The Service Call

Sarah lay on her beige carpet, the coaxial cable from the wall snaking across her living room like a dead animal. She'd spent twenty minutes trying to reconnect the internet after another night of doomsurfing, her thumb sore from scrolling through everyone else's perfect lives while her own relationship dissolved pixel by pixel.

When she finally called the cable company, they sent someone at 7 PM on a Tuesday. She opened the door to find Daniel — her college lab partner, the one who'd ghosted her after graduation without explanation. He wore the same faded universities sweatshirt she remembered, but his eyes had that particular dullness she'd come to recognize in people who'd given up on pretending.

"Sarah," he said, and for a moment they were twenty-two again, dissecting frogs and talking about changing the world. "Didn't know you lived here."

"Small world," she said, stepping aside. "I guess."

He worked efficiently, kneeling beside her entertainment center with practiced movements. A golden retriever mix appeared in her open doorway — Mrs. Henderson's dog, escaped again. The animal trotted in and lay beside Daniel, resting its head on his knee. He paused, one hand buried in the dog's fur, eyes closed for a moment.

"My dad died last year," he said suddenly, not looking at her. "That's why I disappeared. Took care of him, and then... well, here I am."

"I'm sorry," she said, and realized she was. She'd spent years imagining he'd abandoned her, but sometimes life just happened to people. "I'm getting divorced."

He looked up then, really looked at her, and she saw that they were both just people who'd promised themselves more than life delivered. The dog thumped its tail against the floor.

"Internet's fixed," he said, standing up. "But Sarah? Maybe unplug it for a while. Sometimes the cable's not the problem."

She watched him walk away, the dog following him down the hallway, and realized they'd never been lovers or even friends in the way that mattered. They were just two people who'd survived themselves, connected briefly by a wire she probably wouldn't use tonight after all.