The Screen Goes Dark

Maya sat on the dock's edge, legs dangling above the lake, clutching her iPhone like a lifeline. The sunset painted the water in strokes of burnt orange and bruised purple, beautiful in the way endings often are.

Three unread messages from David. She'd been staring at the notification for twenty minutes, her thumb hovering, heart racing in that sickening way it had since she'd found the receipt.

"We need to talk," his last message read. Classic.

She slipped the phone into her pocket and watched the water lap against weathered wood. They'd come here last summer—David, with his easy laugh and promises he couldn't keep, and Maya, foolish enough to believe them. He'd brought oranges from the farmers' market, peeling them with delicate fingers, feeding her segments as they talked about futures that would never happen.

Now the water held only reflections, and even those were distorted by the movement.

Her iPhone buzzed again. A call. She let it ring.

Maya stood up, the wood groaning beneath her. She pulled the phone from her pocket, the screen illuminating her face pale in the gathering dusk. David's name pulsed like a heartbeat, insistent, demanding an answer she wasn't ready to give.

"I'm not doing this," she whispered to the water, to the orange-streaked sky, to herself.

She pressed decline. Then, with a motion that felt both foreign and inevitable, she drew her arm back and released. The iPhone arced through the twilight, a final gesture of surrender, and hit the water with a splash that echoed longer than it should have.

The ripples spread outward, disturbing the perfect orange reflection of the setting sun. Maya stood at the water's edge, alone for the first time in years, lighter and emptier than she'd ever felt.

Somewhere beneath the surface, her phone glowed briefly before extinguishing forever.