The Weight of What Remains

The internet guy is in the living room, kneeling by the wall where the cable had been spooled like a black snake for six years. "You're all set," he calls out, and I watch him leave through the same door Marco walked out of three days ago.

On the kitchen counter, the papaya sits uneaten, its skin mottled with yellow that reminds me of the sunset we watched from our balcony in Portugal. We'd bought two from a market vendor, laughing when we couldn't figure out how to eat them. Now it sits there, ripening into something sweeter than either of us deserved.

Barnaby, Marco's retriever, has been staring at the door since Thursday. His water bowl is empty again — I've been forgetting to fill it, the way I've been forgetting to eat, to sleep properly, to remember that I exist outside the space we carved out together. The friend who told me Marco had been sleeping with his colleague for six months offered to take Barnaby. "He's too much reminder," she'd said, her voice thick with the kind of pity that feels like ash in your mouth.

I sit on the floor and pour water into the bowl, watching Barnaby's tail thump tentatively against the cabinet. He drinks like someone who's been walking through desert, and I realize I've been starving us both.

The papaya has softened now. I cut it open, the seeds spilling like dark secrets, and eat it standing at the sink where Marco used to make coffee every morning, humming off-key. It's too sweet, cloying, the way memories become when there's no one left to share them.

"You're stuck with me," I tell the dog, and he noses my palm with a gentleness that makes my throat tight. "We'll figure out how to be alone together."

Outside, rain begins to fall, and I think maybe that's enough for now — the water washing away what needs washing, the dog beside me, the papaya gone, the cable finally disconnected. Sometimes the end is just the beginning disguised as something small and quiet and terrifyingly new.