The Last Goodbye

She stood in her almost-empty apartment, the only light coming from the streetlamp outside filtering through the bare windows. An orange rolling across the hardwood floor caught her attention—Marcus's vitamin C ritual, every morning without fail for fifteen years. Now the fruit sat abandoned in a bowl, growing softer with each passing day.

"You're really leaving then?" Elena's voice came from the doorway. She'd been her best friend since college, through bad haircuts and worse boyfriends, through Marcus's diagnosis and the slow unraveling that followed.

"California," she said, not trusting herself to say more. "Marcus's sister thinks the ocean will... I don't know. Help."

Elena stepped inside, careful not to disturb the taped boxes. "He would've hated this. The packing, the leaving. He loved this apartment. He loved that you made him take that vitamin every morning."

"He's gone, El."

"I know. But you're not. That's the problem."

The truth of it settled between them, heavy and uncomfortable. She hadn't felt like herself since the funeral. Since the doctor said "aggressive" and "limited time" and her entire future had compressed into six months of hospice care and brutal conversations about do-not-resuscitate orders.

She picked up the orange from the floor. Its skin was beginning to wrinkle.

"My mother called," Elena said softly. "She heard about the move. She said to tell you... sometimes the only way forward is through. Not around. Not away from."

"Your mother always did have a way with words."

"She also said to ask if you've eaten anything this week that didn't come from a takeout container."

She almost smiled. It was the closest she'd come to anything resembling humor in months.

"I'm scared," she admitted, the words finally releasing. "That if I leave, I'll leave him behind. That I'll forget the way he made coffee, or how he hummed when he cooked, or... God, this sounds pathetic."

"It's not pathetic. It's grief. It's supposed to hurt like hell. But moving to California? That's not grief. That's running."

Elena crossed the room and took her hand, the same way she had when they were twenty-two and crying over a cheating boyfriend in a dive bar bathroom.

"Stay. For a month. Just see. And if you still need to go, I'll help you pack the truck myself."

She looked at the orange in her hand, at the stack of boxes labeled KITCHEN and BEDROOM and PAST. Outside, the city hummed with other people's lives.

"One month," she said.

"One month," Elena agreed. "And I'm making you dinner. Actual food with actual nutrients."

"Like a vitamin?"

"Better."

The orange went back into the bowl. For now, it could wait.