Static Between Us

Maria lay in bed watching the storm, her iPhone plugged into the fraying cable that twisted across her nightstand like a black snake. Three percent. The battery had been dying all day, much like the rest of her life.

Outside, lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the empty half of the mattress where David used to sleep. He'd left two weeks ago—no dramatic fight, no slammed doors. Just a quiet Tuesday morning conversation about "needing space" that ended with boxes being packed and a key left on the counter. He'd called himself her friend, as if that soft word could cushion the blow of becoming a stranger.

Barnaby, her elderly tabby, jumped onto the bed and settled against her hip, purring like a small engine. Maria had adopted him during her first year of graduate school, back when she still believed love was something you could earn through careful calibration of your own needs. Now she just poured kibble into a bowl and let the animal comfort her.

Her phone buzzed.

David: *Can we talk?*

Maria's thumb hovered over the screen. For two weeks she'd been waiting for this message, rehearsing what she'd say. But now that it appeared, the words felt hollow. She thought about last month, when they'd driven to the coast and watched lightning strike the ocean in brilliant violet arcs, standing close enough that their arms touched. He'd told her he loved her then, or something like it—said he couldn't imagine his life without her in it. Words that meant everything until they meant nothing.

The storm outside intensified. Rain lashed against the windows.

Barnaby lifted his head, ears perked, as if sensing her hesitation. Then the phone slipped from her hand, the cable caught it, and the screen went black.

Dead.

Maria lay there as the room darkened completely, feeling something loosening inside her. The cable had been charging a dying connection anyway. She curled around the cat, closed her eyes, and listened to thunder roll toward them like the end of something she'd been holding onto for far too long.

Some messages, she realized, weren't meant to be answered.