The Last Lunch Break

The cafeteria hummed with the muted conversation of people who'd long ago abandoned the pretense of enthusiasm. Elena picked at her spinach, watching it wilt under the fluorescent lights. Thirty-seven years of this—first as an accountant's daughter bringing her father forgotten briefcases, now as the senior partner nobody remembered hiring.

Across from her, Marcus adjusted his hat, a vintage fedora that had somehow become his trademark. He was twenty-four, with the kind of hair that suggested he'd never known a real tragedy.

"You're running away with him, aren't you?" Elena said, not a question.

Marcus's fork paused halfway to his mouth. "We're opening that firm in Austin. The tech scene there is—"

"Exploding. I know. You've mentioned it approximately four hundred times." She laid her palm flat on the table. The impulse to beg him to stay rose like nausea, but she swallowed it down. "Your father was my mentor. I taught you everything you know about client relations."

"And I'm grateful. Truly." Marcus's smile was the kind that had gotten them their biggest contracts last year—charming, slightly predatory, completely sincere. "But I need to build something that's mine."

Something that's yours. The spinach tasted suddenly bitter. Elena remembered being thirty, standing in this same cafeteria, making almost this same declaration to her own mentor. The cycle continued, each generation convinced they'd invented ambition.

"Austin will eat you alive," she said.

"Maybe." Marcus finished his lunch, standing up. "Or maybe I'll finally get to run toward something instead of away from everything."

He paused at the door, hat tilted at that perfect angle, hair catching the light. Elena watched him go, already imagining the email she'd send to clients later this afternoon. *Strategic transition. We wish him well.*

The spinach was cold now. She took a bite anyway, suddenly exhausted by the beautiful tragedy of young people who still believed running could save you.