Tropical Departure

The orange lay on the white nightstand, already beginning to brown at the edges. Sarah had sliced it that morning, planning breakfast before the flight home. Now it was midnight, and Marcus still hadn't returned from the hotel bar.

She sat on the balcony, her palm resting against the cool railing, watching the palm trees sway in the Caribbean wind. Their honeymoon suite. Four days of forced conversation, pity sex, and Marcus checking his iPhone every twelve minutes like a recovering addict counting down to his next fix.

The screen lit up again from inside the room. 2:14 AM.

Sarah knew she shouldn't look. She'd promised herself yesterday, when she'd found him on the balcony at dawn, already on a call, speaking in that soft confidential voice he used to reserve for her. The voice that now made her stomach turn.

But she went inside anyway.

The iPhone displayed a notification: *Happy anniversary, my love. Can't wait until Friday.*

Friday. When he'd told her he had a conference in Chicago.

Sarah peeled back the remaining slices of the abandoned orange. The citrus spray stung her eyes as she realized — today was their anniversary. She'd forgotten in the misery of this failed trip. Someone else hadn't.

She took a bite, bitter and sweet, and understood suddenly that there was no coming back from this. That the woman messaging him wasn't the problem, but a symptom of something that had died years ago in their apartment in Seattle, beneath layers of compromise and quiet resentment.

The balcony door opened. Marcus stumbled in, reeking of rum and coconut. "You're still up," he said, reaching for his phone on the nightstand. He didn't even look at her.

Sarah swallowed the last of the orange and stood up. "I'm leaving, Marcus. Not the room. The marriage."

He froze, palm halfway to his phone, and for the first time in three years, really looked at her.

But by then, she was already packing her suitcase.