What the Cable Revealed

Elara found the long dark hair wrapped around the drain of their shower—silky, inches longer than her own cropped bob. She stood there with the conditioner still in her hands, watching the water swirl down the drain, carrying with it the illusion that her marriage was something she could still trust.

That evening, Marcus came home late from another 'emergency at the office.' He moved through their apartment like a ghost, kissing her forehead with lips that felt absent. Dinner was reheated spinach lasagna—his favorite, or so she'd believed for seven years. As they ate in front of the television, some cable news program droned on about the economy, filling the terrible silence between them.

'You okay?' Marcus asked, finally, when the lasagna was gone and his third beer was empty.

Elara studied him. The gray at his temples. The way his shirts never seemed to fit right anymore. The hollows beneath his eyes that matched her own.

'I found a hair in the shower,' she said.

Marcus paused with his beer halfway to his mouth. A muscle jumped in his jaw. 'What kind of hair?'

The question itself was an answer. The way he'd had to think about it, process whether he should lie or feign ignorance. The tiny hesitation that told her everything.

Elara stood up and walked to the window. Their apartment faced west, and the sun was setting behind the city skyline, painting everything in bruised purples and burning oranges. She felt like she was swimming—no, drowning—in the thick waters of her own life, unable to surface, unsure if she even wanted to.

'Do you love me?' she asked, not turning around.

Behind her, she heard him set down the beer. The cable news continued its cheerful report on something that didn't matter at all. In the glass, she could see his reflection: a man she'd built a life with, now stranger than someone she'd meet on the street.

'Of course I do,' Marcus said.

The problem was, he sounded like he was trying to convince himself.