The Weight of Oranges

Marina stood in the kitchen at 2 AM, peeling an orange with surgical precision. The citric spray stung her eyes—not that she was crying, of course. She hadn't cried since the lawyer, that bullish man with too-loud ties and promises he couldn't keep, told her the settlement would take months. Maybe years.

Her cat, Bubbles, wound around her ankles, demanding. The only creature who still needed anything from her. Marina bent to scratch behind Bubbles' ears, the only intimacy she'd known in six months.

The orange segments burst between her teeth. Too sweet. Everything had been too sweet lately, like her body was compensating for what she'd lost by amplifying what remained. She'd stopped taking the vitamins Dr. Chen prescribed. What was the point of prolonging this?

On the counter, her phone lit up. Another email from work—something about the Q3 projections, the bull market, everything her husband had lived for until he'd decided to live for someone else. She'd have to bear it. She always bore it. That was the problem.

Marina carried her orange to the window. The city below was a grid of lights, thousands of people sleeping beside someone they might not love by morning. Somewhere in that grid, he was asleep. Probably.

Bubbles leaped onto the sill, watching the street with that predatory stillness cats perfected when they forgot they were domesticated. Marina envied her. The ability to exist outside of obligation, to simply want and take and sleep.

She finished the orange, sucking the juice from each finger. The sticky residue felt like a promise she couldn't keep. Tomorrow she would take the vitamins. Tomorrow she would answer the emails. Tomorrow she would bear whatever new weight the world decided she could carry.

But not tonight. Tonight she stood in the kitchen with her cat and the ghost of something that used to be marriage, and let the silence taste exactly like it was.