The Last Notification

The cat had been staring at me for three days, as if she knew something I didn't. Cleo—my girlfriend's absurdly named Siamese—had taken to sleeping on my side of the bed, her yellow eyes tracking my movements with what I'd started to interpret as judgment.

I was already late when I grabbed my iphone from the nightstand, the charging cable still dangling from the wall socket where I'd left it. 8:47 AM. Sarah's assistant had scheduled a breakfast meeting for 9:00, and I was running on three hours of sleep and the dregs of yesterday's coffee. Sarah had left early—again—muttering something about quarterly projections and a client who couldn't decide between two shades of beige.

The elevator ride took forever, as always. I leaned against the mirrored wall, scrolling through emails until the screen dimmed. Then it happened—a notification popped up, brief and devastating, from an unknown number: "Thanks for last night. Still thinking about it."

The message disappeared before I could screenshot it, but the words burned into my retinas. Last night. Sarah had claimed she was working until midnight, had come home smelling like expensive whiskey and something floral that wasn't her perfume. I'd been too tired to question it, too comfortable in our shared routine to notice the cracks spreading through our foundation like spiderwebs.

The client's office was five blocks away. I started running—literally running—in my oxford shoes and trench coat, dodging tourists and business commuters, my breath hitching in something between panic and fury. The city blurred around me, faces and storefronts smearing into indistinct shapes. I wasn't running toward anything anymore. I was running away from the realization that I'd been fooling myself for months.

Back at the apartment, Cleo waited by the door. She wound between my legs, purring, as I packed my things in a duffel bag. Sarah's iphone sat on her nightstand, its screen lighting up with another message as I walked out the door. I didn't look. I didn't need to.

The cat watched me leave, and I could've sworn she smiled.