The Last Wave

Marina watched the cat padding silently across the kitchen counter, its gray fur blending with the morning light filtering through the window. She should stop him from jumping up there — David had made her promise a thousand times — but she couldn't summon the energy to care anymore.

Her iphone buzzed against the countertop, David's name glowing on the screen for the third time that morning. She let it ring. Let him wonder. Let him feel the weight of silence pressing back.

Marina's hair was still wet from her shower, dark strands plastering against her neck like black seaweed. She caught her reflection in the microwave door — the woman staring back looked like a stranger, hollowed out by three years of compromise, of shrinking herself to fit into the life David had imagined for them both.

They'd met running, of all things. Half-marathon training group, him twenty minutes faster than her, but he'd dropped back to match her pace that first Sunday morning. She'd fallen for the way he made everything feel intentional, like she wasn't just something happening alongside him but something he'd chosen.

Now she couldn't remember the last time he'd really looked at her.

The sink was dripping again — water rhythmically striking the stainless steel, counting down something she couldn't name. Marina turned off the tap properly this time, twisting the handle until it resisted. Everything in this apartment resisted. Everything required more force than it should.

Outside, the city was waking up. Somewhere, David was probably running along the river path, his breath clouding in the autumn air, his feet hitting the pavement with that terrible certainty she'd once found so attractive. He'd come home expecting coffee, expecting the Marina who'd learned to be smaller, quieter, more convenient.

She picked up the phone. Thirteen unread messages from him.

Marina walked to the bathroom and dropped the phone into the toilet. It hit the water with a soft splash, displacing porcelain silence, and she watched it sink beneath the surface, David's name still glowing faintly through the distortion.

The cat meowed from the doorway, suddenly demanding breakfast as if nothing had changed.

"Me too," Marina said aloud. "Me fucking too."