The Weight of What Remains

The restaurant was too loud, filled with couples pretending to be in love and business associates pretending to be friends. Elena sat alone in the corner booth, staring at her iphone as it lit up with his name again. Third time tonight. She let it ring out, watching the screen pulse against the dark wood table like a dying heartbeat.

The waiter refilled her water glass without asking. "Still waiting for someone?" he asked, not really wanting an answer.

"No," she said. "Just me."

She'd ordered the spinach salad because it was the cheapest thing on the menu, but now it sat untouched, the emerald leaves wilting under the dressing. It reminded her of their garden last summer—how he'd planted spinach because he read somewhere it was easy, how they'd watched it grow together, how she'd cooked it into everything, how he'd complained about the taste but eaten it anyway because that's what you did when you were trying to be the kind of people who kept gardens.

Above the bar, a goldfish swam in endless circles in a tank too small for anything but suffering. Its orange scales caught the light, flash by flash by flash, like thoughts you couldn't stop thinking.

"His name is Bubbles," said the woman at the next table, following Elena's gaze. She was drunk, her wine glass tipping dangerously. "Can you imagine? Naming a creature that lives in a perpetual loop of the same five gallons Bubbles?"

Elena couldn't stop laughing. It wasn't funny, but it was the truest thing she'd heard in months.

Her phone lit up again. A text this time: Please talk to me. I made a mistake.

She watched the goldfish turn, again and again, never reaching anything new. The water in her glass rippled. The spinach continued to wilt on her plate.

"The mistake," she said aloud, surprising herself, "was thinking we were any different than that fish."

She left without touching her food, without replying, without looking back. Outside, the city was rain-slick and neon-drenched, and somewhere out there was a life that didn't feel like swimming in circles, somewhere beyond the glass.