The Last Interrogation

The coaxial cable lay coiled on the nightstand like a dead snake, a remnant of the life we'd built together in this apartment. Seven years of HBO subscriptions and Sunday night movies, all reduced to this abandoned black tether.

"You should take your vitamins," Elena said, not looking up from her suitcase. She was folding our life into neat rectangles. "You always forget when you're upset."

The irony hit me like physical pain. She was leaving me for another man—a corporate spy she'd been tasked with honey-trapping three years ago. Only somewhere along the way, the trap had become real, and now she was choosing to burn her career rather than complete the mission.

I picked up the glass of orange juice she'd poured for me, breakfast in the middle of the afternoon. The pulp stuck to the sides. "So what happens now?"

"Now I disappear." She finally met my eyes. "And you get to keep the apartment. And the cable subscription, if that's what you want."

"That's not what I want."

"I know." She zipped her suitcase shut. The sound was final, like a judge's gavel. "But it's what you're going to get."

She left with nothing but a carry-on and the guilt of a woman who'd lied about everything except falling in love. I sat on the bed we'd picked out together at IKEA, drinking warm orange juice while the cable company called to ask about our service renewal.

"Yes," I told them. "Keep it connected."

Some lies are worth paying for.