The Morning After

Maya swept the last clumps of dark hair from the bathroom floor, the scissors still gleaming on the counter. Twelve years with David, gone with one impulsive chop. She looked in the mirror—strangers stared back.

She'd meant to leave a note. Something dignified. Instead, she'd left everything: the keys, the half-empty coffee mug, the carefully curated life they'd built like a museum exhibit of domestic bliss.

The first time she saw the dog—a mangy golden retriever mix with one ear that stood at attention—she was three miles from the apartment, running on adrenaline and spite. Her lungs burned, her expensive running shoes already blistering her heels. The dog trotted alongside, keeping pace, as if deciding she needed supervision.

"Go home," she panted, but it only tilted its head, the good ear perking with what looked like judgment.

By dawn, she'd collapsed on a bench overlooking the Hudson, the dog curled at her feet. Her fingers kept going to her shorn scalp, the phantom sensation of heavy hair still haunting her. She'd cut it all off because David had loved running his fingers through it. Because he'd said once, "Your hair is the only thing about you that makes sense."

She wasn't sure which hurt more—the insult or the truth in it.

The dog whined, nudging her hand with a wet nose. She scratched behind its ears, felt the matted fur, the suspicious bump under its jaw. Someone else's problem, once.

"You're a mess," she whispered. It laughed at her, a happy bark that said: so are you.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket—David, probably, waking to an empty bed and a floor covered in hair. She powered it off, watched the sunrise paint the water gold, and realized she was starving. The dog thumped its tail against the bench.

"Breakfast?" she asked. It stood, stretched, and followed her home—whichever home that turned out to be.