Tropical Fever

The emergency room lights hummed at 3 AM, the kind of fluorescent brightness that makes everything feel like a mistake. Marcus sat on the bed, holding a paper cup of lukewarm water, while Dr. Patel explained that the dizziness wasn't stress or exhaustion or whatever his startup investors believed.

"Severe **vitamin** B12 deficiency," she said, not looking up from her clipboard. "You're not absorbing nutrients. Could be stress-related gastritis, could be something else. We need to run more tests."

His phone buzzed on the bedside table—Julia. Again. He'd stopped answering her calls three days ago, when the emails from his co-founder had turned into threats, and his world had started tilting sideways like a photograph falling off a wall.

Back at their apartment, everything smelled wrong. The **papaya** he'd bought at the farmers' market sat on the counter, its orange flesh too vibrant, too alive for the gray fog that had settled over his life. Julia had loved papaya. She'd laughed when he'd brought it home, said it tasted like sunshine, and he'd thought: this is what happiness looks like. This specific moment, this specific fruit.

He found her **hat** on the coat rack—the wide-brimmed straw one she'd worn to his sister's wedding last month, when they'd danced to "their song" and she'd whispered "not yet" when he'd almost asked when they were moving in together. Now the hat hung there like a question he'd never get to ask.

The tests came back negative for anything life-threatening, positive for ulcers and burnout. His doctor prescribed rest and **vitamin** injections. His business partner's lawyer served him papers at the pharmacy. His **iPhone** died while he was staring at the company's plummeting valuation on Twitter, and he let it stay dead, a small black mirror reflecting nothing.

Three days later, Julia found him sitting by the building's rooftop pool at midnight, feet dangling in the **water**.

"Your mother's been calling me," she said, sitting beside him. "She says you're not answering your phone."

"I lost my company today."

"I know. Google alerts."

She peeled a papaya with her fingers—she'd bought another, of course she had—and held out a piece. "B12 deficiency," she said, like she was discussing the weather. "That's what happens when you exist on coffee and panic for eighteen months."

He took the fruit. It was sweet and slightly musky, tasted like something that had grown in a place where people moved slowly, where failure didn't feel like drowning.

"I don't know who I am without this thing I built," he said, and his voice cracked, finally.

Julia's hand covered his on the concrete edge. "You're the person who buys fruit because his girlfriend likes it. The person who keeps her hat on the coat rack even though she technically lives in Park Slope. The person who's going to let me move in next weekend because his lease is up and we've been pretending it's a conversation we still need to have."

He looked at her then, really looked, and saw that she was wearing his sweatshirt and the necklace he'd bought for her birthday, that she'd been showing up at his door with groceries and staying over even when he'd been too sick to notice.

"The papaya," he said. "You really like it?"

"It tastes like sunshine," she said, and the pool's underwater lights made ripples across both of them, and for the first time in months, his world stopped tilting.