Signal Loss

The orange sunset bled into her apartment, catching dust motes in the dying light. Sarah's thumb hovered over her iPhone, the screen illuminating her face in the gathering darkness. Three unread messages from him. Or maybe four. She'd stopped checking after the second bottle of wine.

Her cat, Barnaby, wound around her ankles, his purr a steady rumble against the silence. He was the only constant in a week of upheaval. The only one who didn't ask what happened, didn't look at her with that mixture of pity and judgment everyone else wore.

"He's not my friend anymore," she'd told HR yesterday, when they asked about the reorganization. As if David had ever been just a friend.

She pressed delete on the messages without reading them. Then deleted them from trash. Then sat watching the empty inbox as if expecting something to grow there.

Barnaby jumped onto the windowsill, batting at an orange leaf that had drifted in from somewhere. Sarah remembered David's laugh when she'd bought this apartment. Too expensive, he'd said, but he'd helped her paint the walls anyway. That Sunday had smelled like oranges and coffee and possibility.

Her iPhone chimed. A calendar reminder: Dinner at Elena's. Everyone would be there. Everyone would know. David would probably bring someone new—not officially, but the way he did things. Gradually. Quietly. Making her seem crazy for noticing at all.

Barnaby butted his head against her hand. She buried her face in his fur, smelling nothing but cat and comfort. Tomorrow she'd call in sick. Tomorrow she'd find a new job. Tonight she'd sit here with the last of the wine and watch the orange light fade into black, feeling the terrible freedom of having nothing left to lose.