The Fox at Midnight

The spinach was rotting in the crisper drawer when Marcus finally texted. I stared at my iphone until the screen timed out, his message glowing briefly in the darkness: *Can we talk?* Two years of relationship reduced to three words on a glowing rectangle.

I walked to the window. Rain streaked the glass like tears, distorting the streetlights into bleeding oranges. The water dripping from the eaves created its own rhythm, counting down seconds I didn't want to acknowledge.

Then I saw it—a fox, its coat burning russet against the asphalt. It moved with deliberate grace, pausing beneath the streetlamp, head tilted as if considering the architecture of our suburban isolation. It looked at my window, eyes catching the light, holding something ancient and knowing in its gaze.

I thought of Marcus leaving his orange peels on the coffee table. How he'd promised to stop, how I'd stopped asking. The way love rots slowly, like neglected spinach, until you're left with something unrecognizable. The fox dipped its head, snatching something from a puddle—maybe a reflection, maybe something real—and then it was gone, vanished between the houses like a secret.

My phone buzzed again. *Please?*

The fox had known when to leave. That was the difference between wild things and domestic ones. We stay too long, eating what's already spoiled, pretending it still nourishes us. I typed the word he didn't want to hear, sent it into the electronic dark, and watched the screen fade to black.

Outside, the rain continued falling, indifferent to all our endings.