The Last Call Before Sunset

The ceiling fan spun lazily above us, its rhythmic clicking the only sound in the apartment we'd shared for seven years. Sarah sat on the couch, her face illuminated by the blue glow of her phone, scrolling through emails at 11 PM on a Friday. I watched her from the doorway and felt it again—that hollow recognition that we had become what I most feared. Not enemies, not strangers, but something worse: zombies in a relationship that had died years ago, still going through the motions out of habit, out of cowardice, out of some misguided belief that this was what adulthood looked like.

"Did you pay the cable bill?" she asked without looking up.

"Not yet."

"They sent a disconnect notice. Again."

"I'll handle it tomorrow."

We wouldn't. We never did. The cable had been out for three days anyway, severed during the complex's renovation work. Neither of us had bothered to call and complain. What was there to watch but more evidence of the life we weren't living?

I walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Inside, on the middle shelf, sat the orange I'd bought five days ago. Its skin had begun to wrinkle, the bright dimpled surface turning soft in spots. I remembered buying it on a whim—Sarah used to love them, would peel them in long spirals while we talked about everything and nothing. Now I couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten fruit in front of me. The last time she'd eaten anything in front of me, really. We didn't have meals together anymore. We just consumed calories in the same room.

"Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember what we were like before?"

The question hung in the air like smoke. I turned around. She'd finally put down the phone. Her eyes met mine, and for the first time in months, I saw something real there. Fear. Sadness. The same exhaustion I felt every morning when I woke up and remembered where I was, who I was with, how thoroughly we had failed each other.

"I remember," I said.

"Me too." She stood up slowly, like someone emerging from deep water. "I don't want to be this anymore. I don't think I can be."

The orange sat on the counter between us—a small, withered thing that had once been sweet and bright and full of possibility. Some things, even when you remember to care for them, still go bad in the end.

"No," I agreed. "You shouldn't have to be."

Outside, the sun began to set, painting the sky in brilliant shades of orange that reminded me of the day we'd moved in together, of the way she'd laughed when I'd tripped over a box, of how young we were, how certain that love alone would be enough. It hadn't been. It wasn't. And finally, finally, we were both ready to admit it.