Everything Left Behind

The orange sat on the counter, already developing a soft spot where it had been bruised in transit. Nathan stared at it, remembering how Sarah used to slice them into perfect wedges every Sunday morning, the citrus scent filling their tiny apartment. Now the silence felt heavier than the grief he'd been carrying for three months.

His iPhone buzzed on the table — a notification from Marcus, his oldest friend from college. "You coming to the game tonight?" Marcus meant well, but he couldn't understand why Nathan still flinched at the thought of crowded bars, the crack of baseball bats on televisions, groups of friends laughing without him. Sarah had loved baseball season. She'd painted her face in team colors, knew every player's stats, screamed at the referee calls with genuine fury. Nathan had just watched her.

The cat, a smug calico they'd named Miso, wound around Nathan's ankles. Sarah's cat, really. Miso had chosen Sarah immediately from the shelter, bonding with her in that exclusive way cats sometimes do. Now the cat tolerated Nathan, accepting his reluctant caretaking with a judgmental stare that seemed to ask what he'd done with the person who actually understood her.

Nathan picked up his phone, thumb hovering over the message. He could go. He should go. Marcus had been checking on him weekly, bringing groceries, sitting in companionable silence when Nathan couldn't make words work. That's what friends did — they stayed when things got messy, when grief made you unrecognizable to yourself.

But the orange had started to mold where it sat, a small spreading dark patch like the bruise on a heart that refused to heal. Nathan threw it in the trash, the satisfying thud echoing in the empty kitchen.

"Yeah," he typed back. "I'll be there."

Miso meowed, finally jumping onto his lap. For the first time in months, she began to purr.