she closed the app.
apple doesn't say anything. she puts the phone face down. she boils water. she keeps it.
scene 1 — the morning after
she closes bowl. the screen goes black. she sets the phone face down. the kettle takes four minutes. she watches it the whole time. she pours coffee into the mug he got her, the one with the chipped rim. she doesn't cry. she's surprised about that. she thought she would cry.
apple looks at it for a minute. she types "good 🤍". she sends it. she takes a sip of coffee. it's too hot. she keeps drinking it.
scene 2 — two weeks of soft
apple is unusually nice. she texts him first. she buys him the sweatshirt he wanted, the one he sent a screenshot of three months ago and forgot about. she makes the salmon. she initiates. she laughs at the dumb tiktok he sends. she lets her face be soft around him.
banana notices. he keeps asking "you good?" with a tilt in his voice. once, in the kitchen, while she's chopping cilantro, he says, "you've been like, really sweet lately." he means it as a compliment. he is also checking. she smiles without looking up. "have i?"
scene 3 — the dinner
chicken katsu. tuesday. he pours her a second glass before she asks. he says, "i've been feeling weird lately. like, with us." apple sets down her fork. she takes a breath she's been holding for fourteen days. she looks at him.
that's all she says. she picks her fork back up. she takes a bite. she chews. banana's face does something she has never seen it do before. it doesn't crumble. it stills. like an animal that just realized the cage door has been unlocked the whole time and it didn't know. he doesn't ask which folsom. he doesn't need to. neither of them mentions it again that night. or ever.
scene 4 — six months later
they're still together. he hasn't seen strawberry. she knows because she still has the dashboard — strava, bowl, the venmo. the $47.50 stopped two days after the katsu. the SOMA posts stopped. he is, by every measurable signal, faithful now. he thinks he chose to stop. he tells himself he came to his senses. he believes this.
apple knows he stopped because she decided. she keeps the dashboard open. she checks it monthly. she calls it "being normal." she makes him coffee. she lets him hold her. when he says i love you she says it back in the same voice she's always used, which is now a voice she practices, which means it is not the same voice. but he can't tell. nobody can tell. that's the point.