The Last Green Thing

The spinach sat limp and overcooked on Marcus's plate, a wilting testament to how many times Elena had reheated this dinner. He moved it around with his fork, watching steam rise in the dim kitchen light, while she stared at her phone, scrolling through work emails at 9 PM on a Tuesday.

"You look like a zombie," she said without looking up. "Go to sleep."

The word hung between them, heavier than it should have been. Three years ago, she'd called him that affectionately after their son was born, when they'd both been walking the floor at 3 AM, bleary-eyed and delirious with love. Now it just meant he was exhausted, and it wasn't endearing anymore.

Outside, lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the rain streaking down the windowpane. The flash cast everything in harsh relief—the peeling paint on the ceiling, the crack in their wedding photo frame, the dark circles under Elena's eyes when she finally looked at him.

"I got the offer," she said quietly.

Marcus nodded slowly. He'd known this was coming. The headhunter had been calling for weeks, the job in Chicago that would triple her salary, require eighty-hour weeks, and leave him here with the mortgage and the memories.

He reached across the table and took an orange from the fruit bowl, rolling it between his palms. His grandmother used to say that if you peeled an orange in one strip and made a wish, it would come true. He'd stopped believing in that kind of magic years ago, but his fingers found the starting point anyway, digging into the thick rind.

"When do you leave?" he asked.

Elena's phone buzzed on the table. She didn't pick it up. "Friday."

Another flash of lightning, closer this time. The thunder followed almost immediately, shaking the windowpanes. Marcus tore a strip of orange peel, watching the citrus oil spray into the air like tiny stars in the brief illumination. The scent hit him—bright, sharp, painfully nostalgic. Summer evenings on a porch that no longer existed, a version of themselves that had died somewhere between the promotion and the foreclosure notice and the miscarriage they never talked about.

"I don't want you to go," he said, finally saying the words they'd both been avoiding for months.

Elena's eyes filled with tears. "I don't want to want to go."

They sat in the kitchen with their cold dinner and the storm outside, the unpeeled orange between them like something fragile and unfinished, while the spinach continued its slow collapse into nothingness.