The Things Between Us

The cable box blinked 12:00 in the corner of the room, its steady pulse the only sign of life. Sarah watched it from the kitchen doorway, the refrigerator humming behind her. She'd meant to call someone about it—Comcast, she thought, or maybe it was Spectrum now—but weeks had slipped past and the blinking continued, like some small electronic heart refusing to give up.

Mark was at the table, pushing spinach around his plate. He'd started that diet last month, the one his doctor had suggested after the yearly physical. Sarah watched him chase a leaf with his fork, his movements careful and deliberate. Everything was careful now. Their conversations, their touches, the way they navigated around each other in the mornings.

"Remember when we went to that baseball game?" Mark asked suddenly, not looking up from his plate. "Years ago. Before—"

"Before what." She hadn't meant it as a question.

He shrugged. "Before. Just—before."

She remembered, though. The cheap seats, the beer spilled on her jeans, the way he'd shouted himself hoarse when some player hit something important. She couldn't remember the teams. Couldn't remember who'd won. Just his hand warm on her thigh and the sky turning that particular shade of orange as sunset bled into night, the whole stadium suspended in that golden hour when anything still seemed possible.

They'd driven home singing, windows down, and stopped at a diner for pancakes at midnight. She'd looked at him across the table, syrup on his chin, and thought: *this. This is what I want forever.*

Now the spinach was wilting on Mark's plate. The cable kept blinking its unhelpful message. Somewhere in the house, a phone vibrated—his or hers, she couldn't tell anymore. They were like two radio stations broadcasting on slightly different frequencies, close enough to hear each other's static but never quite the music.

"I called the repairman," she said, because someone had to say something. "About the cable. He's coming Thursday."

Mark nodded. "Thursday." He took a bite of spinach, chewed slowly. "That's good. That's—good."

Outside, the streetlamp flickered on, casting long shadows across their lawn. Somewhere distant, a dog barked. The evening settled around them like dust, coating everything in the same gray layer, and Sarah thought about how much effort it took, sometimes, just to keep breathing in and out, to keep pretending that Thursday's cable repair might fix something that had broken years ago.