Seventh Inning Stretch

The baseball game played on the television—sound off, subtitles on—as I packed Nathan's things into boxes. The cable package was his, technically, and tomorrow they'd shut it off. The thought should have bothered me more. Instead, I felt that particular lightness that comes after a long illness passes, when you realize you can finally breathe again.

His stupid dog stared at me from the corner—some rescue terrier mix with anxiety issues and separation neuroses. I'd be keeping the cat. Luna had always been mine anyway, currently watching from the top of the refrigerator with that look of supreme indifference only cats can muster.

"You're making a mistake," Nathan had said, his voice cracking in that way that used to make my chest ache. Now I just felt tired. "You're going to wake up alone at forty and wonder what happened."

I'd found the papaya in the back of the refrigerator yesterday, forgotten and softening in its brown paper bag. We'd bought it together on some stupid date night at that overpriced grocery store where they played jazz music and sold twelve-dollar olive oil. He'd made some joke about how papayas looked like alien organs, and I'd laughed, leaning into him on the sidewalk, thinking: this is it. This is what happiness feels like.

The goldfish lived in a bowl on his bedside table, a carnival prize from some company picnic last summer. He'd won it throwing baseballs at milk bottles, that particular kind of manufactured masculinity on display. The fish was still alive somehow, swimming endless circles in its six-inch world.

I thought about letting it go in the pond behind the apartment complex, but that seemed cruel. Freshwater fish in brackish water. Better to just flush it.

"Don't," Nathan had pleaded yesterday, grabbing my wrist. "Don't do this. We can fix it."

His grip had left bruises. I'd covered them with long sleeves.

The goldfish surfaced, mouth opening and closing at the water's surface. A tiny, gasping prayer.

I carried the bowl to the bathroom. Luna hopped down from the fridge and followed, the dog whining at her heels. The baseball game on television showed players spitting and adjusting their cups, all that orchestrated machismo.

The papaya sat in the kitchen sink, growing softer in the heat.

I poured the goldfish into the toilet and watched it swirl toward the sewers, freedom and death together in the end. The dog barked once—a sharp, surprised sound. Luna wound between my legs, purring like she understood everything and nothing at once.

The papaya would keep for another day. Tomorrow I'd cut it open, eat it standing at the counter, let the juice run down my chin. I'd throw the skin in the trash where it belonged.

For now, I sat on the bathroom floor and listened to the silence of an apartment that was finally, completely mine.