The Last Orange

The morning sunlight hit the wet pavement at exactly 6:14 AM when my iphone buzzed in my running vest. I'd been training for the marathon for six months, a hollow obsession that had become the scaffolding of our failing marriage. Sarah said I was always running—from her, from us, from the conversations we couldn't quite have.

I stopped at the corner of 42nd and Grand, gasping for air, and fumbled the phone from its pocket. A text from Sarah's sister: *She's leaving him too. They're at the Marriott downtown.* The Marriott where we'd spent our fifth anniversary, where I'd promised to be less distant, more present. Where I'd given her that gold-orange sunset print she'd loved so much.

The orange light of dawn was bleeding into the sky now, mocking me. I stood there in my sweat-soaked shirt, watching people commute to jobs they probably hated, carrying coffees and secrets and iphone notifications they couldn't face. Sarah and I had bought a bag of blood oranges yesterday—her favorite. We'd planned to eat them tonight, watching that documentary about climate change we kept postponing.

I started running again, but not toward home. My legs carried me downtown, each step a punishment, each breath a reminder that I'd been running in circles for years. The sweat stung my eyes, or maybe that was something else. The orange sky had given way to gray, the kind of washed-out morning that makes you question everything you thought you knew about your life.

By the time I reached the Marriott, I understood what Sarah had meant when she said I was always running away. Sometimes you have to stop moving to realize you've been going nowhere at all. The neon ORANGE sign buzzed above the entrance like a warning I should have seen years ago.