Rot on the Counter

The papaya had been sitting on the counter for three days, its skin mottling with brown bruises that Maya found herself staring at whenever she needed to avoid looking at Daniel. He was sprawled on the couch, iPhone glowing against his face in the darkened living room, the blue light casting hollows under his eyes.

Outside, lightning fractured the sky, and she counted the seconds before thunder rattled the windowpane. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand. The storm had been building all afternoon, much like the words she'd been swallowing since Friday.

Their cat, Buster, leapt onto the counter and sniffed at the rotting fruit, his whiskers twitching with disdain.

"Get down," Maya said, but her voice lacked conviction. Nothing she said to Daniel lately seemed to land anyway.

"Did you pay the cable bill?" Daniel asked without looking up from his screen.

"Yes."

"Because it's out again."

"It's the storm, Daniel."

He finally looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time in days. "You've been distant."

Maya laughed, a dry humorless sound. "I'm distant? You've been living in that phone since last week. Since you started working late. Since you started putting it face-down on the table whenever I walk into the room."

Another flash of lightning illuminated the apartment, and in that brief white pulse, she saw something shift in his expression—guilt, or perhaps relief that the unspoken had finally been spoken.

"There's someone else," she said, not a question. The papaya's sweetness had turned to fermentation, and the whole apartment smelled of slow decay. She wondered if he'd taste like betrayal too—sharp and wrong, like something that had once been good but had waited too long.

Buster rubbed against her leg, purring insistently. Some loves were uncomplicated.

"I'm sorry," Daniel said, and the iPhone slipped from his hand, clattering onto the floor. Outside, the sky broke open.