The Papaya Summer

Marcus found me on the hotel terrace, watching the padel courts below. My third gin and tonic sat sweating on the marble table beside a half-eaten papaya, its orange flesh glowing like a wound in the dying light.

"You missed the baseball game," he said, not sitting down. "Your brother called. He said you promised you'd watch Jake's tournament."

I kept my eyes on the courts, where two strangers played out their meaningless match in the sticky heat. Somewhere in our room, my phone was probably lighting up with texts from home, from our children, from the life I'd put on pause for four days of tequila and bad decisions.

"Papaya tastes like regret," I said, finally looking at him. "Did you know that?"

Marcus's silence stretched between us like the long shadow of the sphinx I'd once seen in Egypt, when I was twenty and believed that mysteries were meant to be solved instead of endured. He'd been there too, back when we still thought love was something you could earn instead of something that simply existed or didn't.

"I'm sorry," he said. "About Elena. About everything."

The papaya sat between us like an offering, like forgiveness I wasn't ready to give. On the court below, the padel players laughed at something—one of them had made a joke, maybe about their terrible serves, maybe about something else entirely. People still made jokes. The world kept making jokes.

"Your papaya's going to rot," I said. "Like everything else."

Marcus reached across the table, his fingers hovering over my hand. The baseball tournament back home was probably over. Jake had probably struck out or hit a home run, and I'd missed either outcome. I'd miss everything, at this rate.

"Eat with me," I said. "Before it's too late."