Signal Lost

Maya sat at the kitchen table, the silence pressing against her ears like deep water. Her iPhone lay face down beside her half-eaten orange, its black screen reflecting the morning light that filtered through dusty blinds. Three missed calls from David. All from yesterday.

The orange had gone dry at the edges. She'd peeled it three hours ago, when hope still had teeth. Now the segments sat on a chipped ceramic plate, their vibrant color almost violent against the gray morning. She picked up a piece, the citrus spray sharp against her fingers, and ate it without tasting anything.

Barnaby — David's cat, really, though David had left him behind — wound around her legs, his russet fur glowing in the shaft of sunlight. He purred like a small engine, unaware that his person had evaporated into thin air. Just packed a suitcase and walked out four days ago, leaving behind nothing but a text message and this cat who now looked at Maya with amber eyes that seemed to ask when David was coming home.

The iPhone buzzed. Another notification. Maya didn't turn it over. She knew what it would say — the same things he'd been saying for months. I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. You're too much. It wasn't her fault that she felt things deeply, that she needed to know where she stood, that she asked questions he refused to answer.

She'd spent their entire relationship waiting for this phone to light up with his name, tracking his location when he went dark for hours, analyzing his text messages for hidden meanings. The device had become her tether, her anxiety object, the thing she reached for first every morning and last every night. And now it sat there, a small black rectangle containing all the ways she'd failed.

Barnaby jumped onto the table and nudged the orange rind with his nose.

"You're not supposed to be up here," she whispered, but she didn't push him away. Instead, she buried her face in his fur, breathing in the warm scent of him. At least something in this apartment still wanted to be close to her.

The iPhone buzzed again, longer this time. A call.

Maya watched it vibrate against the table, inching toward the edge. She thought about letting it fall, watching it shatter into a thousand pieces, destroying every digital trace of the person who had broken her heart.

Instead, she picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Maya." David's voice cracked. "I made a mistake."

The orange sat between them, between her kitchen and wherever he was, between the woman she'd been and whoever she was becoming. Barnaby purred louder, as if he understood that sometimes things come back around, even when you've already learned to live without them.

Maya closed her eyes. "I know," she said. "So did I."