Everything That Tethers

The cable snapped somewhere around 3 AM—first the picture on the television pixelated into digital snow, then the internet died completely. Elena sat in the sudden blue glow of the room, the backup battery on her modem blinking its lonely heartbeat. Outside, lightning splintered the sky in jagged veins, illuminating the rain that streaked her window like something weeping.

She'd been running three days a week since Marcus left. Not away from anything so much as toward an exhaustion that allowed her to sleep without dreaming. The route took her past the Asian market where they used to argue over which papaya was ripe enough—him pressing his thumb into the yellow flesh, her insisting on waiting one more day. Now she bought them perfect and ate them standing over the sink, juice dripping down her chin, feeling nothing.

Her hair had grown six inches since the divorce. The stylist had asked if she wanted a trim, something manageable, professional. Elena had said no. She liked the way it tangled around her shoulders now, the way it caught on everything like it was trying to hold onto something.

The cable guy wasn't coming until Friday. Three days of disconnection looming like something heavy.

Elena stood at the window, watching the lightning strike somewhere beyond the ridge, the thunder arriving seconds later like an afterthought. She thought about Marcus's hands, how they'd felt when he still touched her. She thought about the way they'd lie in the dark, Netflix flickering across their faces, some terrible show they'd both half-watch, legs tangled, the corded cable between them on the nightstand charging two phones that belonged to people who still loved each other.

The papaya in the fruit bowl was probably going soft by now. She should eat it before it turned. She should run. She should do something besides stand in this dark room watching the sky tear itself open.

Instead, she pressed her palm to the cold glass and waited for the next flash, something in her chest unfurling like a bruise, like possibility, like the first honest thing she'd felt in months.