The Geometry of Leaving

Mara stood in the kitchen of their apartment — the apartment they'd signed the lease for exactly three years ago tomorrow — watching Diego pack. His suitcase gaped open on the counter like a hungry mouth. On the cutting board beside it, a halved papaya glistened with its own impossible juices, seeds wet and black as secrets.

"You're really doing this," she said. Her voice didn't sound like her own.

Diego didn't turn around. "It's not working, Mara. You know it's not working."

Outside, water hammered against the glass. Three days of rain, and the building superintendent had warned them about the leaks. Water stains had blossomed across the ceiling in shapes that looked uncomfortably like countries she'd never visit.

She touched her hair, still damp from the shower she'd taken hoping it would calm her, hoping it would wash away the sick feeling that had lived in her stomach since Diego came home last night and said the words out loud. He wants something else. He wants someone else. He wants.

"The wedding," she said. "Your sister's wedding is in three weeks."

"I'll send a gift."

Lightning fractured the room. The papaya on the counter caught the flash, its orange flesh suddenly violent, almost radioactive. For a moment she saw everything sharply: Diego's shoulders in his gray shirt, the way his hair curled at his nape, the tiny pyramid of sea salt crystals on the cutting board from her failed attempt to make something special, something that would fix them.

"We built this," she said. "Isn't that supposed to mean something?"

"Buildings fall down all the time." Finally, he turned. His face was terrible in its calmness. "Sometimes before they're even finished."

The papaya sat between them, a witness. She remembered buying it at the market last weekend, how they'd walked home holding hands, how he'd laughed at something she said. Had that been real? Or had they been constructing a pyramid together — impressive from the outside, hollow within, built on slave labor of unspoken things?

"Eat it before it goes bad," Diego said, and zipped his suitcase.

The door clicked shut. She stood there until the room darkened, until the papaya began to brown at the edges, until she understood that some things don't collapse. They're simply dismantled, piece by piece, while you watch.