Last Call at the Tiki Bar

The orange glow of sunset stained the sky like a bruise as Julie sat alone at the tiki bar, nursing her drink. Her palm rested on the cool bamboo counter, her iPhone face-down beside it—she'd already checked his text seven times, as if the words might rearrange themselves into something less final.

'I feel like a zombie,' she'd told him that morning, when he'd packed his box with the quiet efficiency of someone who'd been planning their exit for months. 'Just going through the motions, waiting to feel alive again.'

He hadn't looked up from folding his shirts. 'That's what I mean, Jules. You stopped fighting for us a long time ago.'

Now the bartender set down another glass with a sympathetic nod. Ice clinked against water—her third free refill, though she'd lost track of how many drinks it had accompanied. Above her, the palm fronds rustled in the evening breeze, their shadows dancing across the empty seat beside her.

Her phone buzzed. Her heart seized before she remembered: automatic work email. Everything automated now. Their relationship had become a series of scheduled check-ins, choreographed intimacies, the surprise carefully curated out of existence until they were just two people who happened to share a bed and a streaming subscription.

She watched a young couple at the far table, heads bent together, conspiratorial laughter, hands tangling together like they couldn't bear to be apart. She remembered that—being so hungry for someone you'd cancel plans, stay up until 3 AM making absolutely terrible decisions because the alternative was not touching them for one more hour.

'When did we become zombies?' she'd asked, and he'd finally looked at her with those weary eyes. 'We didn't, Julie. We just grew up. And then we grew apart.'

She picked up her phone, opened his text one last time: *I think this is it. I'm sorry.* Outside, the last orange light slipped beneath the horizon, and the first stars appeared—cold, distant, indifferent. She tipped back her glass, let the water wash away the taste of something that had died long before tonight.