The Last Box

I found the prenatal vitamins in the back of the medicine cabinet, expiration date from three years ago. Another lifetime, really. Before we knew. Before everything changed.

Julian stood in the doorway watching me pack, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed. His hair had started thinning at the temples. I used to run my fingers through it and promise we'd grow old together. Funny how the promises that feel most sincere at 2 AM become the first casualties of morning.

"That's the last box," he said.

"I know."

"You could stay. We could try counseling."

"We did counseling. Remember? The therapist who cried more than we did?"

He flinched. That was unfair. She'd only cried that once.

Still, I went. Through the rooms we'd painted together, the kitchen where we'd hosted dinner parties that felt more like performance art than friendship. The bedroom where we'd slept facing away from each other for the last six months.

In the backyard, Barnaby – our golden retriever, the only innocent party in all of this – chased his tail in endless loops. We'd fought about him too. Julian wanted to board him, find him a "better home." I'd said I'd sleep in my car before giving away my dog.

"Figure out custody later," I said now, and Julian nodded, looking at the floor.

The drive took longer than it should have. LA traffic at sunset – everything bathed in that impossible orange light that makes the ugliest strip malls look like cinema. I'd cut my hair that morning. Eight inches gone, just like that. In the rearview mirror, I looked like someone else.

Someone who could start over.

I rented a motel room off the 101, threw the prenatal vitamins in the trash. Outside, summer lightning flickered over the Santa Monica mountains – that weird dry lightning that never brings rain, just lights up the sky like a camera flash capturing something you weren't ready to have documented.

Barnaby curled up on the bedspread, finally exhausted. I lay there watching the storm through the curtains, my hand on his warm flank, feeling his heartbeat steady against my palm.

For the first time in years, I fell asleep easily.