The Last Papaya

The papaya sat between them on the white plate, quartered and glistening with lime juice. Elena wouldn't meet his eyes.

"You're leaving," David said, not a question.

"I'm sorry." Her finger traced the rim of her wine glass. "I met someone."

"A friend?" David's voice cracked on the word.

"Not just a friend. Not anymore."

The restaurant around them hummed with conversations, plates clattering, the murmur of other lives being lived, other relationships ending or beginning. Their table felt like an island of suffocating silence.

"When?"

"Three months ago. At Marcus's party. You were talking about your promotion, and I was standing by the spinach dip, feeling like the most invisible woman in the room. He saw me. Actually saw me."

David reached for the papaya, took a slice. It was sweet and musky on his tongue, everything he hated about tropical fruit — too soft, too foreign, like something that might rot before you could finish it. Just like them.

"Why now? Why tell me tonight?"

"Because tomorrow I'm moving in with him."

The orange glow of sunset through the restaurant windows caught the tears on her lashes. She'd always been beautiful when she cried, something he'd noticed the first night they met, five years ago in a dive bar in Chicago. She'd told him she loved his hands.

"You should eat," she said. "Before it gets warm."

"I'm not hungry."

"David. Please."

He took another bite of the papaya, forced himself to chew. The sweetness cloyed in his throat.

"Did you ever love me?" he asked.

"I loved who we were. In the beginning. But we grew different people, David. You wanted stability, a mortgage, Sunday mornings with the crossword. I wanted — I don't know what I wanted. Something else."

"And this friend gives you that."

"His name is James. And yes."

David stood up, threw enough cash on the table to cover the bill and a generous tip. Let her have the papaya. Let her have the last word, the last memory of them in this restaurant, the last everything.

"Goodbye, Elena."

"David — "

But he was already walking toward the door, leaving behind the half-eaten fruit, the spinach dip from five months ago, the orange light that would fade into darkness, and the woman who had once been his friend, his lover, his entire world.

Outside, the air was cool. He breathed in deep, already beginning to forget the taste of papaya.