Ripe for Leaving

The papaya sat on the white ceramic plate, its orange flesh glistening like something that had already begun to rot from the inside out. Elena pressed her fork into it, watching the juice pool—same color as the swimsuit her husband wasn't wearing.

"Are you coming to padel today?" Marco asked, not looking up from his phone. His coffee sat untouched, going cold.

"I'm thinking of going swimming instead," Elena said. The pool beckoned through the floor-to-ceiling windows, its turquoise surface promising something weightless, something she could slip beneath and disappear into for minutes at a time.

Marco finally looked at her. His eyes had that glazed quality she'd learned meant he was half-present, half-wherever she wasn't allowed to follow. "We paid for the court reservation. It's non-refundable."

"Everything's non-refundable," she said softly.

The papaya tasted sweet, cloying, like artificial apology. She remembered buying it at the market yesterday—how she'd held it up to the light, checking for bruises, as if she could somehow choose the perfect fruit and everything else would follow. As if perfection were a thing you could shop for.

"Did you hear me?"

"I heard you." She stood up, her chair scraping against the tile. "I'm going for a swim."

"The lesson starts in twenty minutes."

"I know."

She walked out to the pool alone. The water was shockingly cold when she slipped in—so cold it almost hurt, then almost didn't matter. She swam to the bottom and stayed there, surrounded by muffled blue silence, watching her hair float upward like dark smoke. Above, the sun made patterns on the surface, shifting and fracturing, orange and gold through closed eyelids.

When she emerged, gasping, Marco was standing at the edge. He held an orange, peeled into a single spiral.

"We can still make the court," he said. "If we hurry."

Elena pulled herself from the water, dripping and shivering. She looked at the orange in his hand—perfect, continuous, patient. Waiting to be consumed.

"I don't want to hurry anymore," she said.

The orange fell from his hand and rolled across the deck.