The Papaya Summer

The lightning strike happened three years ago—literal and metaphorical. Marcus was standing on the balcony of our shitty one-bedroom in Queens, eating a papaya with the casual grace that made me hate him a little. The storm was rolling in, purple and bruised across the skyline, and he was talking about baseball statistics like they mattered.

"Did you know the average MLB career is shorter than a swimming career?" he said, spoon digging into the orange flesh of the fruit. "Something about the wear and tear on knees."

I was sitting on the floor, nursing a gin and tonic, wondering why I was still with a man who compared our relationship to "extra innings" whenever we fought. The lightning hit—a brilliant white crack that split the sky—and Marcus didn't even flinch. Just kept eating that papaya like the world wasn't ending around us.

Two weeks later, he was gone. Packed his life into cardboard boxes and left me with the rent and a half-eaten papaya rotting on the counter.

Tonight, I'm standing on a different balcony, watching a different storm. The pool below is empty, the water still from swimming lessons earlier today. I'm holding an orange, peeling it in strips, letting the citrus spray my fingers. The air tastes like ozone and memory.

Marcus emails sometimes. Wants to know if I'm still angry, if I'd ever consider coffee, as if anger is something that expires like milk. I delete them without responding, though I'll admit I keep one—just one—unread in my inbox, a little monument to the person I was when I loved him.

The lightning flashes again. This time, I flinch. Some things you never get used to. Some things you're supposed to carry with you, heavy and sharp, until they become part of you. The papaya memories. The baseball metaphors that once made me roll my eyes now make me smile, just a little, at how earnest he was, how wrong, how mine.

I eat the orange in the dark, letting the juice run down my wrist, waiting for the rain.