She left on a Tuesday.

No shouting, no tears. Just a note on the kitchen counter…lined paper, blue ink, her neat little

cursive…and the sound of the screen door sighing shut behind her.

In the city, she rented an apartment with exposed brick and a window that faced the back of a

coffee shop. She bought plants she couldn’t name and left them in places they couldn’t survive.

She drank oat milk. She downloaded dating apps and then deleted them. She told people at

networking events that she was from “somewhere with more cows than people.” It always got a

laugh.

Once, someone at work made a joke that reminded her of her sister. The way she tilted her head,

the half-smile. That night, she typed her hometown into Google. Just to see. She clicked into

Street View.

There it was.

The church with the mossy sign.

The gas station that still sold hot dogs on rollers.

The house. Their house. The screen door was half open. A rake leaned against the porch like it

was waiting for her hand.

She clicked forward. Then back. Then forward again.

The next morning, she called in sick.

The day after that, she didn’t bother.

She sat cross-legged on the floor with her laptop balanced on her thighs and a cold cup of coffee

beside her. The plants wilted quietly.

She started ordering salt.

Sea salt. Himalayan pink. Kosher.

Grainy. Sharp. Real.

When the fire alarms went off in the building…someone burned toast again…she didn’t move.

She just closed the laptop. Slowly.

She hasn’t opened it since.

The screen still smells faintly of lemon cleaner. The charger light pulses in the dark. Somewhere

in her bookmarks, a cracked sidewalk waits in eternal daylight. A rake rests on the porch. The

screen door is open.

The plants are dead.

The coffee cup is still there.

The salt she spilled two days ago is still on the floor beside her, untouched.

Or maybe it isn’t spilled.

Maybe it fell from her shoulders.

It gathers in the folds of her clothes, crusts the bend of her elbows, whitens the curve of her lips.

It glitters faintly when the afternoon light comes through the blinds.

No one has knocked in weeks.

She’s turned around.

Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete Bluesky:zaryfekete.bsky.social

Authors Notes: My son went through treatment for an eating disorder a year ago and was one of the few people in his group to successfully graduate into a healthy lifestyle. I wrote this piece when he was in the deepest part of his struggle. It is a joy today to see where he is and to realize how much he is willing to talk about it with others. He has broken the stigma of his eating disorder.