Screen Light Mourning

The iphone lit up at 2:47 AM, the third time tonight. Maya watched it from her side of the bed, the blue glow illuminating Marcus's sleeping face, the slack mouth, the chest rising and falling in that rhythm she'd memorized over twelve years.

She wasn't a spy—she told herself this every time—but somewhere along the way, knowing had become its own addiction. The password, changed three months ago. The deleted messages, restored through that backup trick she'd learned from a Reddit thread. The notifications silenced but never ignored.

Marcus was a zombie, and so was she. They moved through their marriage in that particular undead way: going through motions, eating dinner across from each other, discussing weekend plans like two people who'd forgotten how to want the same things. The office parties, the couples' therapy sessions, the desperate attempts to manufacture intimacy—all of it performed by people who'd already died, bodies kept moving by sheer momentum.

She reached for the phone now, fingers practiced and silent.

New message from Sarah: "Can you talk?"

Maya opened the bottle of vitamin D on her nightstand—the doctor said her levels were critically low, sunlight deficiency from the windowless office where she spent her days reviewing other people's contracts. She dry-swallowed two pills, thinking about how she'd stopped taking her vitamins during the good years, when she'd believed love was its own form of nourishment.

The phone vibrated again. Sarah had sent a photo: Marcus, laughing, his hand on someone's shoulder. Someone Maya didn't recognize.

The betrayal didn't hit her like a blow. It settled in her chest like something she'd been expecting for years, a diagnosis finally confirmed. She watched Marcus sleep, the man she'd built a life with, and realized she was mourning something that had been dead for a long time.

She placed the phone back on his nightstand, exactly where he'd left it. In the morning, she would pack a bag. In the morning, she would become someone who didn't check passwords, who didn't need proof of what she already knew.

Tonight, she lay in the blue light and waited for the sun to rise on the first day of her life.