What We Leave Behind

You're packing the boxed-up wedding china when I notice you've already taken the goldfish. The bowl sits empty on its stand, one last glass circle swirling with the ghosts of three years. I wonder if you'll remember to feed them. You never did before.

The spinach from last night's disastrous attempt at reconciliation still sits in the colander, wilting like something that gave up trying. I'd made that recipe—the one from that cooking class we took because we needed a hobby, because silence at dinner had started feeling like something we needed to fix with activities. We stood side by side at the counter, your shoulder against mine, and I'd thought: this is what people do when they're trying.

I'd caught my reflection later. A piece of spinach in my teeth. I'd laughed about it. You hadn't.

"Did you take the orange throw blanket?" I call into the bedroom.

"It's mine," you answer. Not an explanation. A verdict.

Your hair keeps falling everywhere these days. Long strands on my pillow, in the shower drain, wound around the vacuum roller like you're marking territory even in absence. I find one now on the collar of the coat I'm about to pack for you and it stops me cold. Something rises in my throat—grief, or relief, or the ugly way they can feel the same sometimes.

I bear the weight of it all. Your cold shoulder. My own quiet cowardice. The way we've been talking around the thing we both know: we became roommates who stopped liking each other somewhere in year two, and neither of us had the courage to be the one who said it first.

The goldfish were your idea. A practice run, you'd joked, before we tried for something that actually needed us. Now they're gone and I'm folding your sweaters and everything that isn't spoken aloud is louder than anything we've said in months.

I leave the spinach in the colander. Let it rot. Let it be something that doesn't get saved or fixed or talked about. Let it just be done.

You walk past with a box, your hair still wet from the shower, and we don't make eye contact. The goldfish are probably already dead in transit. It's not funny, but I almost laugh.

Some things just don't survive the move.