I hated that photo. I hated how much I had meant that smile.
I set the frame face-down with a little more force than necessary.
Behind me, I heard the soft creak of the floorboards as Eric moved around the apartment. A drawer opened, followed by the faint clink of glass. He was settling in for the night, like this was done for him now.
I sat on the bed and stared at my hands. They looked small. Useless. I rubbed my palms over my thighs, trying to shake the feeling. I wasn’t going to fall apart. Not now. Not in this room.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. With trembling fingers, I typed out a message to my sister, Charlotte:I need you.Then I deleted it. Typed:Drinks tonight?Deleted that too. Finally settled on:You free?
I didn’t want to be a mess. I didn’t want to need saving.
I looked around the room—our room. The neutral walls, the throw pillows I’d chosen to match the bedding, the curtains I’d convinced Eric we needed.
I realized I didn’t want any of it anymore.
I grabbed my purse and coat, but paused at the door. For a second, I thought about stepping out, getting air, calling my sister—doing anything but staying in this space that suddenly felt too small and too big at the same time. And then I considered finding Eric, trying to explain myself. Asking him to fight for us.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I turned toward the closet. My legs felt heavy, like I was moving through mud, but I kept going. I slid the door open, the familiar creak of it weirdly comforting in the silence. The suitcase was right where I’d left it after the last time we traveled, when things still felt good, or at least fixable.
I dragged it out, the wheels thudding against the floor. The sound felt final in a way Eric’s words hadn’t.
Unzipping the suitcase, I started pulling clothes from hangers. Sweaters I’d worn on lazy Sundays; dresses I’d bought for dates he kept rescheduling; the jacket I wore the night we moved in here. My hands moved on autopilot, and my mind was a mess of static.
I didn’t want to cry. I told myself I wouldn’t. But as I reached for the shirt with the little sunflowers that he’d once said was hisfavorite, a single tear slipped free and tracked down my cheek. I swiped it away with the back of my hand and kept going.
If Eric needed softer energy, I’d give him empty space.
The apartment lookeddifferent now that I was packing it into boxes. Less curated. Less aspirational. Half of it didn’t even feel like mine. I stared into the fridge. All the kombucha was his. All the frozen fruit? His. Even the damn eggs were organic and came with a motivational quote on the carton.
I muttered under my breath as I hauled a box of books down the hallway. I’d given up space on the shelves, in the fridge, in the bed… and I still hadn’t made the cut. The tears stayed tucked somewhere behind my eyes, not ready to come out yet. Maybe they were scared of staining his goddamn white couch.
Eric watched me from the doorway. “You’re being kind of quiet.”
“Just giving you that softer energy you wanted.”
He winced. “You know, I’m not sure I ever really knew you.”
I stacked another box on top of the first one. “That makes two of us. But hey, I’m sure you know your yoga instructor pretty well.”
His lips parted in protest, but I didn’t stick around to hear his carefully worded denial. I carried the boxes out to my car, muttering goodbyes to every piece of furniture I hated on principle. When I passed the yoga mat leaning in the corner, I saluted it. “Thanks for your service, namaste, and please rot in hell.”
Twenty minutes later, I was at my sister’s townhouse, just far enough outside San Francisco that the fog thinned, and thehouses actually had yards. Charlotte opened her door before I even knocked. She looked like safety. Like home.
“Mags.” She pulled me into a hug so tight it cracked something in my chest. I didn’t even get the words out before I started crying.
“This hurts more than it should,” I whispered into her shoulder. “And that’s the worst part. I still wanted him to choose me, but he didn’t want me.”
She held me tighter, threading her fingers through my hair like my mother used to do when things went to hell.
I choked out the rest. “It’s not just that he dumped me… it’s that I don’t even know who I am without trying to be who he wanted.”
She kissed the top of my head and led me to the couch.
Three hours later, I was swaddled in a blanket like a grief burrito, stabbing at my phone with one hand and alternating between a pint of overpriced dairy-free cookie dough ice cream and cheap red wine with the other. My sister had fallen asleep beside me, her head tilted back, mouth slightly open. I envied her peace.
The Zillow app was a horror show. Tiny studios in the Mission with cracked tile andartistic potential. Victorians in the Haight that I suspected smelled like old weed and regret. SoMa lofts with glossy photos hiding the fact that they sat directly above a nightclub. Every listing I opened fell into one of two categories: wildly out of my budget or so cursed-looking it probably had a haunted doll in the attic.
