now."

Silence on the line, then lightning close enough to make the walls groan. The cable flickers, dies, comes back.

"I'm worried about you," he says. "Marie said you haven't been returning calls."

"Marie should worry about her own marriage."

The old bitterness rises like bile. Richard sighs—the sound of someone who's witnessed too many slow crashes to intervene anymore.

"The storm's supposed to be worst tonight," he says, shifting to safer ground. "You have someone checking on you?"

"I have cable. I have wine. I have absolutely everything I need."

Another lightning strike, so close it whites out the street. The cable goes black and stays black.

"Elena?"

"I'm here. Just lost power. Or signal. Both."

"I can come over—bring a generator, check the lines—"

"Don't."

"Elena, please."

She watches her reflection in the darkened window, a ghost haunting her own living room.

"You want to be the good friend," she says softly. "You want to be the person who did something. But some things don't get fixed with generators and late visits. Some things just burn."

Lightning illuminates the room in stark relief—her empty couch, her half-empty wineglass, the black cord snaking uselessly across the floor.

"I'm sorry," Richard says. "About everything."

"I know," she says. "That's the worst part."

She hangs up as the next bolt hits, and sits in the dark waiting for whatever comes next.