Seeds of What Was

The papaya sat rotting on Marcus's kitchen counter, its skin turning from gold to an angry bruised black, just like our friendship had done — slowly, then all at once. I'd come to collect my things, three months after he told me I was too negative for his healing journey.

Outside, the July heat pressed against the windows like an unwanted memory. I ran the tap, watching the water spiral down the drain, and remembered how we'd stood shoulder to shoulder at his sister's wedding, both of us drunk on cheap champagne and the reckless optimism of our twenties. He'd worn that hideous orange tie — 'burnt sunset,' he'd called it — and I'd laughed so hard I spilled wine on his rented tux. We'd made a pact that night: no matter what, we'd be there.

Eleven years later, I was here alone while he was at some ashram in Sedona.

I found the old baseball in his junk drawer, nestled between expired coupons and a half-empty bottle of Advil. We'd played catch in this apartment once, drunk at 3 AM, breaking three lamps before his neighbors called security. That was the year his mother died, the year we stopped pretending we were invincible. He'd thrown the ball so hard it left a dent in the drywall, and we'd laughed until we cried, then cried until we couldn't breathe.

Now the ball felt heavy in my hand, laces worn smooth from all the times we'd gripped it, all the conversations we'd had while tossing it back and forth in parking lots and parks and hospital waiting rooms.

I put the baseball in my box. I left the papaya.

Some friendships rot from the inside out, and no amount of sunlight can stop it. You just have to stand there watching it happen, feeling like an idiot for believing that forever meant something more than just 'until I don't have the energy for this anymore.'

I walked out into the orange glow of dusk, the city humming with all the people who still believed their people would stay. The water in my eyes had nothing to do with the heat.