The Animals We Keep

Maya's cat, a ragged tom named Barnaby, watched from the windowsill as she packed her things. Twelve years of friendship with Elena reduced to two cardboard boxes and a hollow feeling in her chest. The water glass on Elena's desk still held the lipstick print from their last celebratory drink—marking the merger Elena had sworn would save their department.

The merger had been a bull market fantasy, a Wall Street wet dream that required liquidating half their staff. Elena had voted with the executives, choosing her stock options over the people she'd broken bread with. She'd played the fox—clever, adaptable, willing to do whatever it took to survive the corporate hunt.

'You're being emotional,' Elena had said during their final confrontation, her voice tight with that particular brand of condescension successful women deploy against friends who won't fall in line. 'This is just business.'

Barnaby meowed, hopping down to wind through Maya's legs. He'd been a stray when Elena found him near the subway entrance—their first project together, back when they'd both been junior analysts hungry to prove themselves. They'd named him together, celebrated his first successful hunt together. Now he would be the only thing Maya took from a decade of shared life.

She left her key on the counter. The bull statue on Elena's bookshelf—a gag gift from their team trip to Chicago—seemed to mock her. Charging forward, horns lowered, trampling whatever stood in its path. That was Elena now. That was what their friendship had become.

Outside, the city hummed with indifference. Maya hailed a cab, her apartment boxes stacked on the sidewalk like markers of a small death. Somewhere behind her, Elena was probably still in that corner office, looking at the skyline, convinced she'd made the hard choice rather than the wrong one.

Barnaby pressed against Maya's leg as the cab pulled away. At least one friend was coming with her.