The Last Orange at Midnight

Margot stood before the bathroom mirror at 2 AM, swallowing her nightly vitamin D supplement with mechanical precision. The fluorescent hum of the overhead light was the only sound in her apartment, besides the distant city sirens that wailed like lost souls. Three months since David left, and she'd perfected this ritual—the pills, the mirror-gaze, the silent counting of breaths until her heart rate slowed from rabbit-fast to something resembling calm.

On the counter, Mr. Whiskers—her sister's cat, whom she was begrudgingly petsitting—licked his paw with elaborate indifference. He'd taken to sleeping on David's old pillow, a betrayal that stung more than Margot cared to admit. She reached down to stroke his orange fur, the color of sunset and Florida groves and the juice David used to squeeze fresh every Sunday morning until the Sundays ran out.

The bear of a man had departed with his things but left his ghost everywhere. Not a literal bear, of course—David was six-foot-four of former college linebacker, a man who could carry her up three flights of stairs when she sprained her ankle dancing, whose embrace had felt like coming home to a warm cabin after years of wandering winter. Learning to bear his absence was its own kind of endurance sport, training muscles she'd never needed before.

Margot turned from the mirror and reached for the item she'd retrieved from the back of her closet an hour ago: David's favored fedora, smelled faintly of his cologne and the woodsmoke of their final weekend camping trip. She'd promised to return it months ago, but some promises get crushed under the weight of others, like the one where he said forever and she believed him.

The hat rested on her head, tilting askew. In the mirror, a stranger stared back—a woman wearing grief like an ill-fitting coat, holding onto orange cats and vitamin routines and the hollowed-out shell of a life that no longer fit. Mr. Whiskers meowed, and Margot finally understood: some things you bear, and some things you outgrow. She placed the hat in the donation box by the door. Tomorrow, she'd buy oranges. Not because he liked them, but because she was learning to taste things again.