The Last Bite

The papaya sat on the counter between us, impossibly bright against the gray morning of our Saturday apart. Its mottled yellow skin seemed to mock the silence that had settled like dust over everything we used to be.

"You're really going through with it," Sarah said, not asking. Her coffee cup made a soft click against the saucer.

"It's a ten-million dollar package, Sarah. The bull market isn't going to last forever."

"Right. Because that's what matters. The bull market."

I wanted to tell her about the pressure, about how my father had worked himself into an early grave for nothing, about how this offer represented everything he'd never had. But the words stuck in my throat like they'd been there for days.

"Tonight," I said instead. "The zombie crawl. We said we'd do it one more time."

She nodded, once. "One more time."

That evening, we painted our faces in the bathroom mirror together, like we had every Halloween for seven years. Her gray skin looked too real, the hollows under her eyes too familiar. I caught her reflection staring at me—really staring—in a way she hadn't in months.

The bar was packed with the undead: corporate zombies, bride zombies, zombie prom queens. We moved through them like ghosts, our fingers barely brushing, my hand reaching for hers and finding only air. Something inside me felt hollowed out, already gone, shambling through the motions of a life I was leaving behind.

"Marcus," she said suddenly, stopping near the back exit. Her face paint was smudging, revealing the flush beneath. "Do you remember that papaya farm in Costa Rica? The one we talked about?"

"Of course."

"I found the listing. It's still for sale."

The music thumped behind us, a heartbeat for the dead. I thought about mornings without alarms, about fruit that actually tasted like something, about a life that didn't require proving anything to anyone.

"I need to think about it," I said.

Sarah's laugh was sharp and surprised and somehow not a laugh at all. "You don't have to think about it, Marcus. That's the point."

She left through the back door, becoming part of the night, while I stood among the living dead with another drink in my hand and a choice I'd already made without ever making it at all.