The Tether

The ethernet cable was still warm when Carlos found it. It snaked from the router across the hallway, its sheath softened from body heat, like a recently abandoned embrace. Someone had been lying on it. Stretching it.

He followed the cable's path past the kitchen where Sarah had made her famous lamb last night—overdone, she'd apologized, distracted by something she wouldn't name—past the bedroom where she'd begged off sex with a migraine, to the guest room door. Closed.

The bathroom held the real evidence. Long, black hair tangled around the drain, clinging to the porcelain. Sarah had pixie-cut brown hair she dyed herself every six weeks in their kitchen sink. This hair was straight and dark and belonged to someone who didn't live here. Someone who might visit when Carlos was at work.

His iPhone buzzed in his pocket. Sarah from the grocery store: "Need anything else?"

Her text was painfully ordinary. Married seven years, she was grocery shopping while he stood in their bathroom staring at the evidence of their quiet demolition. The incident—if that's what it was—had happened gradually. Maybe over months.

Carlos typed: "Who's in the guest room?"

His thumb hovered over send.

Then deleted it. The cowardice tasted like bile.

The cable technician arrived at 2:15, a young man with weathered hands and knowing eyes.

"Someone cut the line," he said, holding up the cleanly severed cord. "Wire cutters. Deliberate."

Carlos nodded. He understood now. Someone had been in their house—eating their food, using their shower, sleeping in the room Sarah used for her yoga—while Sarah apologized for overdone lamb and feigned migraines.

His iPhone buzzed again. Sarah: "On my way. Love you?"

The question mark was new. That was the surprise—she wasn't asking how he was. She was waiting for him to decide.