The Things We Leave Behind

The spinach wilts in the colander, mocking me. I should have made it yesterday, before everything cracked open. Before Sarah moved out in that quiet fury that hurts more than screaming.

Her cat, Milo, watches from the counter — he stayed, she said she couldn't take him to the new place. Not yet. He licks his paw with deliberate indifference, while my phone vibrates again on the counter. Another text from her: 'Need to talk about the books.' As if books matter now. As if anything that fit on shelves matters.

I turn on the faucet, watch water rush into the pot. Cold and clear and entirely indifferent to my small tragedy. I remember her standing right here last week, telling me she'd stopped feeling seen somewhere around year three. I was checking my email on my iPhone at the time, missing the way her voice cracked, the way she measured her words like she'd been practicing them in private for months.

The water boils. I drop the spinach in, watch it surrender instantly, collapsing into itself. That's what I did, wasn't it? Just collapsed under the weight of ordinary disappointment until there was nothing green left in me.

Milo hops down, brushes against my leg. He's hungry, affectionate, completely unaware that the woman who filled his bowl every morning is gone. The phone lights up with a photo she's sent: a stack of books on a sidewalk, free to a good home. Some are mine. First editions I spent years hunting down. She knows. She knows exactly which ones will hurt most to lose.

I drain the spinach, watch the steam rise toward a ceiling we painted together that summer we thought we'd be happy forever. The gesture feels small and stupid and devastatingly human. Cooking dinner for one in a kitchen that still smells like her perfume, while my phone buzzes with messages from a woman who already decided who she becomes next.