The Last Thing He Said

The orange juice sat on the counter, pulp settling at the bottom like sediment. Three days untouched. That's how long it had been since Marco left. Not left-left—just left for work and never came back. No texts. No calls. Just silence expanding through the apartment like a gas leak.

Mira stood in the living room, surrounded by half-packed boxes. The cable TV package they'd argued about—premium channels, sports bundles, neither of them watching—still hummed in the background, some reality show playing to empty walls. She reached for the remote and stopped. Why bother?

Her cat, Lionel, wound through her legs, meowing for dinner. He was the only living thing that still needed her, and even he seemed skeptical of her ability to keep it together.

"You're staring at that wall again," her sister had said yesterday. "You look like a zombie, Mira. Like you died too."

She hadn't died. She'd just... stopped. The apartment was full of their life together: the ceramic bear Marco's mother gave them ("for strength"), the mismatched mugs from their first road trip, the way they'd arranged their books—his on the left, hers on the right—like some meaningless promise that they'd always fit together this neatly.

The phone rang.

Mara's heart seized. She scrambled for it, knocking over the orange juice. Glass shattered. Juice pooled across the counter, dripped onto the floor. Lionel darted away.

Unknown number.

"Hello?" Her voice cracked.

"Mira." Marco's voice, thinner than she remembered. "I'm sorry. I've been staying at Carl's. I just—I couldn't come back. I couldn't bear it anymore."

"Bear what?" she whispered. "Us?"

"The pretending," he said. "You know what I mean."

She did. That's the terrible part. They'd been zombies together for years, moving through the motions of a relationship that had died somewhere between graduate school and corporate promotions, between "what do you want for dinner" and "did you pay the electric bill." The bear on the shelf had been the strongest thing between them.

"I'm packing," she said. "The apartment. Your books. Everything."

Silence. Then: "Keep the bear. You always liked it more."

The line went dead.

Mira stood in the kitchen, orange juice sticky on her bare feet, Lionel watching from the doorway with wide judging eyes. Outside, the sunset burned orange and brilliant through the window, and for the first time in days, something in her chest cracked open.

She grabbed a sponge. She started cleaning up the mess.