Fruit of the Dead

The papaya sat on the counter, orange flesh glistening like an open wound. Elena had bought it because it was Mateo's favorite, which was a spectacularly cruel thing to do, considering Mateo was no longer speaking to her.

Three months of silence since the dinner party where she'd told his wife about the affair. Three months since she'd lost her oldest friend, the one person who'd known her since they were swimming in the university pool at nineteen, drunk on cheap wine and the terrifying thrill of becoming someone new.

She cut into the fruit now, knife sinking through flesh that was somehow too soft, too eager to split apart. The scent hit her—musky and sweet, cloying, exactly like the nights they'd spent in his apartment while his girlfriend worked late, the papaya he'd always have waiting on his counter, as if that made it innocent.

"You're my best friend," he'd said, the last time they spoke, his voice breaking. "How could you?"

How could she what? Fall in love with him? Or destroy the carefully constructed architecture of their lives? She'd been swimming through resentment for years, watching him choose someone else over and over again while keeping her close enough to drown in.

She took a bite of the papaya. It was perfect, which was the worst part. He'd taught her how to pick them—how to press gently, how to spot the yellow beneath the green skin, how a few days on the counter could turn something hard and bitter into something that surrendered completely.

"Friends," he'd called them, even as his hands traced her spine, even as he whispered her name like a prayer he'd never actually say out loud.

Elena swallowed, the fruit's sweetness coating her throat, thick and undeniable. Some things, she thought, you could never make bitter again, no matter how badly you wanted to. Some things were always going to taste like betrayal.

She put the rest of the papaya in the trash. Learning to swim, she'd discovered at nineteen, meant learning that you could thrash and still go under. Learning to let go meant letting yourself sink, just for a moment, before you remembered how to breathe.