The End of the Line

The cable guy spent three hours in our apartment, drilling and rerouting wires that snaked through our lives like the lies David had been feeding me for six months. I sat on the beige sofa, watching, thinking about how I used to run five miles every morning—before the insomnia, before I started checking his phone at 3 AM when I knew he was asleep.

"You've got a signal now," the cable guy said, packing up his tools. "But you might want to upgrade your package. What you've got is basic."

Basic. That's what David called our marriage when he finally confessed, standing in the kitchen where I'd been making dinner—feta and spinach spanakopita, his favorite. He said he needed something more complex. Someone who understood his ambition, his needs, his rapidly expanding definition of success.

The rain started just after the cable guy left, water drumming against the windows like fingers impatient to be let in. I'd stopped crying weeks ago, but my body still remembered how—how my chest would tighten, how my throat would ache, how my eyes would burn with that hot, stupid hope that maybe this time he'd choose me.

He came home at midnight, smelling of her perfume—something floral and expensive, nothing like the vanilla lotion I've worn since college. He didn't notice the new cable box. Didn't notice the suitcase by the door. Didn't notice anything until I dropped my ring in his whiskey glass, where it sank with a tiny splash and settled at the bottom, gold and unmissable.

"What's this?" he asked, and for the first time in months, he really looked at me.

"It's the upgrade," I said. "I'm finally getting premium."

The spinach was still in the refrigerator, wilting in the crisper drawer. The cable would keep working. The rain would stop. And I would finally stop waiting for him to choose me, because I'd already chosen myself.