Fiber Optic Dreams

Maya couldn't remember the last time she'd slept through the night. The bedroom glowed with the blue light of her laptop screen, casting shadows across Ethan's sleeping face. He looked peaceful now, but three years of marriage had taught her that peace was often just exhaustion in disguise.

The notification pinged at 2:47 AM. Her corporate chat, encrypted, the channel reserved for "sensitive matters." Their startup had attracted the wrong kind of attention—competitors who didn't believe in playing fair, investors who thought intellectual property was something you could just take.

"We have a spy," the message read. "Someone's feeding code to Apex. Security's running traces now."

Maya's stomach turned over. Not again. Last time, it had been a junior developer who needed money for his mother's cancer treatment. This time felt different. The leaks were strategic, surgical.

She slipped out of bed, padded to the kitchen. The neon glow of the microwave clock read 2:51 AM. On the counter, the papaya she'd bought three days ago sat untouched, its skin mottling with brown spots. Like their marriage, she thought bitterly. Beautiful once, now just something you kept around out of habit.

Ethan had been strange lately. Working late, password-protecting his phone, deflecting questions about his day. And the cable company had called yesterday—someone had ordered a business internet upgrade to their home address. Ethan hadn't mentioned it.

The vitamin supplements in the bathroom cabinet had been his excuse. "I'm running on empty, Maya. Just trying to get healthy." But he looked more frantic than fit. Dark circles. Jumpiness. The classic signs of a man hiding something.

Or someone.

She sat at his desk, heart hammering. The laptop was unlocked—a mistake he never made unless he was distracted. She opened the folder labeled "WORK" and found nothing suspicious. Then she saw the hidden partition, encrypted with a password she knew instantly: the date they'd met.

Her fingers trembled as she typed the numbers. The folder opened.

Not an affair. Not corporate espionage.

Medical records. Test results. Specialists' notes. A spreadsheet tracking symptoms, appointments, insurance claims. The cable upgrade—to support telemedicine appointments with specialists in three states.

The papaya, she realized. He'd been researching anti-inflammatory diets. The vitamins—supplements to manage what the doctors called "early-onset progressive." He wasn't running around. He was running out of time.

Maya folded her hands over her mouth, tears hot on her face. She'd spent three months suspecting him of betrayal while he'd been trying to protect her from the one thing he couldn't fix.

Behind her, Ethan's voice rasped from the doorway. "I didn't want you to watch me disappear."

The spy in their marriage had been her own fear, all along.