OBJECTS

By Raoul Suarez

The first thing she left was a mug. It sat on the kitchen counter for three days after she moved out. White. Ceramic. With a thin crack running down the side from the time he dropped it. He didn’t throw it away. He just moved it from the sink to the rack, from the rack to the cabinet, from the cabinet back to the counter, like it still had somewhere to go.

Then there was the sweater. Folded on the back of a chair as if she had just stepped into another room. It still carried the faint scent of the detergent she insisted on buying, even when it cost more than it should. There was a loose thread near the hem that she never fixed. She said it gave the sweater character. He knew better. It was just something she meant to take care of later and never did. When he lifted it, it sagged with the weight of her absence. Still warm in memory. Still holding the curve of her arms, the slope of her shoulders, and the way she used to wrap it tighter around herself when she thought he wasn’t looking. He tried it on once, alone. The sleeves were too short. On him, it didn’t fit. On the chair, it did. He folded it again. Neater this time. Like that mattered.

In the bathroom drawer, he found her hair tie wrapped around nothing. It was still stretched into the memory of a ponytail that wasn’t there anymore. It had taken the shape of habit. Of mornings that began without words. Beside it lay a toothbrush she might have forgotten or deliberately chose not to take. The bristles were splayed just slightly at the edges, worn down the way small, daily things get worn down when they’re used without ceremony. He couldn’t tell if leaving it behind was an accident or a decision. Some exits are clean. Others leave quiet placeholders.

A small bottle of perfume stood beside the soap box. No packaging. No cap. Just glass and what little remained inside it. The liquid clung stubbornly to the bottom. Just a thin amber line refusing to disappear. He pressed the nozzle once. Twice. Again. Each time, it resisted. It offered only the dry click of something that had already given everything it could. The drawer still smelled faintly of it. Not enough to fill the room Just enough to remind him that it used to.

When you end up alone, you eventually learn how to live around the objects. That’s what he did. The apartment became a museum of things. Things that no longer had an owner. He stopped noticing them the way people stop noticing a scar on their own body. At first, you touch it often, and you check if it still hurts. Later, you forget it’s there until the light hits it a certain way. It’s still there. It’s still part of the shape of things. It doesn’t disappear. It settles into you and becomes part of the outline.

Weeks later, he found the movie ticket in a book he never finished. Two stubs. Same date. Same time. A movie he couldn’t remember because he spent most of it watching her laugh at parts that weren’t even funny. He slid the ticket back between the pages and returned the book to the shelf. With parts of it still unread. Unfinished pages that might be turned someday, but not anytime soon.

The last thing he found was the key. Brass. Dulled from years of being touched. Forgotten. One edge was slightly bent from the time it got caught in the lock, and she kept turning it anyway, impatient, laughing at herself when it finally gave. It was taped under the small table by the door. Her idea. In case one of them forgot theirs. In case one of them needed to get back in. He peeled it off slowly, like it might break if he rushed. It didn’t. It was warm from his palm when he found it, as if it had been waiting there for a hand to remember it. Too light to feel like responsibility. Too heavy to be just metal.

He stood there for a while. Key in hand. Door closed. Apartment quiet. The silence wasn’t empty. It was full of things that no longer had a place to go. The hum of the refrigerator. The faint traffic outside. The soft and unmoving weight of a room that had learned to exist without witnesses. He tightly held on to the key. Tight enough that it felt like it might still open something other than a lock.

He sighed deeply and then decided to place the key on the counter. Not gently. Not carelessly. Just enough to let it rest among the other things that no longer belonged to anyone in particular. It made a small sound when it touched the surface. The kind of sound that would have once meant someone was home.

The first thing she left was a mug. It waited where it always had. All the other things she left behind were still doing their job. Holding space. Holding memory. Holding the outline of a life that had already stepped out and kept walking. The chair still carried the sweater on its shoulder. The drawer still smelled faintly of her. None of them demanded to be moved. None of them asked to be understood. They just remained quiet. They just remained patient. They just remained unchanged by the fact that the story inside them had ended. The objects stayed where they were. And so did he.