Life Support

Elena watched him chew, fascinated by the casual indifference of it. The spinach salad she'd spent forty-five minutes preparing wilted under his careless fork movements, dark leaves turning to mush in his mouth. She remembered when he used to hang on her every word, when she'd catch him staring across restaurant tables like she was the only woman in the room.

Now his iPhone lay face-up on the table between them, its screen lighting up every thirty seconds like some supernatural heartbeat. Messages from someone named "Sarah" (since when did he know a Sarah?) that he'd quickly dismiss with practiced subtlety, thumb movements so smooth they made her stomach tighten.

"The cable's coming," he said, apropos of nothing. He'd been saying it for months. Their marriage, his startup, their maybe-someday children — everything was perpetually "coming."

The charging cable had frayed at the connection point, exposing copper wire that glinted accusingly under the pendant light. She'd been asking him to replace it for weeks. Another domestic chore deferred, another small disintegration.

"What did you say today?" she asked, though she already knew.

"What?" His palm grazed her knee — a familiar gesture that now felt rehearsed, obligation disguised as affection. The dog, old and euthanized in her mind but still very much alive beside his chair, thumped his tail against the floorboards, sensing it too. The animal had become her only confidante, a repository for all the things she couldn't say aloud.

"Today. At lunch. With Sarah." She kept her voice steady, amazed by her own calmness.

He stopped chewing. A piece of spinach, bright green and earnest, lodged between his front teeth. She didn't tell him. She wanted him to walk through the rest of his evening with it there, evidence of carelessness on display.

The iPhone buzzed again. Sarah.

"Elena—"

"Don't." She stood up, knees shaking with adrenaline. The dog raised his head, mournful eyes following her. "Just don't."

She left him there with his salad and his messages and his palm suspended in mid-air, reaching for nothing at all.