Suspension

I should have checked my reflection before leaving the office. Instead, I spent forty-five minutes in the elevator with Marcus from Accounting, a piece of spinach wedged firmly between my front teeth like some architectural disaster.

Marcus hadn't said anything. Of course he hadn't. He'd just stared at the floor numbers as they ticked upward, his polite smile strained, while I discussed the Q3 earnings report with what I now realized was horrifying sincerity. He probably went home and told his wife about the crazy VP with the salad in her teeth. They probably had a good laugh over their takeout.

The cable car ride home took longer than usual. Rain streaked the windows like the tears I refused to cry. My phone buzzed—David, asking if we were still on for tonight. I stared at his message until the screen went dark. Three years of marriage, and I couldn't remember the last time we'd really talked. We moved around each other like ghosts in our shared apartment, passing in hallways, exchanging logistics about groceries and bills, but never the things that actually mattered.

The car swayed over the city, suspended between buildings. Below us, people were going home to real lives. To partners who noticed when something was wrong. To relationships that didn't feel like careful choreography.

I'd been carrying it for months—the weight of my father's slow decline, the promotion I wasn't sure I wanted, the quiet realization that David and I had become strangers who shared a bed. It was more than I could bear, but I kept bearing it anyway. That's what adults did. They carried things.

The cable car reached my stop. I stepped onto the wet platform and caught sight of myself in the dark glass of the terminal door: tired eyes, spinach finally removed, mouth pressed into something that wasn't quite a smile. Behind my reflection, the city lights blurred through rain.

I pulled out my phone and texted David: *Can we talk? Really talk?*

Then I deleted it and typed: *I'm sorry. I've been distant.*

Then: *I think I need help.*

I stood there while the message delivered, while the three little dots appeared and disappeared and appeared again. While somewhere across the city, my husband read my words and decided whether to meet me in the space between us, or let me keep bearing it alone.