Screen Time

The charging cable frayed at the connection point, exposing copper like a tiny wound. Elena stared at it while her iPhone displayed 3% battery, its final gasp before the long weekend began. Three days in Barcelona with Richard—padel tournaments and overpriced tapas—and she couldn't muster excitement. Couldn't muster anything anymore.

"You're like a fucking zombie," her coworker Jenna had whispered yesterday, as they both pretended to review spreadsheets they'd stopped understanding months ago. "You haven't been alive since the promotion."

The promotion. Richard's triumph. The bull who'd charged through every obstacle, who'd promised she'd blossom under his mentorship. Instead, Elena had learned that being managed by your lover meant sleeping with your boss, eating with your boss, being critiqued by your boss during pillow talk about her "communication style" and "executive presence."

Her iPhone flashed 2%. The group chat pinged—Richard and his college friends, already in Barcelona, posting photos of courts at sunset. Padel, this trendy hybrid of tennis and squash that Richard had decided was THE thing, had become her domain. She'd learned the sport to please him, mastering the backwall flicks and the low volley kills, while he'd simply bought the expensive equipment and talked strategy.

3% battery. The cable lay limp beside her like a dead thing.

In the Barcelona rental's bathroom mirror, Elena studied her face. The same woman who'd walked into Richard's office three years ago, hungry and brilliant and certain that ambition was enough. What she hadn't understood: sometimes you succeed precisely because you're the sort of person who can be hollowed out without collapsing.

Her iPhone died. The screen went black, and for the first time in months, Elena saw her own reflection without Richard's notifications overlaid like watermarks.

She left the dead phone on the counter. Left the frayed cable tangled on the floor. The padel tournament could wait. Richard could wait.

The Barcelona sunset hit her face as she stepped onto the balcony, alive for the first time in years, and called the airline to change her flight.