Tethered

The orange glow of sunset bled across the horizon as Elena stood on her balcony, six months after David left. The moving truck had come and gone, taking his boxes, his books, his half of the life they'd built together in this apartment.

She held an orange in her hand, rolling it between her palms. David used to peel them for her, always leaving the rind in one long, continuous spiral. A stupid thing to miss. A stupid thing to remember.

The cable box sat dark beneath the television. They'd argued about cable — David wanted premium channels for sports, Elena wanted to cancel it entirely. Now she paid for packages she never watched, too paralyzed by inertia to call and disconnect. Some tethers were harder to cut than others.

She heard running footsteps on the sidewalk below and looked down. A woman jogger in neon spandex, maybe Elena's age, maybe younger, moving with purpose and grace. Elena used to run before her knees started whispering their complaints. Before life got heavy enough that she forgot how to be light.

Elena stepped back inside and filled a glass of water from the filter on the fridge. The refrigerator hummed, the only steady sound in the quiet apartment. She drank the water, cold and clean, and thought about how thirst worked — how you could go numb to it for years until suddenly you were parched.

She set the glass down. The orange sat on the counter, abandoned.

Elena picked up the phone and dialed the cable company.

"I'd like to cancel my service," she said, and her voice didn't shake at all.

Afterward, she stood at the window and watched the sky darken. The last light burned the color of bruised fruit, then faded into something that looked almost like hope.