What We Buried in the Soil
The papaya sat on Mara's desk like an accusation. Perfect, orange-fleshed, impossible. Three years since Diego died, and his ghost still found ways to haunt her.
"Your friend left it for you," her coworker said, already turning back to her spreadsheets. "Some guy. Said it was your favorite."
Mara's chest hollowed out. Diego had remembered. Diego, who she'd spent three nights with at that conference in CancĂşn, eating papaya on a balcony while he talked about leaving his wife. Diego, who'd played padel with her on the hotel court at midnight, competitive and laughing, sweat slick on both their temples, something dangerous blooming between them.
Then came the bull—his wife finding out, the ugly collision, the way Diego had charged through their shared destruction like an animal that couldn't stop itself. Mara had stepped aside. Let him trample his marriage, his dignity, their whatever-it-was. She'd gone back to being just his colleague, just his friend, the word burning in her throat every time she said it.
She'd become a zombie after his accident. Going through motions. Eating. Working. The accident report had said tractor rollover. She'd lain in bed for three weeks after the funeral, trying to remember if papaya really tasted like that, or if memory had sweetened everything.
Now she lifted the fruit from her desk. Someone had left it. Not Diego—couldn't be. But someone who knew. Someone who'd heard her drunk confession at the Christmas party two years ago, when she'd cried into her drink about papaya and midnight games and the man she'd loved but never touched.
The email notification chimed. A new message from an address she didn't recognize: Saw you at his grave yesterday. You looked like you needed this.
Mara's fingers trembled against the papaya's skin. She took it to the breakroom, cut it open, and for the first time in three years, tasted something real.