Inventory of Us

The orange light of sunset hit the kitchen floor where she stood, holding a cardboard box that felt too light for everything it was supposed to contain. Three years of a life together, reduced to what she could carry.

A dog barked somewhere down the hall — not their dog, they'd never had one. That had been one of those circular arguments that seemed small until it wasn't. He wanted companionship; she wanted freedom. They'd compromised by having neither.

Her iphone buzzed in her pocket. Not him. Just a notification about a meeting she'd forgotten she'd moved to Monday. She didn't check it. The screen had been a fourth wall in their relationship anyway, glowing between them in bed, illuminating the empty apartment of their attention.

His baseball jersey hung on the back of a chair, a faded blue thing with peeling letters. He'd worn it to every game they'd attended together, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the cheap seats, drinking warm beer and pretending they enjoyed the ritual of it. She'd loved the rhythm of those nights — the seventh-inning stretch, the walk home, the predictable comfort of being two people who knew exactly how to be two people together.

Now she couldn't remember the last time they'd gone.

The cat appeared in the doorway — his cat, technically, though it had always preferred her. It wound around her ankles, purring, and she had to set down the box to pet it. The animal didn't know they were over. It would wait at the window tonight, expecting footsteps that wouldn't come.

She stood up slowly, her hip clicking. Thirty-seven and she felt like she was starting over, which was almost worse than ending. The apartment smelled faintly of his cologne and the oranges he'd bought last week, now softening in the fruit bowl. Evidence of a present that had already become past.

She picked up the box. She wouldn't take the jersey. She wouldn't take the cat. Some things you leave behind not because they don't matter, but because they matter too much to drag through what comes next.

She locked the door and didn't look back. Some inventories you finish alone.