The Last Day Before

The water in the glass on my desk had gone stagnant, untouched since morning. Three years of marriage dissolved into paperwork and cardboard boxes, and I'd spent the entire day feeling like a zombie—moving through motions, signing documents, nodding at lawyers who charged more per hour than I made in a week.

"You should take him," Sarah had said yesterday, nodding toward Barnaby, our golden retriever who'd been my shadow since grad school. "He was yours before we were us."

I looked down at the goldfish bowl on Sarah's desk—the one she'd insisted on buying during our first apartment hunt. The fish swam in endless circles, forgetful and content. Sometimes I envied its ten-second memory.

The fox I'd seen on my morning run had looked wilder, more alive than I felt. It had paused at the edge of the woods, orange coat brilliant against the gray dawn, watching me with something like pity before vanishing into the underbrush. That moment of connection—human and animal, both alone in the early morning—had felt more honest than anything Sarah and I had said to each other in months.

Now, packing the last box, I found the photograph from our wedding day. We looked so young, so certain. The water from the tap had been cold when I washed my face this morning, shocking me awake. But some part of me was still sleeping, still waiting to wake up from the nightmare of whatever we'd become.

Barnaby nudged my hand with his wet nose. His unconditional devotion was almost insulting in its simplicity. He didn't care about broken promises or missed connections. He only cared that I was here, that I was his.

"Come on, buddy," I said, and the dog's tail thumped against the cardboard box. "Let's go home."

The word hung in the air. Home. I didn't know where that was anymore. But as I stepped outside, the evening air cool on my face, I thought of the fox running wild through the trees, and for the first time all day, I breathed in like I actually meant to survive this.