What the Water Remembers

The goldfish has been dead for three weeks, but Maya finds herself still feeding it every morning. A shake of flakes into the bowl, watching them drift through the green-tinted water, settling on plastic plants that never grew. Some habits outlive the things that sustained them.

She's been running from the apartment in every sense — leaving before dawn, coming home after midnight, taking the long way to work to avoid the corner store where she and Ben bought the fish on a Tuesday that felt like the beginning of something permanent. The clerk had asked if they wanted a bowl ornament. A castle, a diver, a treasure chest. Ben chose the treasure chest.

"Because we're building something," he'd said, grinning that lopsided grin that used to make her stomach drop.

Now the treasure chest is just plastic at the bottom of a tank she can't bring herself to empty.

Her hair is longer than it was when they met, falling past her shoulders in ways he never saw. She thinks about cutting it, some symbolic severing, but that feels like giving him power he doesn't deserve anymore. So she wears it in a bun most days, practical and untouchable, letting it down only when she's alone in the apartment that still smells faintly of his cologne and the curry they burned the night he told her he wasn't sure about forever.

The hat hangs on the hook by the door — hisfavorite beanie, still gathering dust. She's meant to return it. He texted about it once, two weeks ago. Can I come get my stuff? She hasn't responded. Some small, petty part of her wants to throw it away. Some larger, sadder part wants to put it on, see if she can still smell him there, remember what it felt like to be held by someone who promised forever and meant maybe six months.

The truth is, she's swimming in something thicker than grief. It's not just losing him — it's losing the version of herself that believed in the kind of love that comes easily. The fish was supposed to be practice. If they could keep something alive together, they could keep anything alive. But the fish died the same week he did, technically alive in a way she can't bring herself to examine too closely.

Tomorrow, she tells herself. Tomorrow she'll empty the bowl. Tomorrow she'll box the hat. Tomorrow she'll stop running.

Tomorrow she'll feed herself instead.

Maya shakes the flakes one last time, watches them spiral down through water that holds too many memories, and finally, finally, turns off the light.