Suspension

The cable snapped with a sound like a gunshot.

Mara was forty-three floors up, inspecting the suspension bridge's main tension cable, when something gave way. She dangled, safety harness biting into her hips, watching the frayed steel whip against the grey Seattle sky. Below, the Sound churned like dirty laundry.

Her mind went absurdly calm. She thought of spinach—that contentious dinner with David last night, him pointing out green flecks in her teeth, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. They hadn't made love in six months. They hadn't touched in three.

The radio crackled. "Mara? You copy?"

"Copy." Her voice sounded foreign, thin. "Cable's compromised."

"We're sending rescue. Hold tight."

She'd been holding tight for years. David's late nights. The friend requests from women half his age. The credit card charges for hotels she'd never visited. Bullshit excuses delivered with surgical precision.

What had her mother said? "Darling, men are like bulls—they charge where they're pointed, but they'll trample you if you stand still."

She'd stayed still too long.

The harness groaned. She looked down at the water—a mile of cold salvation. She'd been swimming since she was six, varsity in college, still did laps three mornings a week. The water would take her. No more pretending. No more dinners choked silent by accusation.

Her phone buzzed against her hip—David, probably. Calling to check if she was okay, because he was that kind of man. The kind who'd hold your hand while quietly hollowing you out.

The radio again. "Five minutes, Mara. You're going to be okay."

She squeezed her eyes shut. How many minutes had she spent dangling—emotional vertigo while David lived comfortably on solid ground?

A sudden clarity, sharp and clean as broken glass: when they pulled her up, she wouldn't go home. She'd sign the papers waiting in her desk drawer. She'd sell the house. She'd finally learn to swim in open water, not chlorinated laps in a predictable rectangle.

The harness jerked. Someone was reeling her in.

She opened her eyes. Below, the water glittered indifferent and vast. Above, the cable hung broken, a question finally answered.