I watched him leave like I knew he was coming back, and I was right. When he finally turned around and honked his horn I was busy hiding his sandals, washing the dishes he had left behind to remove all traces of him, elbows deep in soap suds and sadness. I braced myself and headed to the driveway, wrapping myself around my jutted elbows, dripping in wetted knit. He pretended like he had made a mistake and I pretended like I didn’t want to follow him. It would have been so easy to jump into his car- I had already packed my bags that afternoon hoping he would want me to join- but I saw the way his eyes turned down and I saw- how unlike him- how his cigarette had been smoked down to the quick, he still held on to it- ashes falling and he still held on to it, it looked hot and too close to his touch but he still held on to it, and it was time to let it go. So I jammed my toes into those old clogs we shared.

I jammed my toes into those clogs and I held my chin high but this was only to keep the salted tears from being caught in the corners of my lips. I tried to visualize the red stone on the floor underneath my yoga mat, tried to call its structure into form, borrow its consistency to keep me upright and sturdy as I made my way to the front door. But all I could find in the spaces between my mind was the last cigarette I saw him smoke, how it stirred listlessly in his hand much past its prime, how it begged to be released. I saw it dropping sweet and slow and painful all at once, his hand opening like a jaw, imagined its impact upon reaching the rocks below and the sickening peace that would come at its demise.