The candle cost more than lunch and burned a hole directly through its center, leaving a white wall of wax around the flame like the candle had built itself a gated community. I thought of you when I saw it, of that one night you stood at the stove in your underwear eating spaghetti straight out of the pot, and I watched you like you were something I had never seen before. You laughed with tomato sauce at the corner of your mouth, and I told you to use a plate. You did not. You just kept eating. I think about that sometimes, how it felt like the safest moment I had ever known.
I remember the chipped blue bowl you always found in the cabinet. The one you liked better than the others. It has a small piece missing from the rim, just enough to notice when you run your finger along the edge. I used to wonder if you liked it for its imperfection, as if the flaw made it more real to you. I never asked. Some things are better left unsaid.
When you left, there was a single spoon in the sink. It was such a small detail, but I could not look anywhere else. You stood there, telling me you had met someone new. A woman. You said she was nice. I wanted to ask, “What does she get that I don’t?” But I already knew the answer. I do not have to hide her. The truth cut me quietly, like a knife I did not know was sharp.
That morning, I watched you walk to your truck from the open window. Usually, I waited until you drove away before I let the light in. But not this time. The garbage truck was making its rounds, a dog barked, and the sky was a muted gray. I watched your figure become smaller, each step taking you further from the life we had shared, the life that was never really mine.
In the end, there was no grand gesture to mark your leaving, no dramatic scene to replay in my head. Just a quiet morning and a chipped blue bowl, reminding me of the little things you took with you.