The Screen Between Us

The gate agent's voice droned over the PA system, but Sarah's attention was fixed on her iPhone. Another message from David. Or lack thereof—just a heart reaction to her text from three hours ago.

She felt like a zombie moving through terminal B, that gray liminal space where time dissolved into departures and arrivals. The fluorescent lights hummed, and around her, other travelers walked with the same dead-eyed expression, faces illuminated by the blue glow of their screens.

Her phone buzzed. A photo from David: him at their kitchen table, staring at his laptop. The caption read: "Working late."

Sarah stared at the image, trying to remember the last time they'd really talked. Not about schedules or bills or whose turn it was to walk the dog. Talked. Six months ago? A year? David had become a sphinx to her—inscrutable, distant, guarded by riddles she couldn't solve. Every time she tried to breach his walls, he'd withdraw further into work, into his phone, into anything but her.

"Now boarding rows 15-20."

She'd come home early yesterday to surprise him. Found him in the home office, three different devices glowing around him. When she'd touched his shoulder, he'd flinched like a burn victim. That was when she knew: whatever they'd had was already gone, hollowed out by inches of glass and terabytes of distance.

Her iPhone lit up again. David: "When will you be back?"

Sarah typed a response, then deleted it. Typed again. The cursor blinked like a heartbeat, but she couldn't find the right words.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, her plane waited on the tarmac. She wasn't going to DC anymore. She was going somewhere else. Anywhere else.

The sphinx had asked its riddle, and for once, she didn't want to solve it.

She powered off her phone and walked toward the gate.