What the Cable Knew

Mara sat cross-legged on the bedroom floor, surrounded by a tangle of coaxial cable that looked like the disembodied veins of some ancient machine. The cat—Lazarus, so named for his tendency to disappear for days—watched her with amber eyes from the dresser, his tail twitching with what she imagined was judgment.

Three weeks since David had moved out. Three weeks of sleeping on 'his' side of the bed, as if her body might somehow convince the mattress to retain his shape. The cable spooled through her fingers like time itself, measured in inches and centimeters, each foot another day she'd failed to call him.

'You're like a fox,' he'd told her once, not entirely complimenting. 'All instinct and impulse. You don't think about what happens after you pounce.' She'd laughed then, pressed her palm against his chest, felt his heartbeat rabbit-fast beneath her hand. She hadn't asked what he meant.

The cable was supposed to connect the new TV. Another attempt at normalcy. Another thing she'd bought to fill the silence.

Lazarus leaped down, landed silently on the carpet. He wound himself through her legs, purring like a small engine. David had never liked cats. Had called them 'untrustworthy.' Hadn't that been projection?

Her phone lit up where it sat on the nightstand. His name. Again.

Mara's thumb hovered over the screen. Outside, November pressed against the window, its palm flat and demanding. The cable lay forgotten in her lap, a circle of possibility and restriction, connection and tether. She could call him back. Could unfurl whatever had twisted between them. Or she could keep cutting cables, keep rearranging furniture, keep pretending that absence was just another kind of presence.

The cat headbutted her chin, demanding. She buried her face in his fur, in the living warmth of something that stayed, and finally let herself remember what David had actually said that night: 'I love you, but I'm tired of being your something.'