The Unfinished Game

The spinach was wilting in my cart. I'd been standing in the same spot for twenty minutes, paralyzed by the terrifying freedom of choosing dinner for one.

Three weeks since Julie left. Twelve days since she took the dog. I was still adjusting to the silence of an apartment that no longer greeted me with clicking claws and frantic tail wags.

"Marcus?"

I turned. It was David—my best friend from college, the one who'd stood next to me at my wedding. The same wedding where I'd caught the baseball that sailed into the stands and handed it to Julie, grinning like an idiot, certain she was the one.

David looked older. Thinner at the edges.

"I heard about the separation," he said, not meeting my eyes. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." It wasn't fine. "I bought a goldfish yesterday. His name is Carl."

David's laugh was rusty, unused. "A goldfish? You?"

"Carl doesn't ask why I'm still wearing my wedding ring. Carl doesn't remind me that our friends are now her friends. Carl just swims in circles and looks at me with what I choose to interpret as unconditional acceptance."

"Julie was at my house last week," David said quietly. "She cried through most of dinner."

The spinach was definitely wilting now. So was I.

"She said you never talked about the hard stuff. That you'd rather lose than have a difficult conversation."

"I didn't want to lose her."

"You lost her anyway."

We stood there between the organic kale and the dairy section, two men who'd loved the same woman in different ways, both of us left behind.

"My place," I said suddenly. "Tonight. I'll cook the spinach. We can talk about the hard stuff."

David nodded once. "Seven?"

"Seven."

The spinach was still wilting. But for the first time in three weeks, I didn't feel like I was drowning alone.