I’m stealing his coffee mug as a breakup memento.
This is the saddest thing I’ve ever done and I once ate an entire rotisserie chicken alone in my car while watching my ex’s Instagram stories.
I put it in my bag.
The teal blanket is on the couch. Loud and defiant and refusing to be neutral.
Same, bitch. Same.
The succulent is still on the windowsill. The one Saul brought me. The one that’s supposed to be impossible to kill.
I should take it. I don’t.
Let it stay here. Let it be the one thing that survives me in this apartment. Maybe the next tenant will water it. Maybe they’ll wonder who left behind a plant.
Or maybe it’ll die anyway, and that’ll be poetic as fuck.
He’s off the phone now. Watching me from the kitchen doorway.
I pick up the blanket. Fold it carefully. Add it to my bag.
He wasn’t expecting that. I can see it in the way he goes still.
“You’re taking that?”
“You gave it to me.” I don’t look at him. “You gave me a lot of things. The blanket. The coffee. The plant.” My voice wavers. “You kept showing up. Kept making this survivable. That mattered. It still matters.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “The bakery’s approved,” he finally says. “Colorado. Small college town. You’ll be Zoey Carter. Twenty-eight. Culinary school graduate. Your shop is called The Blue Door.”
Zoey Carter.
I test it in my head. On my tongue. It doesn’t feel like mine. Maybe it will.
“The Blue Door,” I repeat. Like Dario’s door.
“There’s an apartment above the shop. Start-up funding. A real lease.” He almost smiles. “You’ll have a life this time. An actual one.”
“Cool. Just let me finish shoving my trauma into a tote bag first.”
“Two hours. Processing first, then I’ll drive you. Stay the first week to make sure you’re settled.”
Like before. Except nothing like before.
“I need to make cookies,” I say.
He blinks. “What?”
“I can’t just leave. Not without.” I gesture at the kitchen. “It’s the only language I speak. Grief cookies. Apology muffins. Heartbreak biscotti. Ibakemy feelings. It’s tragic but efficient.”
He doesn’t argue. Just nods.
I bake.
Peanut butter chocolate chip. Enzo’s favorite. The ones I made him that first night, when he showed up to threaten me and left with Tupperware.
The kitchen fills with the smell of butter and sugar and goodbye.
I leave the cookies on the counter. And a note. Handwritten. The hardest thing I’ve ever written. It takes three times.
