The Weight of Waiting

Marissa stood on the balcony of the fifteenth floor, the frayed cable of the hotel's internet connection swaying in the tropical breeze like an unanswered question. She was supposed to be presenting the merger proposal in twenty minutes, but instead she was pressing her phone against her chest, waiting for a message that might never come.

The papaya on the room service tray had gone soft at the edges, its flesh weeping onto the white ceramic plate. Thomas had ordered it for her yesterday morning, back when they were still pretending this was just a business trip, back before he'd whispered "I've never felt this way about anyone" in the elevator, his hand lingering on the small of her back.

Now he was downstairs, probably charming the board members with that fox-like smile—the one that made you feel like you were the only person in the room, until you realized you were just the only person in the room he hadn't already used.

A stray dog wandered into the parking lot below, its ribcage visible beneath matted fur. Marissa watched it nose around the BMWs and Mercedes before settling beneath a palm tree, curling into the shadows. She felt an unexpected kinship with the creature—the way it found comfort in the in-between spaces, the way it seemed to understand that belonging was a luxury it couldn't afford.

Her phone buzzed. Not Thomas.

"Can you believe he's bringing his wife?" The text from Sarah, her coworker. "She just walked into the conference room."

Marissa laughed, a dry, humorless sound that got lost in the ocean breeze. The cable outside the window whipped harder now, and she thought about how easily things snap—how quickly trust becomes just another broken thing you have to learn to live without. She picked up her phone, deleted Thomas's number, and walked toward the elevator. Some mergers shouldn't be approved, and some hungers shouldn't be fed.