The Things We Leave Behind

Mara stood in the middle of their kitchen, holding a papaya that had gone too soft, its skin spotting like bruises on old skin. Three weeks since David left, and she was still finding evidence of him in the most unexpected places. The papaya—his favorite fruit, something she'd learned to tolerate because he loved it so much—was rotting on the counter where he'd left it.

She dropped it into the trash can, watching it split open, revealing its strange black seeds clustered inside like something reproductive, something unfinished. That's what they were now.

Her phone buzzed on the counter. Her mother, again. "Are you eating? You need to keep your strength up." Mara had started buying spinach again—bags of it, more than she could ever consume alone, because David had been the one who cooked actual meals. Now she stood at the stove most nights, staring down wilted greens and wondering when she'd stopped knowing how to feed herself properly.

The doorbell rang.

It was Sam from next door, holding a running shoe—one of David's, left behind in the move. "Found this in my yard," Sam said, looking past her into the apartment she hadn't bothered to decorate. "He mentioned he runs every morning. Thought he might need it."

"He won't," Mara said, taking the shoe. Its sole was worn smooth on the outside edge. Overpronation. Something she'd learned about him in eight years together, something that meant nothing now.

"You okay?" Sam asked, and there was something in his voice—too familiar, too interested—that made her realize she wasn't the only one who'd noticed things.

"Fine," she said, and closed the door before he could respond.

Later that night, she found herself pulling on running gear she hadn't worn since before they'd met. The shoes were older, hers, not David's. She stepped out into the darkness and began to run, not toward anything, just away—from the papaya-sweet ghost of him, from the spinach wilting in her refrigerator, from the neighbor with his careful questions.

Her breath came hard in the cold air. Her lungs burned. She kept running until she couldn't think anymore, until the only thing that existed was the rhythm of her own body, moving forward on its own terms, for its own sake, for the first time in years.