Practice

They leave the apartment at the same time and turn different ways without stopping. There is no ceremony to it. No last look framed in the doorway. Just the soft choreography of two people who have practiced not touching. This is how it ends — not loudly, just practiced.

The hallway light flickers as they pass under it, the same flicker it’s had for years, the one Ryan kept meaning to fix and never did. Barbara notices it anyway. She notices everything now. The scuff mark near the baseboard shaped like a continent. The mail slot that rattles when someone on the first floor opens the front door. Ryan's key scraping once before finding the lock, a sound she has always loved and hated in equal measure.

Barbara heads down the stairs, counting each step because it keeps her from looking back. Twenty-eight steps. The chipped third one from the top. The faint smell of cleaning solution that never quite masks old cooking oil. Her hand slides along the rail out of habit, even though she told herself she wouldn’t do things out of habit anymore. She thinks about the way Ryan used to take the stairs two at a time, then slowed down when she teased him about acting like a kid. She had mistaken silence for patience.

Ryan takes the elevator up to the roof, because if he stays still he might change his mind, and because the stairs feel too much like following her. The elevator groans as it rises, each floor announced by a soft lurch. He stares at his reflection in the metal doors and barely recognizes it. He looks like someone who has been waiting. His face looks thinner. Or maybe just unguarded. He stares at his reflection in the metal doors. The elevator smells faintly like her shampoo, though that makes no sense.

The door between them clicks shut, small and final. For a second, both of them pause on opposite sides of it, listening to the building settle. Pipes knock. Somewhere a phone rings and stops. A dog barks once, then again, as if asking a question no one answers.

Outside, the city is early and undecided. The sky hasn’t committed to a color yet. A delivery truck idles at the curb, its engine coughing like it has something to say but won’t say it. Someone’s radio leaks a weather report into the street, the voice too cheerful for the hour. The day smells like damp concrete and bread from the bakery on the next block.

Barbara steps out into it and feels exposed, like she forgot something important. Her jacket hangs differently without Ryan’s scarf in the pocket. The absence is heavier than anything she carried out with her. She walks east, toward the coffee shop that knows her order and the job she pretends not to hate. She keeps her pace steady, the way she learned to do when she was trying not to cry in public. Her phone vibrates in her pocket and she ignores it without checking, already knowing it’s not him. She tells herself she’ll let the city decide what kind of day it is.

As she walks, memories try to line up beside her, polite but persistent. Ryan asleep on the couch, mouth open, one sock missing. Ryan cutting vegetables too slowly, as if dinner were a favor he could stretch out. Ryan saying her name from the other room in that specific tone that meant he had a thought he wanted to share.

Ryan walks west, toward a ladder bolted to a brick wall and a skyline he’s been sketching for years but never shown anyone. The alley smells like wet cardboard and last night’s beer. He kicks a pebble out of his way and watches it disappear into a crack. The rungs of the ladder are cold when he grabs them. He likes that. It feels honest. His bag bumps against his hip, heavier than it should be for how little is inside. He thinks about all the times he almost showed her his drawings, the way he always found a reason not to. He told himself he was waiting for them to be better. He closes the sketchbook again. Then opens it. Wanting something had always felt like inviting it to leave.

They had planned this moment badly. There were lists and rules and calm voices the night before. They sat at the small kitchen table with mugs of tea that went untouched. They were careful because care was the only thing they still shared. No shouting. No blame. No reopening old arguments that had already been picked clean. Just an agreement that love had become a room with no windows. They agreed not to ask the other to stay. You either leave or learn how to breathe through pain, and neither of them wanted to be the one who asked the other to stay.

They talked about practical things instead. Who would take the extra chair. How to split the books. What to do about the plant that kept dying and coming back. They avoided the soft parts, the places where voices break and honesty feels dangerous. When they went to bed, they slept on their own sides, careful not to cross the invisible line between them. Barbara stared at the ceiling until the first hint of light crept in. Ryan listened to her breathing and memorized the rhythm.

At the corner, Barbara pauses. The light hasn’t changed yet. She understands, suddenly, how many versions of herself she has already survived. She feels the tug of habit, that invisible string that says turn around, apologize, stay. She presses her tongue to the back of her teeth and waits for it to let go. A man crosses the street against the light, headphones on, not even pretending to care. She watches him and thinks about how brave it looks from a distance, how recklessness and freedom can look like the same thing if you’re far enough away.

Ryan reaches the roof and steps into wind. It hits him full in the chest, sharp and clean. The city opens up in front of him, all sharp edges and possibility. Windows catch the light. A train rattles somewhere below. He sets his bag down and realizes his hands are shaking. He laughs. Relief feels unearned, which almost makes it honest. The sound is gone before it reaches the edge. No one hears it. That feels right. He takes out his sketchbook and stares at the blank page longer than he should, then finally lets his pencil move without correcting it.

For a while, they move through the day separately, learning the weight of their own footsteps. Barbara orders her coffee and tastes that it’s burnt, like it always is, and decides she doesn’t need to pretend anymore. She drinks it anyway. At work, she answers emails and nods in meetings and feels oddly calm, as if a loud machine has finally been turned off inside her. When someone asks how she’s doing, she says “fine” and means “uncertain.” “Fine” has become a word that means functional.

Ryan sits on the roof longer than he planned and fills a page with crooked lines that finally feel like they belong to him. He draws the skyline wrong on purpose, exaggerating angles, letting buildings lean. When the sun climbs higher, he packs up and heads down, passing strangers who don’t know he has just stepped out of a life. He buys a sandwich from a corner shop and eats it standing up, crumbs falling onto the sidewalk. The day does not ask him for anything. He reaches for his phone. Puts it back in his pocket.

Days stack up. Weeks. Separation doesn’t happen all at once — it keeps happening. The apartment becomes two separate places in their memories, edited differently by each of them. Barbara moves her furniture an inch to the left and feels like she’s reclaiming something. Ryan pins one of his drawings to a wall and leaves it there.

They never see each other again. Not in line at a store. Not across a crowded street. Not years later when time has softened the edges. But sometimes, when Barbara tastes burnt coffee or Ryan smudges charcoal across his palm, they feel it at the same time. The clean, aching line where one life split into two, and both directions finally made sense.