The Last Orange

Susan sat at the kitchen table peeling an orange, the citrus scent sharp against the stale air of their unresolved fights. She'd been doing this every morning for twelve years—peeling fruit while Mark pretended to read his newspaper, pretended not to notice how they'd become strangers sharing a bed.

Outside, lightning fissured the sky, sudden and violent. The storm had been building for days, much like the silence between them.

"I'm not coming back," Mark said, finally.

The orange peel tore in Susan's hand.

"You said that last month," she replied. Her voice sounded like someone else's—calmer than she felt, like she was watching herself from across the room.

The cat wound through Mark's legs, purring. He'd always preferred Mark. Tracy, their golden retriever, sprawled near the sliding glass door, snoring despite the thunder that followed the lightning.

"I mean it this time," Mark said. "I've found a place."

Susan continued sectioning the orange, placing each piece carefully on a napkin. Twelve pieces, for twelve years. The coincidence felt significant, though she knew it wasn't.

"When?"

"Friday."

Friday was three days away. Three days of peeling oranges, of stepping around each other in the kitchen they'd painted together during that first optimistic summer when everything still felt possible. The orange walls had faded to something almost pink—like a memory of what they'd intended.

"I'll take Tracy," Mark said. "You can keep the apartment."

Susan nodded. She'd always preferred cats anyway.

The lightning struck closer now, the thunder immediate and shaking the windows. The cat jumped, scrambled under the table, pressed against Susan's bare ankle. For once, she accepted the comfort.

"You were going to tell me something," Mark said, breaking the silence. "That day I came home early from the conference. You were on the phone. You looked—"

"Scared," she said. "I looked scared."

"Why scared?"

Susan stood up, her chair scraping against the floor. The cat pressed closer to her leg.

"Because I was going to tell you," she said. "That morning, peeling this same orange. I was going to say—"

The phone rang, cutting through the memory. Mark's phone, still on the table where he'd left it. The screen lit up with a name Susan didn't recognize.

He didn't answer.

"You were going to say what?" he asked, but his eyes were on the phone, on the missed call notification lighting up the room.

"Forget it," Susan said.

She walked to the sliding door, watched the rain transform the patio into something unrecognizable. Behind her, she heard Mark's phone chime with a text message.

"Friday," he said again, but the word had lost its certainty.

She didn't turn around. The orange rind sat on her napkin like something broken that couldn't be fixed.

"Friday," she agreed.

The cat curled against her ankle, purring. The lightning flashed again, and for a moment, everything was illuminated—the mess of their life, the years of small disappointments, the way they'd stopped trying.

Then darkness returned, and the rain kept falling.