The Last Papaya

The papaya sat on the kitchen counter, overripe and weeping yellow juice onto the granite. Three days past its prime, like everything else in Maya's life lately.

"You're going to miss your flight," Liam called from the bedroom, his voice muffled by the closet door. The sound of hangers sliding on metal bars—shrrrr, shrrrr, shrrrr.

Maya sliced through the fruit's skin, watching its black seeds tumble onto the cutting board. They'd bought it together last Sunday at the farmer's market, fingers brushing over the bin of tropical produce, Liam pretending he knew how to pick a good one. He didn't. He never did.

"I'm eating it," she said, though he couldn't hear her anymore.

The corporate retreat had been his idea—team building at a pyramid-shaped resort in Cancún. Three days of trust falls and strategic planning sessions while Maya sat alone in their hotel room, watching the pale curve of her stomach in the full-length mirror. The spinach salad at dinner had been the only thing she could keep down.

She took a bite of the papaya. Sweet, musky, faintly fermented. Perfect.

Liam emerged with a garment bag over one shoulder, his baseball cap pulled low. He'd worn that hat to their first interview at the firm—matching Cubs caps, a secret signal between them across the conference table. Now it was just another thing he used to hide from her.

"You sure about this?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe.

Maya scraped the last of the fruit from the rind. "About the papaya? Or about the fact that you slept with someone from the Boston office and thought I wouldn't find out because we were in different time zones?"

He flinched. The hat dipped forward.

"The taxi's here," he said.

She rinsed the knife and left it in the sink. Let him find it later, let him wonder why she'd bothered eating the goddamn papaya instead of packing. Some small, stubborn thing she could control in the wreckage of their five-year plan.

"Go ahead," she said. "I'll catch the next one."

When the door clicked shut behind him, Maya finally let herself slide down the cabinets to the cold floor. The papaya taste lingered—too sweet, slightly rotten, exactly what she needed.