What We Become

The papaya arrived at my table already sliced, its orange flesh glistening under the cabana lights. I hadn't ordered it, but the waitress had already moved on to the next table at the Azure's rooftop pool, where tourists floated like bloated lotus flowers in the chlorinated water.

Then I saw Lena.

She stood at the pool's edge, her hair bleached platinum and chopped into something sharp and angular—a far cry from the chestnut waves I'd run my fingers through in our dorm room sophomore year. She was thinner, her collarbones jutting sharp enough to cut glass. She wore a swimsuit that cost more than my monthly rent.

"You came," she said, sliding into the chair across from me. Her voice was the same—smoky, intimate—but her eyes were flat, like something had hollowed out the space behind them.

"You said it was urgent."

Lena reached for the papaya, spearing a piece with her fork. "I'm getting married."

The words landed between us like a physical weight.

"To Geoffrey?"

"He's good to me."

"He's forty-five, Lena. He was at our college graduation."

She laughed, and it sounded like breaking glass. "You know what's funny? I used to think I'd never become this. One of those zombie wives floating through charity galas, drinking too much at lunch, forgetting who I was before the ring. And now I can't remember what that girl wanted. Can you?"

I couldn't. The years had blurred together—paying rent, disappointing promotions, failed dates that all ended the same way. We were all zombies, weren't we? Moving through the motions, waiting for something that never came.

"I'm happy," she said, but her hand shook as she reached for another piece of fruit. "Geoffrey promised me a life where I never have to worry about anything."

"What do you worry about now?"

Lena's eyes filled with tears. "That I'll never feel anything again."

The pool lights flickered, casting dancing shadows across her face. I wanted to reach across the table, to grab her shoulders and shake her until my friend came back. But that girl was gone, replaced by this stranger in expensive swimwear.

"Eat your papaya," I said instead. "It's getting warm."

She did, and I watched her swallow it down like medicine, wondering which one of us was more dead—the one who'd sold herself, or the one who'd never figured out what she was worth selling in the first place.