What We Carry

She'd cut her hair that morning. The stylist asked if she was sure, and she nodded, watching the dark strands fall to the floor like something she couldn't afford to keep anymore. Now, sitting alone at the corner table, Elena kept touching the back of her neck where the air felt strange against her skin. The waiter had stopped asking if she wanted anything else.

Her iPhone lay face-down on the table, dark and silent. Richard's last text had been three hours ago: "Can we talk?" She hadn't responded. What was there to say that hadn't already been said in arguments that stretched until dawn, in the way he stopped looking at her like she was someone he loved?

She pushed the spinach around her plate with her fork. Green and wilted, drowning in dressing she didn't want. She'd ordered it because she was supposed to be trying — trying to eat better, trying to sleep better, trying to be the woman Richard claimed he'd fallen for, before he started looking at other women like they were reminders of what he'd lost.

Outside the restaurant window, the bronze bull statue stood frozen in mid-charge, its massive form silhouetted against the dying light. She and Richard had argued beneath it once, drunk on cheap wine and cheaper pretense, shouting about fidelity as if it were something you could legislate into existence. He'd called her dramatic, emotional, a storm he couldn't weather.

A cat wound around her legs beneath the table, probably someone's pet that wandered over from the apartments next door. It rubbed its side against her calf, purring like a small, confident engine. Elena had always wanted one. Richard was allergic. He'd also hated the way her hair fell across his pillow, the sound of her typing when she worked late, her tendency to cry during commercials.

The iPhone buzzed against the table. She didn't turn it over.

"Ma'am?" The waiter appeared. "We're closing soon."

She nodded, standing up. The cat wound between her legs one last time before slinking away into the shadows. Outside, the bronze bull watched her go, and somewhere in the distance, someone's phone rang unanswered. She touched her cropped hair, feeling light for the first time in years, and began walking toward whatever came next.