Tethered

The coiled **cable** behind the television had become a nest of our neglect—dust rabbits breeding in the loops, the plastic casing yellowed from years of sunlight through the blinds we never opened. Marcus stood before it, wire cutters in hand, while I sat on a box marked 'His Books', watching him prepare to sever what was left of our life together.

"You don't have to cut it," I said, though the words felt like stones in my throat. "Just unplug it."

"It's too tangled," Marcus said, not turning around. "Cleaner this way."

We'd been dividing our possessions for three days. The apartment echoed with cardboard sliding across hardwood, with taped seams ripping, with the terrible politeness of two people who'd forgotten how to fight. The **goldfish**—I'd won it at a carnival on our second date, lived seven years in that bowl—swam in lazy circles on the kitchen counter. Neither of us had mentioned who would take it. Neither of us had fed it this morning.

Marcus brought me an **orange** from the crisper, peeled it in strips that fell like confetti. His hands had always been beautiful—pianist's hands, surgeon's hands. Now I couldn't remember the last time they'd touched me without purpose.

"You should take the fish," he said, handing me a segment. "You always remembered to change the **water**."

"You got him for me," I countered, though I couldn't remember why that mattered anymore.

"I got him because I wanted to win you something."

The admission hung between us, small and terrible. Outside, summer rain streaked the windows, the world dissolved and running. I thought about how love was like water—soft enough to hold you, strong enough to drown you. How we'd spent seven years being neither one thing nor the other, suspended in some gray space between staying and leaving, until the decision had made itself through neglect.

Marcus set down the wire cutters. He turned to me, and for the first time in months, really looked. The goldfish broke the surface, gasping. I realized then that love doesn't end with fireworks or screaming matches. It ends when you forget to feed it, when the water goes cloudy and still, when you both wake up one morning and realize something has been dead for a long time.

"I'll take the fish," I said. "You keep the cable."

He nodded once. I ate the orange he'd peeled, tasting his fingerprints, salt, and something like forgiveness.

Later, carrying the bowl through the rain, the water sloshing against the glass, I understood what we'd really been fighting for all those years. Not each other. Not love. Just the right to say we'd tried.