Curveballs in the Dark

The papaya sat in the produce section, immodestly ripe in its spotted yellow skin, like some tropical joke in the fluorescent sterility of Whole Foods. Elena reached for it automatically—David's favorite—then froze with her hand hovering inches from the fruit. Six months since he left, and her muscles still remembered him better than her heart did.

"Go ahead," said a voice beside her. A silver-haired woman with kind eyes and a canvas full of organic produce. "Life's too short for second-guessing fruit."

Elena's laugh came out rusty. "My ex loved these. I don't even like papaya."

"Then why are you still buying it?" The woman moved down the aisle with her cart, leaving the question hanging in the chilled air like smoke.

Why indeed.

At home, Barnaby—David's parting gift, a morally ambiguous orange tabby with attachment issues—wove between Elena's ankles, screaming like she'd abandoned him for decades instead of eight hours at work. She dropped the papaya on the counter. It rolled to a stop against the coffee maker, a small rebellion.

The television flickered to life: Cubs versus Cardinals, bottom of the ninth. David had pretended to care about baseball, but really he'd cared about holding her hand during innings, about the excuse to drink beer at 2 PM on weekends, about the ritual of something that stretched on forever, just like he'd promised their marriage would.

Barnaby jumped onto the couch and placed a possessive paw on her thigh. His purr rumbled through her jeans, suspiciously like judgment.

"You're right," she told the cat, slicing into the papaya with more force than necessary. Its flesh wept pink juice onto the cutting board, sweet and cloying and unfamiliar. She took a bite.

God, she hated papaya. Always had. David had just assumed he knew her better than she knew herself.

The baseball game blared—someone hit a home run, the crowd erupted—but Elena was already at the sink, spitting the fruit into the running water. She rinsed her mouth, then the cutting board, then stood with her hands braced on the counter as something loosened in her chest, something that had been knotted tight for six months.

On the couch, Barnaby watched with unblinking amber eyes.

"You're stuck with me," she told him, tossing the rest of the papaya into the trash. "But we're ordering Thai."