Tuesday

Happy 2025, everyone!

It’s been a while since my last post, and while my 2024 writing plans didn’t quite go as expected, I’m learning to set more achievable goals this year. I’m keeping things simple and personal this time, avoiding any promises I can’t keep—just a focus building back the writing endurance. This year, I hope to post more regularly.
Below is a short story I started last year, and after slowly working on it over the past six to eight months, I’m excited to say it’s finally complete. We’re starting the year strong, and there’s more writing to come! I hope you enjoy this piece. :)

Again, Elena finds herself wanting to thumb through the grid of his profile. He seldom posts, but when he does, usually once or twice a year, it’s a collection of selfies and landscapes with a simple caption. His last post was three months ago—a sunrise over a lake in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with the caption “the views were superior”. She nearly recorded his profile to memory at this point. From just a glance, it’s obvious that each post is catered for himself, not painstakingly designed for aesthetics like her own. Compared to her own profile, which has a consistent theme of earth tones and minimalistic detail shots, his profile mimics a bulletin board, the ones in coffee shops decorated with flyers and business cards. Next to his sunrise post is a photo of him and his sister jumping on a beach. In the distance, there are towering rocks rising from the ocean and tourists scattered throughout the scene. They’re like photos she’d find on her mother’s phone, slightly skewed and a touch busy, but there’s something pleasing about them all—an effortless charm.

Of course, she never checks his profile to be pleased. She checks for the burning anticipation as she holds her breath over a single photo. It’s embarrassing how habitual the act has become: swiping to the search page, selecting the first account at the top of the list, and willing the universe to spawn a single photo in the grid. And even now, as she waits she can’t help herself.

She clicks on his profile and her eyes dart  immediately to the bottom right of her phone where the third column,  second row photo would load. Loading, the grey placeholder takes the space. Such power is held in a single grid. Years condensed into an image. What feels like an inescapable pull on her. 

Elena wriggles her back against the chair. Her chest strains in anticipation when the grids don’t load. She swipes down from the top of her screen forcing the page to reload. The grids disappear and a grey circle spins in its place. A full set of bars. My phone is fucking broken. Swipes down a few more times again, willing the grid to load into view. Needs the release of assurance, to know that the photo is still there. Instead, the grey circle taunts her, inflating her chest with each rotation. Maybe from outside, Elena thinks as she fumbles for her purse. It’s tangled around the back of her chair so she haphazardly tugs at the leather straps to set it free. 

“Headed out already, Elena?”

Elena jerks her head up and sees a man with his hand on the seat in front of her. She tries to match his smile but fears it comes out as a grimace instead. He was probably watching me, Elena thinks. She feels the tension rise like hot air and well at her cheeks and eyes. 

“Oh—hey. Yeah, no. Just, you know—fixing my purse.” 

The man seems to believe her, or perhaps he is saving her the embarrassment by not asking any further, instead gesturing at the chair across from her. “May I?”

Elena opens her mouth to speak, but then just nods her head—unable to conjure words. She imagines the grey circle rotating around her mind. 

“Sorry I’m late, I got caught up at work and had to rush here. I didn’t see you at first, there’s a lot of people here which is surprising for this time. You know how it is with these apps, it’s hard to recognize people sometimes.”

Elena nods her head again. 

“I was going to offer to get you a drink, but I saw you had one already,” the man continued.

“Yeah, I’ve been waiting,” she responds, and immediately regrets how aggressive she sounds. Don’t be a bitch Elena, you just met him.

Oblivious, the man pulls the chair out and sits across from her. “That’s my bad; it won’t happen next time. If there is a next time, you know,” he laughs to himself, “That’s not to say I had a hard time finding you, Elena.”

The sound of her name alarms her. Or maybe it’s the ease in which he says it with only exchanging a few words. A familiarity and ease he wants to communicate to her, one which Elena knows she should take appreciatively, but instead pushes the boundaries of.

“Oh, that’s good,” Elena says. Great, you’re killing this.

“Yeah, you look exactly like you do in the photos. Sometimes I feel like the people I see on those apps turn out to be different when I meet them, you know.” 

The man is staring intensely at Elena. She realizes this was a stupid idea, but even she isn’t cruel enough to leave this early. Now, she wills the universe to send her home. The universe doesn’t respond. Whatever. It’s fine. Be nice for an hour.

He starts to ramble about his half marathon training, mentioning something about zones and paces. Elena rarely has to speak—he talks enough for them both—so she lets her mind wander as long as she gives him the impression of attention. He tells her the race is in about a month and that he’s hoping to beat his PR. What’s a PR, Elena asks, even though she knows the answer. It’s then, as the man is explaining PRs and his racing strategy does Elena realize she doesn’t remember his name. Oh fuck, he obviously knows mine. Did he even say it earlier?

But he goes. About strategy and nutrition—why doesn’t he just call it food—and terrain. It starts with an L, right? “Sorry, is this boring you, I could go on for days about this stuff.” Or was it an M? “No, no, I like it,” Elena tilts her head and giggles, she curves her inflection upwards and continues,  “I’ve never ran more than a mile, so I’m learning a lot”. A lie. He continues.

She tries to lock her gaze between his eyes and on the bridge of his nose, she is always uncertain where to look when giving eye contact, but from her peripheral vision she can’t help but notice his mouth. Silent, his full lips gave him a look that teetered between model-esque and pouty. But when he speaks, he leads with his teeth. He punctuates each word with a bite, gnawing the letters as they leave his mouth. Like a goat. No, his bottom jaw doesn’t quite shift the way a goat does. It would be closer to a cow, but an eating cow’s lips don’t protrude as much as his did under the mass of his teeth.

“We could meet a few times a week. I could even write you a training program for the gym or something. My friends used to pay me to do that, you know? But for you, I’d do it for free.” Unbelievable. Flirt a bit with a man, and his head inflates, Elena thinks.

He takes a sip from his mug and uses his index to wipe the froth off his mustache. The request hovers between them. The man sits back and crosses his arms, finding within himself a newfound confidence. A confidence that reignites the tension in her chest. This time, however, it’s not anxiety that pleas to be released, but a heat right under her skin.  Maybe I should’ve been a bitch. 

It wasn’t fair to hate the man across from her, but stuck in place, Elena pointed the anger in the only direction she could. She hated the way he leaned back and crossed his arms. Hated that she was stuck here 15 minutes longer because he was late. She hated her lying and his gullibility. But most of all, she hated just being here, even if she didn’t have anything better to do. Stuck with a man that spoke with such confidence, in the way that only men seem to do, believing himself to be suave when really he just reeked of conceit.

Elena knew she was being unfair, so she imagined turning down her emotions like a faucet sink. She kept twisting until the steady stream was reduced down to a few drops. And back down, wherever emotions go, she pushed it all. A problem for future Elena. Refresh. 

“Alright, I’ll convince you at some point”, the man said. Elena continued to twist at the handles over her emotions and slowly, she felt her temperature cool. She sneaks a glance at the clock behind the man’s head and is relieved to see how time has passed. “Don’t worry, it’ll be great. My buddy Filly trained with me and just PR’d his last race in July.” He put out both his palms to the sky.  “I’m just saying...” he added, holding out that last note and flashing his teeth once more. Then, she smiled, her first genuine smile. He thought she might take him up on the offer, but in reality, Elena had just realized he reminded her of a horse.

Elena and Jason had only tallied a few weeks together on their first visit to the zoo. Elena saw an ad online about the new born Przewalski horse, Filly. 

"Did you know that a horse’s hoof is actually just one big toe?" Jason asked. "I think there were horse ancestors that had three toes." He had the unique skill of sharing facts without sounding condescending. She liked the way he coated facts with uncertainty. Somehow when he produced a fact, it always seemed as if he was drawing knowledge from his childhood, not the pages of wikipedia articles she often saw him reading the longer they dated. He must’ve been the only person to donate to the site willingly and not out of shame. It’s the atlas of everything. There’s no purchase more meaningful, he told her. For his birthday that year, Elena would gift him a Wikipedia diner mug and the thick ceramic bowl with an uneven lip that she made in a pottery class. She hesitated to give it to him, for he always called her the more artistic one and she feared that delivering him something subpar would strip that title from her. It took her nearly the entire 4 hour class to make the bowl. She would plop her wad of clay down, center it appropriately, and cautiously spin the wheel underfoot as she gently pressed her thumbs into the clay’s center. Steady she would keep her hands, letting her thumbs and index fingers come together just as she was instructed. But the walls of the bowl would be pulled too high or too thin, until uncontrollably, the bowl would flop around and rip under the spin of the pottery wheel. Her last bowl, glazed teal and white, had a thick rim, nowhere near the desired size, but conservatively made so she could walk away with something for Jason. "No, it’s awesome," he told tell her, genuinely. "I know you made it. It’s the only one in the entire world, and it’s mine."

Normally, Elena would’ve found constant fact spewing condescending, but it was that shimmer of uncertainty that drew her in. Jason didn’t share to patronize, he was genuinely interested in everything: the oldest discovered cave paintings in Sulawesi, Indonesia, the rate of deforestation in the Amazon, the monstrous diet of the now extinct megladon. It was endearing at first, but it quickly became one main of the reasons she loved him. For the fact that he cared about things with an infectious enthusiasm and awe. That things were always exciting and worth memorizing.

It was near closing, so aside from Elena and Jason, there was only a father and his daughter at the exhibit. The child was no older than five, Elena guessed. She wore a pink t-shirt that read I do all my stunts in bedazzled cursive and around her wrists were several plastic friendship bracelets. "Time to go, kiddo, your mom is here for us," the father said as he scooped his daughter into his arms. When they turned for the exit, the girl looked back and Elena and Jason. Elena was perfectly okay ignoring the girl, but Jason puffed his cheeks and crossed his eyes. Elena never knew what to do with kids. She always felt awkward trying to talk to a kid, especially when she had a hard time guessing their age and how much they could understand her. The girl smiled, so Jason upped the performance and waved his arms. She laughed and waved back at Jason. 

Just the two of them now, Elena picked up a few fallen sticks of hay to offer it across the fence. Even for a newborn, Filly was smaller and stockier than a normal horse. Like a donkey,  Filly had a large head and short legs. The exhibit sign said that native to Mongolia and critically endangered Przewalski horses are the last truly wild horse.

The horse bobbed its head, gruffed, and accepted the hay from Elena’s hand. "What happened to the toes then", Elena asked, turning to face Jason. Jason bit the inside of his cheek, then crows feet emerged from the edges of his eyes—Elena didn’t know it yet, in a few months she would, but a mannerism that revealed thoughts were brewing in his mind. "Well," he said, grabbing her hands with surprising tenderness, ignoring the stickiness of one dampened with horse saliva, "they fell off one day". He rotated his wrist and let their palms meet before interlacing their fingers. He gave a squeeze, and she swore it synchronized with a beat of her heart. "And it was a day like today. A Toesday."

On her way back from the cafe, Elena is walking back to her apartment, a ten minute trip if she follows the road, but nearly double if she takes the river route like she does today. It’s the third week in November and only now has the weather finally started to resemble fall, the damp sticky air replaced with a light pleasant breeze. There was a time when flannels and sweaters were unpacked and dusted off in October, Elena thinks. But now the cold, or really, the coolness, comes two weeks later every year. Passing over the bridge, where men are twisting holiday lights around the handrails and hanging plastic icicles over the edge, Elena nearly turns her ankle at the edge where the bridge meets again with the concrete. She’s rushing she realizes, speed walking to absolutely nowhere. To home she supposes, to her cat whose litter box she remembers she has to clean. 

Towards the end of the date, the horse man told her his friend was performing at Origami. A nonchalant invitation. He was passing the ball to her, to inquire more before he overshared. "Cool, what is that", Elena said. She was still restless, just wanting to go outside to reclaim the rest of her afternoon. He grabbed their mugs to place in the bin along with other dirty dishes. He told her it was a speakeasy connected to the tapas restaurant—not too far from her favorite taco spot. She could take one of those electric scooters or walk there if she really wanted. 

“I’m not familiar”, she lied. “Sounds cool, though”. 

“He’s a DJ”, he added. "The same one who trained with me a few months ago and crushed his PR.”

Elena rustled her hand in her purse and didn’t say anything.

“Anyways, slide through if you’re not busy”.

“Yeah, for sure”. For what reason did she need to lie, she thought. It wasn’t like she had anything to prove to the man. She could just as likely said, no thank you, or no, sorry I can’t, but instead to protect an image of mystery or maybe to disrupt his ego as much as possible, she continued to sprinkle white lies until they shared a quick side hug and parted ways.

Over the bridge now, Elena realizes she never got his name. She unlocks her phone and checks the app that connected them. Vincent. She doesn’t see it. In her mind Vincent only reminds her of Jon Travolta, with his boxy silhouette and slick back hair and relaxed demeanor, nothing like the horse man’s thin frame and fratty personality.  A seed of guilt starts to sprout in Elena. She could have asked him for his name at any point. Do you have a nickname, she could have asked. Vince, perhaps, he would’ve said, and from that she could’ve deduced Vincent. Unless he said something less telling like his initials or something unrelated entirely. My friends call me VT, he could’ve said, then she still wouldn’t know. Well, actually how many masculine names start with V. Victor. Vincent. That’s really all.

Any number of ways to ask. Then, he may have elected more about himself because that was the type of person he seemed to be. An open book. No, an audiobook. They were big fans of pulp fiction, she imagines he would’ve said. They really just wanted me to become a handsome hitman. And you’re halfway there, she could’ve said playfully. Elena winces as she walks past a couple in matching sweaters holding hands. She wasn’t being fair to the horse man. There’s no crime in sharing and talking, that is why she mustered the confidence to go in the first place.

She scrolls to the top of the conversation. He commented on a photo of her in her graduation robe from a few years ago. Great, you have enough brains for the both of us. She thought it was clever, a little self deprecation to show he wasn’t too self absorbed. They exchanged a few pleasantries over the course of a week until he suggested they meet for coffee. 

She swipes the app closed and instinctually opens the other. On cue, like a pavlovian response, the tension in her chest builds again.  Headed out already, Elena, the horse man asked as she stupidly fumbled with her phone. Elena realizes she never did check the photo. Nothing to be proud of. Barely an hour and a half has passed since she was swiping down and refreshing the app like an addict. And before that, she swiped and checked the photo in the morning, not long after waking. An embarrassing habit she’s kept up for a few weeks now, not every day, but frequently enough. Opening the app, swiping to Jason’s profile, exhaling once the photo of them loads into view. It’s the holiday season, her therapist told her in their last session. Elena brought it up as an aside towards the end of their session.

"You’re going to feel a bit of grief still. It hasn’t even been a year and you’ve grown so much. Plus with the holiday season, a lot of emotions come with that too". That was all that was said before asking her when she wanted to schedule her next session. Part of Elena wanted to say more, but in her mind she understood that overcoming grief came with effort. To be the reasonable client. The client that grieves just enough. The client that grows. Habitually checking a photo upon waking isn’t growth. 

But it’s true, Elena has grown so much. When she and Jason separated, Elena felt, despite its irrationality, that life could not go on. She knew of course that it would, but only after departing from a newfound beauty that she found in their relationship. Beauty snuck between the mundane. Moments neither romantic nor extravagant was the ground which she and Jason seemed to thrive. It’s almost as if they skipped the courtship and stepped fully into companionship, often staying at each other’s apartments for days at a time. 

She liked her apartment and roommates then, but they butted heads over chores and cleanliness. Her roommates, Kat and Liz, were so messy that it made Elena’s lifestyle look orderly. She met the sister’s online; they were in need of a third roommate for a year while their friend was on a study abroad program. Elena wasn’t the cleanest, she’d admit, but she purposefully kept her messes confined within the walls of her bedroom. Common spaces like the living room and kitchen she made an effort to keep clean. The twins on the other hand did not. 

And quite quickly after Jason and Elena’s relationship started to take off, she found herself staying at his nearly every weekend. By all accounts, his place was in worse shape than hers. At its worst her apartment was littered with takeout containers and carcasses of acrylic nails. Messy, yes, but always salvageable. Jason on the other hand, lived in a disheveled unit with slanted walls and stained ceilings. It was him and Paul, his childhood friend, squeezed into a 600 square foot space with cracked leather sofas and dysfunctional appliances.

It was hard to explain, but with Kat and Liz, Elena could not shake the temporariness of her existence to them. She didn’t expect to be treated like family (Kat and Liz were fraternal twins), but she often felt isolated from the pair, as if the contract of her sublease also extended to their friendship. But with Paul and Jason, she felt like it fit.

Even if they weren’t dating at the time, Elena imagined the three of them still could be friends. There was an ease to their friendship that she could never find with the twins. Together the trio would play video games and watch horror movies and cook together. Paul always offered to leave if the two wanted to be alone, and to that Elena felt grateful. 

On weekends when Paul would be out visiting his family, Jason’s place further became the flowerbed of their relationship. They would lie in bed, too cold to get out from under the covers, and play the daily crossword together. One memorable weekend, they decided to try eating every meal inspired by an iconic dish from a movie. Together they smoothed out the imperfections of the apartment and made it a home. This is where the beauty came from. She learned to find it in the bumps and cracks as much as in the smooth and pristine. Rose tinted glasses, she’s heard the clarity of infatuation and love described as. But years of immersing in that feeling tints more than just the vision. It becomes the new normal. How she wanted to always see the world. 

Those early months after their breakup shattered her perception as much as her heart. She felt as though one day her view of the world had shifted—like she could no longer perceive a single color. It wasn’t enough to threaten her life, but enough to blur her clarity, to disorient her rational mind, and let catastrophe seep into her heart. The sky less vibrant and the grass with just the wrong hue. Without his steady presence she wasn’t sure if she alone could conjure the awe and profundity of being alive. 

Back on the path, she reaches the furthest point she can take the river and climbs a set of concrete stairs. Two at a time, practically running now to outpace her thoughts. Passing through the outdoor bar, empty now on a weekday. The deflated snow globe, empty seats, empty tables. Peaceful, it should be. But to the raucous in her head, the stillness of the afternoon, gives ample room for thoughts to reverberate within the unoccupied space.

She’s nearly running across the street despite the crosswalk sign indicating she has more than enough time. Not certain if her mind races to match her speed or vice versa, Elena sprints. The horse man twirling his mustache. She runs. Feeding hay across the fence. Closer to her apartment. The teeth that chewed on words. Up the stairs. The photo. Scanning her key fob. Heart pounding. Face hot. The photo. "Fuck", she pants. "Way past zone two", she murmurs to herself between breaths.

When she steps in her apartment, she’s greeted by an acidic odor. “Tuesday, did you commit a crime?" Elena yells into her one bedroom apartment. She left it in quite the disastrous state this morning. Running late to meet the horse man, she gathered everything from last nights dinner to let soak in the sink. Half a jar of store bought red pasta sauce reheated in a pan and the quarter box of angel hair spaghetti boiled in the pot. A meal for sustenance, not taste. She filled the pot, pan, and bowl with water and submersed all the utensils after haphazardly squirting dish soap over the pile.

Maybe it’s the stagnant dish water, Elena thinks. She slips out of her cardigan and hangs it on the hook by the door. Elena flicks the lid of the trash, remembering that she intended to take it out on her way to the cafe, and immediately scrunches her nose in defense. Defeated, she lets out a long sigh. The heat is no longer just in her face, it’s her entire body that feels hot. Perhaps it was the run here, after all she can still hear the accelerated rhythm of her heart in her ears. But it wasn’t quite the adrenaline induced sensation that she normally felt on her runs. Rather than the heat originating from within herself, she feels a pricking heat only at her body’s surface. The heat seems to simmer right under the skin, seeping from the pores and vibrating the nearby air. Thousands of needles piercing her skin.

She’s still catching her breath as she kicks off the heels of her shoes. Immediately, moving to toss them in the closet, she steps into a warm puddle and her sock squishes underfoot. “Are you fucking kidding me, Tuesdays”?, Elena yells. There it is, the source of the odor: a newly disrupted pile of vibrant yellow cat piss. On cue to Elena’s screech, a tailless and one-eyed, but otherwise healthy looking black cat lands from atop the fridge with a soft thump. Fur brushes against Elena’s calf. One of the very few signs of affection, Tuesday circles Elena’s leg and rubs his head against her ankle. “Are you fucking kidding me, Tuesday? Use your box”. Elena hops on her dry foot and tries to pull off the now damp and yellow sock from her foot.

There’s a brief moment of understanding behind Tuesday’s eyes. The circling stops and the nub of his tail flicks once, twice, as he holds eye contact. “Use. Your. Box”, she repeats, smacking the wall to emphasize each word to the cat. Unamused and done showing affection for the day, the cat yawns then lunges to bite at her ankles. “What the hell”, Elena screams. Tuesday then swipes at her ankle with his claws. It’s an immediate sharp pain. The claws pierce her skin and Elena instinctually yelps and flails her leg. “What is wrong with you?” Elena screeches. Right above the bony protrusion of her ankle, a red thread runs frayed. Blood wells up slowly, not rushing but pooling in beads, tracing the raised and jagged path of the mark. 

Foot damp, pulse thumping both in her ears as well as the raw skin of her ankle, Elena closes her eyes to steady herself. This is Elena’s and Tuesday’s relationship. Every moment of affection is accompanied by twice as much pestering. Moments like this tug her at her memories before she adopted him, when she imagined that life as a cat owner would contain more cuddling than tormenting.

She always imagined being a cat owner, but ultimately adopting Tuesday was Jason’s idea. He suggested that it would be good for Elena, who was having a harder time adjusting to long distance after they both graduated from University. They were scrolling through local shelters together over the phone, when she sent him a link of a black domestic shorthair kitten. The bio said that he was found in the parking lot of a Ruby Tuesdays with a broken tail, infected left eye socket, and flea infestations. There was a video in the gallery showing the cat playfully paw at a mouse tied by a string. Somewhere off camera, someone swings the toy just out of the kitten’s reach. His left eye was scarred shut, making it seem like he was wearing an eye patch and where his tail should’ve been was a nub about the size of a thumb. Aside from the obvious ailments, he seemed healthy. To Elena, that was all she really needed. The caption of the video read: I may not be your traditional cat, but I’m purrfect for you.

“The yellow eyes are cute”, Jason said over the video call.

“Eye”, Elena replied.

“Oh yeah, eye. But do you want your cat to have no tail?”

She didn’t know why this irritated her. That night on the phone she already began to feel her pile of complaints manifesting as a migraine. Elena didn’t even feel any instant companionship with the cat, but Jason's swift question felt like a rejection. What was wrong with having no tail is what she wanted to say. Or maybe, oh so it’s not good enough? Whatever the reason, perhaps her sleeplessness or loneliness, she was being unreasonable but didn’t care. 

“Your cat”, Elena said flatly. Jason turned to face the camera and his cheek twitched ever so slightly. The aggression in her voice was subtle, but still perceptible. Elena pushed down the rising guilt and gave way for the itch of irritation. Unreasonable, yes, but she just decided to forgo any peace tonight. Elena let the words hang there for maximum effect before continuing. “We’re supposed to be looking for our cat”.

Jason shifted immediately, adjusting his phone over the video call. “Yeah, of course. But you’ll be taking care of it first, is what I meant.”

“For how long?”

Jason sighed and bit the inside of his lip. Neither he nor Elena really were fighters. They were both passive and non confrontational, which perhaps was the reason why they could stay together for three years with little conflict. But after an entire year of dodging the subject of moving in together and ending their long distance, Elena began to really wish he had more fight in him.

But this is how it went most times. Elena would probe at their future and Jason would deflect. He would promise they’d talk about it when they saw each other again, but with long-distance and demanding work schedules limiting their visits to just one weekend every few months—if they were lucky—it always seemed to get pushed off.

“Baby, can we talk about it when I’m there next week?"

And just like that, Elena was disarmed. It was effortless—like most things in their relationship—to ignore the idea of it ending, so Elena accepted. And that was all— nothing changed between them, there was no grand argument, words said and wished to take back—but Jason’s unwillingness to answer when he wanted to move closer, and Elena’s refusal to pressure him further was the moment their future together started to unravel. 

When Jason showed that week, it was unspoken that the underlying structure of their relationship had changed. An invisible force pulling them apart. The uncertainty of their future. Despite the obvious change, they spent that week like they normally did, hoping that their infatuation with one another could filter out the doubts. Picking him up at the airport, Elena ran out of the car and into his arms. As usual, hand in hand they strolled the river path and spoke for hours. Most nights they cooked together, rotating sous chef and chef, a ritual they started in the early months. At night, Jason would lay his head on her lap as they sat together watching shows on her TV. Only then, as she swirled his hair between her fingers, the exhaustion of the day releasing the barrier in her mind, did the worry return. Paradoxically their relationship existed in the past and the uncertain future. Throughout the week, they spoke as if it wasn’t the last time they would see each other and Jason talked of next times as if they were ample. Against the force pulling them apart, they pushed. Jason and Elena stood on one side, while their past loomed on the other. Pushing—unsure if it was their hardest—at the time, it was all they could manage.

Trying to settle her emotions, Elena tosses her sock and cleans the mess of blood and cat piss off the floor. Tuesday leans back on his hind legs and once more wiggles the nub of his tail. She wants to be mad at Tuesday. To let the heat in her face and the tension in her chest build up beyond what she can handle. She feels her jaw shake, senses in her throat the build up of emotion she stuffed down. So easy she could let it all out on this cat—this cat, she was certain, that wasn’t very fond of her.

In the few months she’s had Tuesday, she’s learned to never expect more than one or two moments of affection from him. Aside from the occasional house greeting, there would be the rare meow for attention as he weaved around Elena’s legs when she sat at the couch, but other than that, he wasn’t much of a cuddler. Elena tried, especially when she was feeling particularly lonely, to pick up Tuesday and let him snuggle in her lap, but he would always sneak away, deciding that all he needed were a few scratches behind the ear and he was perfectly fine. She tried meeting him at the floor a few times, hoping that if she lay next to him, he would feel obligated to stick around. But after a few scratches, and even efforts of luring with toys and treats, Tuesday would always politely strut away and do his own thing.

It didn’t help that he didn’t care much for food either. There was no hope for a feeding routine to tie the unlikely pair together, and thus, nothing that forced Tuesday to look up to Elena as an owner. In his little mind they were probably equals. Elena would clean the litter and leave a bowl of kibble for him to nibble at throughout the day, and in exchange Tuesday would offer some purrs and his occasional attention—a fair trade. 

Unable to punish him more than she already has, Elena reluctantly fishes her bag for the laser—the one thing that makes Tuesday look up to her. This was their evening routine, the one activity they could do together. Nearly every evening she would unclasp the laser from her keys and dangle it to make the metallic jingle for Tuesday to rush from wherever he is in the apartment and sit in front of her. Elena was proud to know how Tuesday liked to play best; she learned to keep the red dot out of reach, but close enough for him to stay engaged. She would send Tuesday climbing up the cat tower and bounding along the head of the couch. The game was always Elena’s to lose since Tuesday seemed to be operating on a predatory drive. When it was over, she would shut off the light as Tuesday pounced on the dot so he believed he caught it. 

Just like Elena, Tuesday seems less engaged in the game today. Even just a couple minutes in to playing, Tuesday stops to lick his front paws a few times—a signal that marks his boredom. Atop the cat tower, his lower body is splayed while he swipes at the level below where Elena is tempting him with the laser. She circles the light making tight spirals that draw out the red light into rapid arcs. Lazily, Tuesday is following the light with his head but doesn't budge further.

Across the apartment, Elena’s phone pings and she unwraps herself from the blanket and rises from the couch. 

"Sorry, Tuesday,” Elena says as she blindly digs in her purse for her phone. He is perched up now, clearly upset that his game was interrupted. Finding it, Elena shines the laser in front of Tuesday and he flicks his paws to entrap the light. Tuesday glances around to ensure the kill, and seemingly satisfied, pounces down from the cat tower and wanders away to some other part of the apartment.

Elena returns to her phone to see a message from an unsaved contact: Had a great time today, let’s see each other again. Ah, the horse man, Elena thinks. She forgot she gave him her number as they said their goodbyes. She rarely handed her number to strangers, she usually opted to share social media, but her rush to leave and his directness caught her off guard

It was impressive honestly, this level of confidence and assurance. Although the message could be interpreted as a question, Elena had no doubt it was closer to a demand.

In her stomach, the pit of guilt returns. Infinite responses scatter throughout her head. Hey, great meeting you! Don’t want to come off as too eager. Likewise. No, that’s too dry. Nice meeting you too. That’s the middle ground; let the imperfection of text based grammar shadow her doubts. She’ll leave the invitation to meet again unaddressed. Yes, that’s best for now, Elena thinks. Leave it for next week, maybe she’ll message him back. She begins to type when a white bubble animation floats on screen. Typing. Then, a second message appears. Going to Origami tonight. See you there? 

Encasing the guilt, dread spreads and the pit sinks deeper. Tonight? Already? On her screen her unfinished message still hangs. Shit, Elena thinks. She pounds the delete button and clears the text box. She imagines the horse man on the other end of the line, probably out for a run or something, looking at his phone. Seeing the same white bubble animation pulse, pulse, pulse, then disappear. 

Elena thumbs are hovering over the keyboard when Tuesday lets out a low meow from somewhere out of view. The sick feeling raises from her stomach into her throat and the heat starts once more at her face. It’s fine, it’s fine. Tuesday lets out another low meow. Whether he’s trying to convince her that it’s fine or tell her that she’s losing it completely, Elena is uncertain. Another meow, louder this time.

“It’s fine”, Elena says aloud. Both to the cat and to herself. She understands that she’s overthinking all of this, that at this point in her life she shouldn’t be pining over the arbitrary social code of timing responses to text messages. She can just say no. I wish I could but something came up. No, that’s too obvious. There’s no problem with just saying no. Nice meeting you, but I don’t think we’re a good match. Was that fine? Was that assuming too much? He wasn’t asking for her hand in marriage, it was just an invitation. There was nothing wrong with the horse man, just a few quirks that rubbed up against Elena. There was the unrelenting confidence and bore of a fixation on running. But he did seem kind and interested in Elena, which seemed to be a limited resource in the men she’s spoken to. And plus, saying they weren’t a good match would be a lie. To Elena, their date lands somewhere in the space of neutrality. She equally did and did not want to see the man. Sure, this morning featured no immediate sparks, but Elena wasn’t familiar with that feeling anyway. When she first met Jason, it was much the same—completely platonic. 

The thought of Jason creeps in, slowly at first—not the memory of him, but the mere fact—but soon it’s suffocating her, filling every corner of her mind until she can't separate it from anything else. She tries to grasp at it, to push it aside, but the harder she pulls, the more elusive it becomes. Emotions flicker—glimpses of joy, frustration, longing, grief—too swift to fully remember but strong enough to flood her.

The morning lingers in her mind too, the awkwardness of it, the uncertainty hanging in the air, her unwillingness to budge—stinging her now. She hadn’t been receptive, too caught up in her own thoughts, unsure how to navigate the mechanical exchange of someone new. Still, despite her best effort to disengage, she can’t shake it—the aggression with which she met the horse man contrasted by the ease in which he offered her kindness, all mingling with the heavy pull of Jason’s presence. Her mind flickers between them, torn between a man she barely knows and one she knows all too well. And then Jason, with his old ache, fills the space, dragging her back into a tangle of emotions. It's not the details she recalls, only the overwhelming weight.

The pit at her stomach, growing, building, expanding until it collapses upon itself. Her breath feels shallow, and every pulse in her veins seems to echo the frantic rhythm of her spiraling thoughts. The more she tries to control it, the further it slips away, until she feels like she’s being pulled apart, unraveled by the weight of it all.

Her fingers hovering over the keyboard, she sees them shake. Within her, there was barely enough room to hold both the horse man and the message on the screen, and now, overwhelmed with thoughts of Jason, Elena feels cracks spreading all along her body.

Rising now, the urge to check the photo from this morning. Refresh. Without thinking, her thumb moves, flicking through apps with a practiced, unconscious swipe. Her fingers tap the familiar icon, navigating to the search page. She selects the first name from the list and closes her eyes.

She can see it there, in the mental space behind her eyelids and in front of her mind. Despite the turbulence, the photo of the two of them—a selfie from a Halloween party a few years ago—lingers. That year they binged watched Sherlock and decided on a matching costume, Jason as Sherlock and Elena as Adeline. If not for that photo, there would be no digital proof of their relationship. Elena wasn’t usually one to care about such things, but she felt that her existence was tied to that post in some way, almost so that once deleted, Elena would cease to exist in Jason’s life as much as his own profile.

With the tension in her chest that grows as she navigates to his page, there is the hurt she feels when she reconciles the photo with the present. Elena is at the stage of heartbreak where her loss now is just a dull pang, like the sensation of pressing down hard on a bruise. And like a bruise, she can’t help but satisfy the urge to inflict a little pain just to remember the outline of the grief she once felt. 

Tuesday, now closer, is incessantly meowing which only amplifies Elena’s anxiety. And then, the collage of photos fall into place—selfies, mountainscapes, dinner plates, and sunsets. Held mostly by grief or habit, she’s uncertain, but no matter, just a glance. Just checking, to release the pressure—it’s only curiosity, she tells herself—and then I’ll stop. Her eyes linger to the space where the photo should be. But, the arrangement is off. Tuesday is no longer meowing, but screeching. What the fuck. Thumb flies to the top of the screen and pulls down. 

“What the fuck?” Elena yells as she frantically refreshes the page. The grids unload and load into view—but it’s all the same. Gone. Refreshing again. Gone. Again. Gone. Again. Gone.

Tension begging to be released, bursts immediately. She tries to catch it as it escapes her, to compress it to an infinitesimal point—so small that it might pop out of existence. But beyond demanding, inevitably out of her reach, it slips, then spews, then erupts. 

Sharp hasty breaths escape Elena as the air around her thins. Tears gather at the corners of her eyes, hot and dense, blurring everything into a fog. The room seems to stretch and pulse, out of focus and unreachable, as if her apartment itself is holding its breath. Uncontrollably, Elena heaves, tears rolling down her face and collecting at her chin. 

“Fuck. Stop. It.”, Elena whispers through gritted teeth. Gripping her phone tightly, Elena wills her consciousness to interrupt her tears. She should be able to, she thinks. To acknowledge the hurt, the grief, and pull herself together. Because this is nothing new. The photo, or its nonexistence, is just a delayed fact she already accepted. This was grief already felt. Already destroyed and built up by. This was the grief that distorted her life less than a year ago. Showed itself as the pit in her heart, an ever dense and dark black hole, sucking in and annihilating everything within her radius.

Elena hunches on the floor, struggling to catch her breath. Her body hums with the rawness of every sensation, so sensitive she can feel the air against her forearms. But then Tuesday shrieks, the sound cracking through her awareness, jerking her back into the noise, sharp and inescapable.

“I’m trying, Tuesday”, Elena manages. Around the corner of the kitchen, Tuesday wanders, timing his steps in beat to his shrieking. 

“I’m trying, okay?” Elena repeats. Tuesday tilts his head and stops screeching. He meets her eyes, and in them Elena almost sees a wink of understanding. But then, he starts to spin in place, then paws at the ground—his signature litter ritual. 

“No, no, no! Tuesday, stop! Elena screams. Phone in hand, she chucks it forward. What’s little left of her control vanishes in an instant. How can things so small inflate so large as to seize her of all her sensibility? Not meaning to hit the cat, but just to startle him, she flings her phone—watching it now, faster and harder than intended—and it ricochets off the wall and rams into his ceramic food bowl. Tuesday launches in the air and scrambles to the other side of the apartment by the front door. The bowl shatters into pieces and dry kibble scatters around the floor. 

Elena panics and runs towards Tuesday, “Sorry, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to”, she says. But as she gets up off the couch and heads towards Tuesday, he cautiously backs further into the wall and mutters a fearful meow. Elena bites her lip and extends her hand in truce. At this gesture, Tuesday normally would step forward and offer his head to her open hand. But now, Tuesday just stands there— unmoving and uncertain. 

Once more, Elena’s eyes well and the percussion of her heart thumps in her ears. There are no longer just cracks around her body but fissures. Extending her hand and creeping forward, she whispers, “I’m sorry, just use your box".

“Please, you know where it is”, Elena says while offering her hand a few inches closer, and gesturing towards the bathroom with the other. Tuesday, takes a half step forward, pauses and gives a low meow. 

Elena doesn’t speak cat, but she swore it sounds like he said “closed”. She turns her head to the bathroom door and sees the issue. Tuesday was right, it was closed. Fissures expanding wider, Elena begins to cry. So much so that the streaks down her cheek sting from the abrasion of her tears. This time, with no attempt to stop or muffle her emotions, everything—the grief, the regret, the fear—explodes within her, the pressure finally breaking free. Right there, inches away from her uncertain cat, and a few feet away from her front door, Elena crumples to the floor. Hugging her stomach and rocking herself gently, she begs Tuesday for forgiveness. “Tuesday, I’m sorry”, Elena manages between fits of sobs. 

How long she lays there crying, Elena is uncertain. But within her, she imagines a tsunami destroying but clearing the land free. Tuesday, watching this all unfold, wanders away and nibbles on the scattered kibble. 

After a few bites and seemingly satisfied with Elena’s apology or suffering, Tuesday cautiously crawls back to her and plops down under her nose. “I’m sorry, Tuesday. I’m a mess”. Tuesday gives out a long low purr. As suddenly as it came, Elena feels her sorrow slip away, folding itself back into her, leaving her raw but strangely emptied. The tsunami may have ravaged everything inside her, but in its wake, it left her barren and clear. ”What’s wrong with me?” Elena asks her cat. As her hysteria subsides, she wipes her swollen eyes. Tuesday winks at her and tilts his head towards the still closed bathroom door.

Elena lifts herself off the floor, immediately feeling the rawness and exhaustion as she gets to her knees. Too exhausted to get up, she crawls on all fours to the bathroom door and swings it open for Tuesday. She meets his gaze, the same gaze he gave her when they played their evening laser game. In her fractured heart she feels a drop of warmth. It’s subtle, nearly imperceptible, but enough for Elena to give in to her exhaustion. Tuesday bolts into the bathroom and Elena lays right there on the carpet. The litter spray against the walls of the litter box. Turns out, Elena was just far enough into the grieving process to know that her heart wouldn’t hurt forever, but not nearly far enough to believe it on days like this. Exhausted, she lets her consciousness slip. Down she goes into sleep so deep and so sudden that even with the carpet smelling like cat piss she sinks further.

About an hour later, Elena is jolted awake by the sound of Tuesday nibbling by her ear. She’s reminded of the mess and gets up to sweep up the debris. Fortunately, Tuesday’s bowl shattered into three pieces, so all Elena has to do is cautiously pick them up and toss them in the trash along with the scattered kibble.

Tuesday raises himself on his hindlegs and tries to swipe at the lid of the trash can. “I’ll get you a new one, don’t worry”, she says. Her voice is hoarse and she has a slight headache now. On top of that, her fitful sobs and impromptu sleep have left her empty and her mind hazy.

Moving now, still slowly but with intention, she fills a glass of water and gulps it down. On the floor where it landed, Elena feels the presence of her phone as she moves around the apartment. What waits for her on the screen is the unusual sting of a reality that she thought she was ready for. When what was left of Jason and Elena’s relationship could become so inconsequential that it wasn’t worth a picture in his grid. 

Elena gets it, she does. As much as she loved him and felt that her life couldn’t go on without him, their time away taught her that she could exist alone. Of course, there are still days she wished it weren’t just her and Tuesday.  A life where it’s the three of them together in her apartment, just like they planned. Jason finally would’ve moved in with them and perhaps whatever hesitations he had about their future together would’ve dissolved. She would still wake up to Tuesday rustling around but this time with a familiar hand on her stomach. Saturday mornings would still be celebrated with a walk to a coffee shop but instead, they would share it as a couple. When she imagines this—Jason wedged in her current routine—not much changes in her day to day, but it somehow alters everything in her mind.

She misses Jason with a pricking nostalgia. Like the way she thinks of swimming at the YMCA as a kid or the first time reading her favorite series. With the clarity that tears bring, Elena realizes that her imaginations have slowly transitioned from wishes to just thoughts. Months ago, she would’ve wished to relive a few days with Jason, even just for the routine, now she’s not sure she would.

It’s not the past Elena that grieves for, it’s the idea of her being forgotten. The photo was a permission. The permission for Elena to believe Jason thought of her as much as she thought of him, even if they both believed they wouldn’t cross paths anymore. And how could they? He’s off across the nation for his residency, a geographical anchor for at least the next few years. 

At least she thinks he is. So much can change in a few months, he could’ve dropped out and found a new calling or moved across the world, and Elena wouldn’t even know. The horse man bubbles back into mind and it dawns on her, that at this point, she knows more about that man than the one she can't stop thinking about.  The horse man liked to run and played trivia every Thursday with his coworkers. That was more than she could say for Jason. The real Jason at least, not the time locked version of him that lived in her memories. Perhaps she would always know the core of him, the mannerisms, values and worries that couldn’t be captured in a single date, but only after years of intimacy. How he bit the inside of his lip when deep in thought. How he worried that he was always competing against time. And how above all, he wished to live in awe.

But beyond that core is the mutable. The events and feelings she no longer had access to and could no longer have confidence in knowing. Did he still paint just like she taught him? Does he scroll wikipedia? Did he ever learn to play piano? 

The aftermath of her breakdown and sleep has dulled the pangs of guilt and grief; the edges, now blunt, can only be felt if she allows herself to prod. Enough of emotion for today, Elena thinks, urging her mind to the present—away from the past and some fantasy future. The truth is, the only thing she and Jason share is the past. They diverged the moment they realized what they wanted in life was too different.

Looking around, Elena surveys the mess of her apartment. Even after sweeping up Tuesday’s bowl, her place still looks abysmal. After sweeping the remnants of Tuesday’s scattered food she continues the cleaning elsewhere. She gathers half empty water bottles and old mugs from her bedroom. A few of the mugs have tea bags so dried out that she has to leave them in the sink to soak. She gathers hair ties and clips scattered between her dresser and bedroom floor and tosses them back in her drawer. 

Tuesday, strolls into her bedroom, and plops on top of her pillow. The nub of his tail flicks as he follows her movements around the room. “You’re right, I should change that”, Elena agrees. Carefully, she peels the bedsheet off the mattress, taking care not to disturb Tuesday, who seems content with her effort, and strips all but one pillow of their cases and tosses everything into the washer. In the bathroom she tidies all the sprays, bottles, lotions, and brushes, and wipes the counter clean of hardened toothpaste and dusts and streaks of makeup. And while she’s there, she scoops up the clumps scattered in Tuesday’s litter box and pours in a fresh new layer.

With a newfound clarity that had eluded her all day, Elena moves from room to room, pulling her apartment back together. From atop his pillow throne, Tuesday watches her every move with quiet approval.

Sun setting outside now—she must have been cleaning for a few hours—Elena dries the last mug and sets it upside down in the cabinet. There’s a sliver of sun shining through her bedroom window, the final rays of the day, that paints the head of her mattress orange. Enjoying the fleeting heat, Tuesday lays there, paws curled under his black body. 

“How’s it look, Tuesday?” Elena asks, stepping back and surveying her work. Her kitchen sink is empty, her bedroom floor is clear of debris, and even the pungent smell of cat piss has been replaced by the smell of evergreen from the candle burning on the side table. Everything now in its place, satisfaction settles within Elena. She’s both exhausted and reinvigorated, like when she drinks coffee too late and is unable to sleep. But this feeling, compared to the distress of the day, is heaven sent, so she welcomes it completely.

The last thing Elena picks up, she does so hesitantly. Her phone, still face down where it landed earlier, radiates an urging hum to flip it over. She knows that only a few swipes and taps away is the evidence of her erasure. But the last few hours have imbued a confidence that cleansed her mind as much as her living space.

Flipping the phone over, her screen lights up. Within the last hour she received a few notifications: a reminder that her lease payment was nearing, an image sent from her mother, and a message from an unknown number. The horse man. Elena remembers that she never responded to his request a few hours earlier. She clicks the message and sees the message from earlier, Going to origami tonight. See you there? And right under it, separated only by a timestamp, was his latest message from 22 minutes ago. I’m running a bit late. Just a heads up if you were showing. No pressure. 

Tuesday hops down from Elena’s bed, his sleek fur catching a glint of the fading sunlight. The sliver of sun is too faint now for basking, and he stretches his back, arching high. His claws peek out momentarily as he drags them experimentally through the carpet. With his wide, curious eye, he gazes up at Elena, waiting patiently. This time Elena doesn’t think. She punches in a message and grabs her keys.

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