The Weight of Breathing

Maya watches Julian across the kitchen table — or what passes for Julian these days. He's become something **zombie-like** in the months since the layoff, moving through their apartment with the hollowed-out automatism of someone who's forgotten that movement should have purpose behind it. He shuffles to the coffeemaker, pours, drinks. Repeat.

Their **cat**, Bast, winds between Maya's legs, purring aggressively. At least one of them is hungry.

"I got you those **oranges** you like," Maya says, pointing to the bowl on the counter. Julian doesn't respond. He used to peel them for her, making a stupid show of pulling off the rind in one continuous piece, dangling it like a prize before breaking the segments apart. The smell of citrus used to fill their kitchen — bright, impossible, the scent of some California that didn't exist outside their fourth-floor walk-up.

Now the oranges sit there, slowly softening into sad versions of themselves.

Maya reaches across the table, her **palm** open, waiting. Julian used to take her hand without thinking, reflexive as breathing. She traces the life line on her own hand, the one that promised seventy-some years of this — this loving, this waiting, this slow erosion of hope.

"The market's hiring," she tries. "That corporate place downtown. Benefits, 401k."

"Benefits don't matter when you're dead inside," Julian says, the first words he's spoken all morning. His voice cracks on the last word.

Bast jumps onto the table and nudges Maya's hand with her head. Maya strokes the cat's fur, and for a second, she imagines simply becoming this — something that accepts love without question, that asks for food and warmth and touch without worrying about neediness, about dignity, about whether wanting too much makes you burdensome.

"I'm not dead, Jules. You're not dead." Maya stands up, grabs an **orange** from the bowl. She digs her nail into the peel, lets the scent spray into the air. "See? This is what alive smells like."

She pushes the fruit toward him. "Peel it for me. Like you used to."

Julian looks at the orange, then at her open **palm** on the table, waiting. For a long moment, nothing happens. Then slowly, so slowly it aches, he reaches across the table and takes her hand.

His **palm** is rough, dry, unmistakably real.

"I don't know if I remember how," he says.

"Start with the rind," she says. "We'll figure out the rest together."

Bast purrs loud enough that they can both hear it.