Fox in the Garden

Maria peels the orange on the reception balcony, juice running down her fingers in sticky rivers. Below, the wedding party toasts David and his new bride. Maria should be inside. She was the one who introduced them.

"You'll love her," Maria had said, feeling the lie sour in her throat. "She's a friend from work."

She watches the fox emerge from the hedgerow, its red coat stark against the manicured lawn. The creature pauses, ears twitching, regarding her with hungry eyes before vanishing into the darkness.

They'd gone swimming in David's apartment pool that last night together, the water chlorine-blue and cool against skin flushed with wine. They'd made love like it was the first time instead of the thousandth, desperate and grasping, both sensing the end.

"Sometimes things just end," he'd said the next morning, not meeting her eyes. "No reason. No fault."

Maria had nodded, swallowed the scream rising in her throat. That evening, she invited the fox—the friend from accounting with the predatory smile and the soft laugh that made David's eyes light up.

The orange rind falls to the stone floor. Maria's throat burns. She should have fought. Should have scratched and bitten and refused to let go gracefully. But she'd played the part: supportive friend, mature adult, someone who accepts that sometimes things just end.

Except they don't just end. Someone lets them.

Inside, the band strikes up a waltz. David spins his new bride across the floor, both of them laughing, perfect, complete. Maria finishes the orange segment by segment, each one bursting with sweetness that makes her want to cry.

The fox returns to the garden's edge, sits on its haunches, and watches her with something like understanding.