Expiration Date

The papaya sat on the counter, its skin mottled with yellow bruises like fading love bites. Sarah had bought it three days ago, back when she still thought exotic fruit might save them.

Mark's iPhone buzzed against the granite countertop, the screen lighting up with her name before dimming again. He'd stopped answering sometime around the spinach incident.

That had been Tuesday. Sarah had attempted—in what now felt like a pathetic bid for domestic normalcy—to cook healthy dinners. Spinach wilting in the pan, her voice rising about boundaries and expectations, while he stared past her at the goldfish bowl on the windowsill.

"Bubbles looks depressed," he'd said.

"The fish is fine. We're not."

Now it was Friday, and the papaya had ripened into something almost obscene in its overripeness. The smell hung sweet and cloying in the apartment's stale air.

She found him sitting on the balcony, phone face-down beside his wine glass. His back was to her, but she could see the goldfish bowl reflected in the glass door—just one fish now, circling its plastic castle in endless loops.

"Bubbles died," he said without turning. "Did I tell you?"

"When?"

"Yesterday. I flushed him before my meeting."

The papaya's flesh was soft as butter when she finally cut it open, black seeds speckled like something diseased. She ate it standing at the sink, juice dripping down her chin, thinking about how some things rot before you ever get to enjoy them.

"Are you going to ask?" Mark called from the balcony.

"Ask what?"

"Who was calling." He gestured vaguely at his iPhone, still lighting up with incoming messages.

"I already know." She swallowed another bite, too sweet now, almost fermenting on her tongue. "That's the worst part. I already know."

He turned then, and she saw what she'd been pretending not to notice all week: the absence in his eyes, the way he'd already packed his things in boxes labeled with titles like his work projects. Spinach and papaya, goldfish and iPhone—the detritus of a life they'd stopped actually living months ago.

"It's been over for a long time, Sarah."

"I know," she said, and finally put the papaya down. "I was just hoping we'd rot together."