The Geometry of Goodbye

Marcus traced the coaxial **cable** along the baseboard with his eyes, following its path from the wall to the television where some reality show played on mute—contestants screaming silently about nothing while his entire marriage unraveled at the kitchen table.

"I can't do this anymore," Elena said, not looking at him. Her thumb picked at the dried skin around her fingernail. "I thought I could bear it. I thought loving you would be enough."

On the counter sat the **orange** she'd sliced for breakfast that morning, segments already oxidizing to brown at the edges. They used to eat breakfast together every day, even through the affairs and the rehab stays and the nights one of them slept on the couch.

Marcus pressed his **palm** flat against the table, feeling the worn grain of the wood they'd bought at IKEA twelve years ago, when they still believed assembling furniture together was a metaphor for building a life. "Is there someone else?"

"You know there isn't." Elena finally met his eyes, and that was worse. If there'd been someone else, at least he could hate her. At least there'd be a reason. Instead there was just the quiet accumulation of disappointments, the way love had eroded like stone under water. "It's just—I look at you and I don't recognize us anymore."

Through the window, the **pyramid** of the Luxor hotel caught the last light of sunset, its beam already beginning to cut through the gathering dark. They'd come to Vegas on their fifth anniversary, drunk and happy and certain that everything good lasted. They'd stood at the rail of this same balcony and made promises neither of them kept.

"Remember that night?" Marcus asked quietly. "You said marriage was like building something that would outlast us."

"I was twenty-five," she said. "I thought I could build anything."

Somewhere in the distance, a **bear** of a man shouted at a slot machine, the sound carrying up to them like punctuation. Like everything in this city, it was just noise trying to pass through the silence between people who'd run out of things to say.

Marcus nodded, once. He stood up, and the movement felt like stepping off a cliff. "Okay."

Elena closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was already gone from the room, even though she was still sitting there. "Okay."