The Last Supper

The breakup didn't happen with shouting or slammed doors. It happened in silence, across a dinner I'd spent three hours preparing, while Maya explained she'd been seeing someone else.

"He's just a friend from the padel club," she'd said, pushing her risotto around the plate.

That was three weeks ago. Now, as I stood in the pet aisle of the supermarket at 11 PM, I realized I was buying a goldfish because it was the only living thing I could afford that wouldn't leave me.

The fish—no, I refused to name it—swam in its too-small bowl, opening and closing its mouth in what looked like constant surprise. I understood the feeling.

"You need to get out," Elena said the next day, watching me take my third vitamin D supplement of the morning. She'd come over to check on me, bringing wine and judgment. "It's been three weeks. This is pathetic."

"I'm focusing on my health," I said, which was true. The vitamin deficiency was real. The insomnia was real. The way I sometimes still reached for my phone to text Maya before remembering she'd blocked me—that was real too.

Elena looked at the goldfish, then at me. "Remember when you used to be fun?"

I remembered. I remembered when Maya and I had played padel on weekends, when she'd laughed at my terrible backhand. When we'd planned a future that now seemed to belong to someone else.

The goldfish died two days later. I found it floating at the top of the bowl, mouth open in that same expression of surprise. Maybe it had known something I didn't. Maybe all living things eventually leave.

I flushed it down the toilet and walked to the padel club alone. The guy behind the counter gave me a strange look when I asked to book a court for one.

But as I stood there, racket in hand, hitting the ball against the glass wall, I realized something: I didn't need a partner. I didn't need someone to complete me. I could play alone, hit serves until my arm ached, and still be whole.

The goldfish was gone. The vitamins were doing their job. And for the first time in three weeks, I wasn't waiting for anyone to come back.