Spinach at the End of the World

Maya ran through the predawn darkness, her lungs burning with that familiar sweet ache, the rhythm of her sneakers on pavement the only thing keeping her tethered to reality. Three months since David packed his boxes and walked out, and she'd become the kind of person who ran at 4 AM because sleep felt like surrender.

Her golden retriever, Barnaby, waited at the front door when she returned, his tail thumping a steady beat against the wood — unconditional, stupidly hopeful love wrapped in golden fur. The only living thing that still looked at her like she was whole.

"You're a good boy," she whispered, pressing her forehead to his. "You don't even know what a zombie is, do you?"

She showered and dressed for work, catching her reflection in the mirror: dark circles under eyes that had seen too many ceilings at 3 AM, skin stretched tight over cheekbones that sharpened every day. In the kitchen, she stood before the refrigerator, staring at the wilted spinach David had bought the week he left. A whole bag of it, turning slimy in the crisper drawer, like a time capsule of his abandonment.

She'd become a zombie, she realized — one of the walking dead who shuffled through offices and subway cars, hollowed out by grief and pride, too stubborn to call him and too proud to admit she was drowning. The spinach was just another thing she couldn't bring herself to throw away.

Barnaby nudged her hand with his wet nose, and something cracked open inside her chest. She took out the spinach, rinsed it in the colander, watched the water run clear through leaves that were still mostly green. Still salvageable.

She scrambled eggs with spinach, ate standing at the counter while Barnaby sat at her feet, and for the first time in ninety days, she didn't feel like she was waiting for something to end. She was just beginning.