The Color of Goodbye

Mira's iPhone lit up the dark bedroom at 5:47 AM — the blue glow washing over David's sleeping face beside her. A notification. From Elena. Just the name made Mira's stomach hollow out, though she'd never admit it.

She slipped out of bed, padding barefoot to the kitchen. The oranges in the bowl on the counter looked small and tired in the dawn light. She peeled one viciously, juice stinging the small cuts on her fingers she hadn't noticed until now. Elena had been David's friend since college, his oldest friend, his best friend. The friend who texted him at 5:47 AM.

Mira started running three years ago, after her mother died. It was the only thing that quieted the grief, the rhythm of her feet on pavement drowning out the silence her mother left behind. Now she ran every morning through streets waking up slowly, delivery trucks and coffee shops opening their doors. The motion became a meditation, her breath syncing with the world around her.

Today she ran harder, faster, past her usual turn-off point. Her lungs burned. Her phone bounced in her pocket — another notification, she could feel it. Elena again, probably. Or David, wondering where she'd gone. She'd told him about the dreams two weeks ago: dreams where he left her, dreams where he didn't love her anymore. He'd held her, told her she was spiraling, that maybe she should call her therapist again.

The sun rose orange and violent over the skyline, painting everything in hues of warning. Mira stopped running, bending double to catch her breath, her hands on her knees. In that moment of stillness, she understood something: sometimes love is like running — you keep moving forward because stopping means facing what's really behind you.

She walked back to their apartment, slowly now. David was awake when she opened the door, his phone on the counter between them. Elena's name lit up the screen again.

"She's getting married," David said quietly, not looking up. "Elena. She wanted me to know. That's all."

Mira looked at him — really looked at him — and saw the exhaustion in his eyes, the weight of her suspicions he'd been carrying for weeks without saying anything. The orange sun from her run was gone now, replaced by the flat white light of morning. "I know," she said, and meant it. "I know."

She picked up an orange from the bowl, rolling it between her palms. "I'll make coffee," she said. "We have so much to talk about."