The Distance Between Us

Sarah had been running for forty-five minutes when her phone buzzed with the text she'd been dreading all week. She ignored it, focusing on the rhythm of her breath, the way her sneakers hit the pavement—left, right, left—like she could outrun the conversation waiting for her at home.

The vitamin supplements sat untouched on her kitchen counter, a seven-day organizer Marcus had bought her last Christmas. Take care of yourself, he'd said, like it was some kind of insurance policy against the distance growing between them. Now those little compartments reminded her of all the small ways they'd stopped trying.

She stopped at the corner bodega, chest heaving, and bought a bottle of water. The cashier, an older man with kind eyes, asked if she was okay. Sarah almost told him everything—how Marcus had moved out three days ago, how their apartment felt like a museum exhibit of a life that no longer existed, how she'd spent the morning crying over a container of spinach that had gone slimy in the fridge because neither of them remembered to cook it.

Instead, she just nodded. The water was cold against her throat, grounding her.

Back at the apartment, Marcus's key was already in the door. He was there to pick up the rest of his things. Sarah watched him pack his books, his records, the coffee maker they'd bought together.

"You look good," he said, gesturing to her running clothes. "Been taking care of yourself?"

She thought about lying. Instead, she said, "I've been running a lot. And I bought those vitamins you got me. The ones I said were useless."

Marcus paused, his hand hovering over a box of photographs. "You're actually taking them?"

"Every morning."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, like he was seeing something new. "Maybe I should have tried them too."

They stood there in the silence of everything unsaid, all the conversations they'd never had, all the ways they'd failed each other. The vitamins, the running, the self-improvement—that was the easy part. The hard part was what they were doing now: watching someone you loved become a stranger, one carefully packed box at a time.

"I'm going to make myself a smoothie," Sarah said when the door clicked shut behind him. "With spinach. And that multivitamin."

She did. And for the first time in days, she didn't cry while making it.