Last Call Before the Sleepwalk

The notification light on her iPhone blinked like a heartbeat she'd forgotten she had. 2:47 AM. Another all-nighter at the firm, another dawn approaching through floor-to-ceiling windows that reflected nothing but her own exhaustion back at her.

She moved through the office like a zombie—corporate reanimated flesh, sustained by caffeine and the hollow promise of partnership. Three years of seventy-hour weeks had carved familiar patterns under her eyes, and somewhere along the way, she'd stopped noticing the view of the city below, stopped noticing much of anything at all.

Her phone buzzed again. David's name.

They'd called it quits six weeks ago after he'd called her emotionally unavailable during what was supposed to be a romantic weekend. The irony wasn't lost on her—she'd give anything to feel something, anything, but she'd forgotten how.

The message was a photo: their cat, Miso, curled on his pillow. No caption. She swallowed the ache that rose like bile.

At home, her own apartment waited with its curated loneliness. The dog she'd adopted two days after David moved out—a pathetic rescue with one ear and abandonment issues that mirrored her own—would be whining at the door. She'd named him Lucky, dark humor that had seemed funny after three glasses of wine but just felt sad in the harsh fluorescent light of 3 AM.

"You're still here?"

She jumped. Marcus from M&A stood in the doorway, holding two coffees. They'd slept together once, drunk and lonely, after the Chicago merger collapsed. Neither had mentioned it since.

"Bear of a case," he said, setting a cup on her desk. "Saw your light."

The taxidermied bear head mounted in the lobby—some founding partner's affectation—had terrified her when she'd started. Now she found herself relating to it more than she cared to admit. Stuffed and displayed, a hollow echo of something wild.

"Thanks," she said, and meant it.

He lingered. "My divorce is final next week."

"Congratulations?"

He laughed, and something in her chest cracked open. "Yeah. Exactly."

They stood there as the city began to glow with predawn light, two zombies caught in the space between giving up and starting over, and for the first time in months, she thought maybe—just maybe—she'd remember how to feel something real again.