Everything That's Left

The day Mara left, she took the dog but left the cat. That should have told me everything about how she saw us—Barnaby, this stubborn orange tabby who hissed at her fancy shoes, was mine; Duke, the retriever who looked at her with worshipful eyes, was hers. She said Duke needed a yard anyway. Our apartment was no place for a dog who deserved to run.

Six months later, I'm still running, but not in the way she meant. Every morning at 5 AM, I lace up my shoes and pound the pavement until my lungs burn, a orange sunrise bleeding into the sky. It's the only time I don't feel like I'm waiting for something to happen.

The vitamin supplements sit on my counter, organized by size and color. Mara used to laugh at my ritual—this careful accounting of what my body needed, as if I could supplement my way to being whole again. A vitamin for bone health, one for heart, one for that vague promise of energy. But I keep taking them because somewhere between the vitamin D and the fish oil, I've convinced myself that if I'm meticulous enough about staying alive, I might eventually start feeling like I'm actually living.

Barnaby watches me from his perch on the windowsill, his tail twitching with judgment. Sometimes I talk to him about Mara, about the dog, about the way the apartment echoes differently now. He purrs like a small engine, indifferent and absolute. There's something profound about his lack of forgiveness—he doesn't miss her, doesn't ask about her, simply exists as if this was always how it was meant to be.

Yesterday I saw them—Mara and Duke—walking in the park near my office route. Duke was running ahead, his golden coat catching light, tail whipping with joy. Mara was laughing, phone to her ear, looking like someone who had never spent three years wondering if she was making the wrong choice.

I kept running. My chest ached, but not from the exercise.

That night, I skipped the vitamins. I sat on the couch with Barnaby curled against my leg, the orange glow of streetlights filtering through the blinds, and finally let myself feel it—all of it, sharp and necessary and real. The cat kneaded my thigh with deliberate precision, his purr rising like a tide, and for the first time in months, I didn't need to run away from myself.