The Green We Swallow

The spinach lay wilting on Marcus's plate, a corpse of something that once promised vitality. We hadn't spoken in three months—not since I found out he was sleeping with my wife. Now here we were, this absurd reconciliation dinner he'd insisted on, as if a steakhouse and expensive wine could stitch together what he'd torn apart.

'I'm sorry, David,' Marcus said for the third time, pushing his food around. 'I didn't mean to—'

'Stop,' I said. 'Just stop.' I swallowed the bitterness in my throat, washed it down with merlot that tasted like blood and iron. 'You want absolution. You want me to be your friend again so you can stop feeling like the villain.'

He had the decency to look away. 'I miss us. The way things were.'

'The way things were,' I repeated, watching the candlelight dance in my wine glass. 'Before you decided that my marriage was something you could just sample.'

Marcus sighed, pulling a small plastic bottle from his pocket. Vitamin D, the label read. Doctor's orders, he muttered. His skin had gone pale from spending too many hours in his office, building the career that had always been more important than anything else.

'We're not friends,' I said, softening despite myself. 'We haven't been friends in years. We were just two people who used to know each other.'

'People change,' he said, hope stubborn in his voice.

'People don't change,' I replied. 'They just get better at hiding who they are.' I signaled for the check. 'Go home to her, Marcus. You won.'

He left money on the table and walked out, the vitamin bottle still clutched in his hand like a talisman against the darkness. I sat there alone, watching the spinach cool and congeal, thinking about how we spend our lives swallowing things we know are bad for us, pretending they're nourishment, pretending we don't taste the rot.