What We Carry Underneath

The spinach lay wilted in the colander, a confession of neglect I couldn't bring myself to make. Three days of smoothies and clean eating, abandoned when Marcus called at midnight—drunk again, wanting to talk about what went wrong. Instead of throwing it out, I kept staring at those darkening leaves, understanding something about my own capacity for rot.

I found myself running past Elena's building at dawn, my chest burning with a pain that had nothing to do with exertion. She'd been my friend since freshman year, before the marriages and mortgages and careful mediocrity. She'd text me about the spinach, about self-care, about how running would help me find myself. She meant well. That was the problem.

Her hair had changed recently—sleek, expensive blonde, nothing like the messy brown waves I'd first fallen in love with during those late college nights. We'd both changed. I'd become someone who bought organic spinach on Tuesday and watched it die by Friday. She'd become someone who gave motivational advice while knowing exactly how to hurt me.

"You're still swimming in circles," she'd told me last week, her voice gentle as she cut me to pieces. "Marcus doesn't want you. The smoothies won't fix it. You need to actually do something."

She knew. Of course she knew. About the nights I'd spent swimming in their apartment pool, begging for exhaustion. About the times I'd shown up at her door when her husband was working late, desperate for someone to see me. About how much I'd wanted her to choose differently.

I stopped running. The sweat cooled on my skin, leaving me shivering in the morning light. Elena's apartment was dark, but somewhere up there, she was sleeping. She'd wake up to spinach smoothies and morning yoga and the comfortable certainty that she was helping me. She'd never know I'd stood here, heart hammering like a trapped bird, wanting to knock. Wanting to scream. Wanting to finally say the thing that would ruin everything.

The spinach would keep. I turned away from her building and started the long run home.