Chapter 6
634 Words
At seven that evening, back at the apartment, Cole turned the microwave dial all the way to the highest setting. The machine beeped. He pulled the door open. The surface of the barbecue ribs had blistered and spat grease against the walls, the meat shrunken into hard little knots.
The sticky note on the lid read:
Medium heat, three minutes. Don't use high.
He hadn't been able to read the dial.
He carried the container to the dining table and sat down. The chair across from him was empty. A floral apron was still draped over its back.
He jabbed at a rib with his fork. It didn't give. He picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts from A to Z.
There wasn't a single person he could ask where Mia had gone.
Eight years together, and he didn't know her colleagues. He barely knew her high school friends.
He closed the contacts and opened their chat. He scrolled up.
It didn't take long before something felt wrong.
Mia's messages always came in clusters. Two, three, five in a row. His replies were almost always a single word. The timestamps were worse. Her messages came through instantly. His replies usually landed two hours later.
He kept scrolling until he found a day two months back.
Mia: [4:00 PM] It's raining. Did you bring an umbrella? Mia: [5:00 PM] Made the shrimp you like. Come home whenever you're ready.
Mia: [8:00 PM] Still at the office? The food got cold, I'll reheat it.
Mia: [10:00 PM] No reply, so I'll head to bed.
Mia: [11:30 PM] My stomach's been hurting. Where did you put the ibuprofen?
Cole: [1:00 AM] ok.
He stared at that single word.
Where had he been that night? The memory surfaced slowly. Renee Parker had just closed a deal. The team had gone out for a team outing at a barbecue place. Renee had told a terrible joke at the table and he'd laughed until he nearly fell off his chair, then left a string of voice notes in the group chat.
Mia had sent five messages. Her stomach hurt. He'd glanced at the screen and typed one letter back.
His hand started to shake. He kept scrolling.
A photo loaded. It was a pothos plant, yellowed and wilting.
Mia: The pothos you bought is almost dead. I repotted it.
No reply.
Three days later.
Mia: It made it.
Attached with a photo of new green leaves, with a smiley face.
Still no reply.
He didn't even remember buying the plant. It had been a free gift with purchase at the supermarket. He'd handed it to her without thinking.
He scrolled all the way to the top.
Eight years ago.
Cole: Just saw you at the hot pot place. Was that you? Mia: It was! Why didn't you come over and say hi?
The next several screens were him — a string of stickers, asking what food she liked, typing out long rambling explanations for why he'd been late to the basketball game.
He turned the phone face-down on the table.
He looked at the empty chair across from him.
The person he'd been eight years ago and the person he was now were not the same man.
He thought again about the listing on the marketplace app. Three whole streets. He had said that, back when he'd bought that cheap bracelet for his ex. When he gave Mia the same one, he hadn't bothered thinking of anything new. He'd just said it again. It was all the same to him. A piece of junk. Say something, and she'd be fine.
Cole stood up, grabbed the container of ribs — hard as a rock by now — and threw it into the kitchen trash, glass and all. It shattered.
- Writer
