The Last Good Message

The screen lit up at 2:47 AM — her iPhone face-down on the nightstand, that ghostly blue pulse demanding attention. Sarah's stomach tightened. She knew better than to look. She knew Tom was at that stupid padel tournament in Marbella with his 'work colleagues,' posting photos that showed just enough sliver of someone's wrist or shoulder to make her question everything without ever crossing a line into actual evidence.

She rolled over, pulling the duvet tight to her chin. The vitamin D supplement on her bedside table caught the moonlight — a gel capsule of hope she swallowed every morning, trying to cure something the doctor couldn't name. Seasonal affective disorder, he'd said, writing the prescription with practiced detachment. But Sarah knew it was something else, something three years of marriage and twelve years of corporate climbing had calcified inside her.

At work the next morning, her assistant left a baggie of fresh spinach from her garden on Sarah's desk. 'You look like you need greens,' Elena said, with that casual cruelty of people who haven't yet learned that observation can be a weapon. Sarah stared at the dark leaves — so vital, so full of life she couldn't seem to access anymore. She remembered when she and Tom had cooked together, those early months when they made elaborate meals neither of them had time for now. When had they stopped? When the promotion came? The mortgage?

Her iPhone buzzed again. Another photo from Tom: a padel court at sunset, caption 'Winning feels like this.' But in the corner of the frame, a woman's hand holding a gin and tonic, wearing that rose gold watch Sarah had pointed out in the window of that boutique on Regent Street three months ago. Not evidence. Never evidence. Just enough to make her question her own sanity.

Sarah opened her desk drawer and took out the vitamin bottle. She considered swallowing them all — not to die, but to feel something decisive. Instead, she picked up the spinach, walked to the office kitchen, and made herself a salad. She ate it standing at the window, watching London rush past thirty floors below, and realized she wasn't sad anymore. She was just done.

The iPhone lit up with Tom's name. She let it ring. When it stopped, she typed three words and hit send before she could lose her nerve: 'I know.' Then she turned the phone off, finished her spinach, and began planning the rest of her life.