More Than Roommates
The room smells like citrus and fabric softener and that faint trace of his deodorant that never quite disappears.
For a second, I lie there anyway, eyes half-closed, letting my body catch up. Letting it register the absence without reacting to it. My arm stretches out automatically, fingers brushing cool sheets where his warmth has already faded.
Then I notice the desk.
Something is different.
I push myself upright and squint toward it, still foggy. There’s a basket sitting right in the middle, like it’s always been there and I just forgot. Small, woven, the kind you’d find in a grocery store display. It’s filled carefully — oranges, apples, bananas, a carton of berries tucked to one side s