The Last Message

Mia's feet hit the pavement in a rhythm that matched the thudding of her heart. Six miles into her run, she could almost outrun the notification that had lit up her iPhone ten minutes ago. *I need to see you. One last time.*

She'd been training for the Chicago Marathon for six months, ever since Julian moved out. The running started as grief, morphed into discipline, and settled into a kind of beautiful numbness. Every morning at 5 AM, while the city slept, Mia laced up her shoes and disappeared into the gray dawn. No one could find her there. No one could ask if she was okay.

Her refrigerator at home was stocked with the evidence of her attempts at reconstruction: organic spinach, eggs, Greek yogurt. A life of carefully curated wellness, as if nutrition and cardio could knit together what had unraveled. Julian used to make fun of her smoothies. Called them pond water. She still made them every morning, drinking them while standing at the counter where he used to sit, legs dangling, telling her about the patients at the clinic where he worked.

Her iPhone buzzed again against her arm, jolting her back to the present. *Please, Mia. I'm leaving for Seattle tomorrow.*

She stopped running, bent over with her hands on her knees, the September humidity pressing down on her like a physical weight. She'd known this was coming—his fellowship, the departure, the inevitable finality of it all. But knowing and feeling were different animals.

She found herself at the small park near their old apartment. The same park where they'd had their first picnic, where he'd kissed her with the urgency of someone who'd been waiting his whole life to find her. The palm trees in the planters had grown three feet since then.

Julian was sitting on their old bench. He looked thinner, tired. He stood when he saw her, and without thinking, Mia found herself running toward him—not away, not this time. She stopped inches from him, close enough to smell his stupid citrus cologne, close enough to see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes.

"I'm trying to hate you," she whispered.

He reached for her hand, turned it over, and traced the lines of her palm with his thumb. "I know," he said softly. "I'm trying to let you."