What We Keep
The apartment was silent except for the sound of water dripping from the bathroom faucet—a persistent, rhythmic reminder that everything eventually falls apart. Sarah stood at the kitchen counter, staring at the box of her ex-husband's things she'd finally gathered the courage to pack.
"You don't have to do this today," Elena had said over coffee yesterday, her voice full of that careful concern that somehow made everything harder. Elena, the only friend who'd stayed through the divorce, who'd listened to the same stories on repeat, who'd brought wine and terrible movies and sat in silence when words were too heavy.
But today was the day. The lease was up in two weeks, and Sarah couldn't keep living in the ghost of a marriage that had died three years before it officially ended.
A grey cat appeared in the doorway—Barnaby, David's cat, or at least he'd been when David left. Sarah had kept him through the separation, through the divorce proceedings, through the nights she'd cried into his soft fur while he purred aggressively, as if offended by her tears but willing to tolerate them. Now he was hers in every way that mattered.
"Well?" she asked him. "Should I donate the books?" The collection of first editions he'd been so proud of, the ones he'd never actually read. The vintage watches that needed repair. The handwritten notes from their first year together, when love had been simple and they'd been too young to know how hard it could become.
Barnaby blinked slowly and jumped onto the counter, knocking over a framed photograph. Sarah picked it up—her and David on their honeymoon, standing by the ocean, wet hair and salt on their skin, certain they'd be happy forever. She'd believed it then. That was the tragedy, wasn't it? Not that it ended, but that she'd been so sure it wouldn't.
The water kept dripping.
Sarah called Elena. "Come over. Bring boxes. And maybe whiskey."
"On my way," Elena said, no questions needed.
Some things you keep. Some things you let go. The trick was knowing the difference.