The Last Call

Margot stood outside the bar, rain plastering her hair to her skull. The orange neon sign flickered above her—the only brightness in this shit-stain of a Wednesday. Inside, David would be waiting. Or maybe not waiting. Maybe telling everyone what she'd told him last Friday, when the gin made her honest.

She pushed the door open. The smell hit her first—stale beer, regret, the metallic tang of games lost. There he was. At their table. Without his hat. David never removed the hat indoors, said it was his armor. Tonight it sat on the table, crown up like a begging bowl.

"You told them." Margot's voice didn't sound like her own. "About the restructuring. About who's getting axed."

David's face folded. "Margot, I—"

"You told them and they offered you the promotion."

"I didn't have a choice."

"Bullshit." She grabbed her drink, untouched. "Friends don't do this."

"You don't understand."

"Understand what? That you sold me out for a corner office and ten percent?"

The bar had gone quiet. People watching. Always watching.

Margot walked out. Back into the rain. Back to the street where the orange cat lived—some stray that haunted the alley behind her apartment building. It sat on a dumpster tonight, tail wrapped around its paws, watching her with ancient judgment.

"You too?" she asked. "Everyone's a traitor?"

The cat blinked. Slow. Deliberate.

Margot laughed. A sharp, ugly sound. She'd spent six years building that department. Six years mentoring David. Teaching him everything she knew. And for what? So he could dismantle her work piece by piece.

Her phone buzzed. David. Again.

She blocked him.

The cat jumped down, approached her. Rubbed against her leg. Purred like a small engine.

"You just want food," she said. But she sat on the crate beside the dumpster anyway. Let the cat climb into her lap. Warm. Solid. Alive.

"At least you're honest," she whispered into its fur. "At least your betrayal I can see coming."

Tomorrow she'd clean out her desk. Tomorrow she'd lawyer up. Tomorrow she'd figure out how to tell her husband they might lose the house. But tonight, in the orange glow of the streetlamp, with a stranger's cat purring against her chest, Margot let herself break. Let herself feel the hollow where her friend used to be.

The cat didn't judge. The cat just purred. Some nights, that was enough.