Signal Loss

The papaya sat on the counter, rapidly browning, like a bruise we refused to acknowledge. You'd bought it yesterday, during that brief window when we still believed in things like fresh fruit and second chances.

I watched the baseball game flickering on the television—some regional matchup, neither of us cared about the teams. The cable had been acting up for weeks, sputtering and freezing at crucial moments, much like us. I'd meant to call the provider, but that would have required admitting something was broken.

Your hair was different when you came home last night. Not dramatically—just the way you tucked it behind your ears, a gesture I'd never seen before. Small betrayals accumulate like static.

"Are you running again tomorrow?" I asked, not looking away from the screen where a player slid into home plate, safe by an inch.

You didn't answer immediately. The refrigerator hummed its eternal note. "Every morning. It's the only time I feel—"

"Real?" I supplied.

"Present."

The papaya's scent filled the kitchen—sweet, slightly fermenting. We'd met at a running club three years ago, both of us fleeing something, though we'd pretended otherwise. You ran toward things; I ran away. For a while, our directions had aligned.

I turned off the television. The cable box light blinked accusingly in the sudden quiet.

"The papaya's gone bad," you said, finally looking at me.

"I know. I was waiting to see if you'd notice."

You laughed, but it was the wrong kind. The kind that acknowledges a joke without finding it funny. "I notice everything. That's the problem."

The baseball game continued somewhere beyond our walls. Somewhere, people were sliding home, safe, while we stood in a kitchen that had become a room we both occupied but neither of us inhabited anymore.

"I'll call about the cable," you said, but we both knew you wouldn't. You were already somewhere down the road, running, and I was still standing at the starting line, holding a rotting papaya, wondering why I'd thought anything stayed fresh forever.