Structural Damage

The cable guy's name was Marcus, and he was the third person to enter Elena's apartment since the flood started. Not that she was counting. Water had been dripping from the ceiling for three days, a steady rhythm that matched the thumping in her chest every time her phone buzzed with another text from David.

"You've got a leak in the unit above," Marcus said, his voice neutral. He'd probably seen worse. "Someone's luxury renovation gone wrong."

Elena laughed humorlessly. "That's one way to put it."

She watched him work, thinking about pyramids. How at the bottom, you supported everyone above you, and if someone at the top made a mistake, the whole structure could collapse. That was her marriage, wasn't it? David at the apex, making decisions that affected everything beneath, and her somewhere in the middle, holding it all together while the foundation crumbled.

His latest scheme—this "multilevel marketing opportunity" he'd dropped three months of salary into—was just another pyramid. She'd tried to explain the math, but he'd called her negative. Unsupportive. That word still stung.

"Ma'am?" Marcus was holding up a severed cable. "Your internet's been out because water's been pooling around this connection. See?"

She nodded, not really seeing it. All she could think about was the fight they'd had two nights ago, when she'd finally said the word divorce and he'd looked at her like she was speaking a different language. The water damage report from the building management sat on her counter, another metaphor she couldn't escape.

"Fixed," Marcus said, packing up his tools. "You should file a claim with the building. Unit 4B's owner is responsible."

"I will," she said. "Eventually."

After he left, she stood in her quiet apartment and watched the last drops fall from the ceiling. The cable was repaired. The water would stop eventually. But the pyramid—that would take longer to dismantle.