Signal Loss

The morning you left, I went running. Not because I wanted to, but because my body demanded movement, some way to outrun the silence expanding through our apartment like gas. Three miles in, I saw a fox—sleek, orange, unconcerned—watch me from behind a fence. It tilted its head, almost sympathetic, before vanishing into someone's yard.

That night, I slept on the couch because our bedroom still smelled like your shampoo. My iPhone died at 2 AM, the charging cable frayed beyond use, the third one this year alone. I'd been staring at your Instagram story—you at some bar, laughing, already moving through grief's geometry like it was simple math.

I ordered a new cable the next day, overnight shipping. Some desperate attempt to restore connection to anything.

We'd built our marriage like a pyramid, didn't we? Wide foundation of shared history, layers of compromise, narrowing toward something we kept calling "the good life"—that apex where we'd finally have enough money, enough time, enough security to be happy again. But the higher we climbed, the less oxygen there was. The steeper the drop.

You reached the top first. Found you could breathe fine without me.

The new cable arrived yesterday. I charged my phone and found your text: "Can we talk?" Five words that once would have sent me running back, ready to rebuild. Instead I watched another fox dart across the backyard—quick, wild, unburdened by architecture.

I left you on read. Some structures aren't worth salvaging.