The Art of Falling Apart

The first forkful of spinach was cold, just like everything else in her apartment since Mark left. Elena chewed mechanically, staring at the rain streaking the window like tears she refused to cry.

Her phone buzzed against the tabletop — another work notification at 8 PM on a Friday. She ignored it. The iPhone had become her tether to a world that kept spinning while she stood frozen.

A flash of lightning fractured the sky, sudden and violent. For a split second, she saw herself in the glass: dark circles under her eyes, hair falling out of its messy bun in tufts she hadn't bothered to tuck back in. When had she started looking like this? Like someone who'd forgotten how to be alive.

Oscar, her cat, jumped onto the table and nudged her arm with his sandpaper tongue. At least one living creature still wanted her attention.

"You miss him too, huh?" she whispered, scratching behind his ears. "You miss the man who actually knew how to pet you."

The spinach tasted like nothing. Like she'd forgotten how to season food, just like she'd forgotten how to be interesting, how to be desirable, how to be anything other than the woman whose husband had packed his bags three months ago because she'd become "too much work."

Another lightning strike illuminated her phone's screen. A text from Mark: "Left my spare key. Can I come by tomorrow?"

Her fingers hovered over the glass. She could say yes. She could let him in, let him see her like this — unwashed hair, cold dinner, cat hair on her clothes. She could let him witness the art of falling apart.

Instead, she deleted the message, picked up Oscar, and carried him to bed. Tomorrow she would shower. Tomorrow she would warm up the spinach. Tomorrow she would be a person again.

Tonight, she would just exist in the dark with the only one who stayed.