The Last Supper

Margaret stood in her kitchen at 11 PM, staring at a pot of wilting spinach. This was Marcus's recipe — the one he'd made the night he told her he was leaving. Six months later, she was still cooking it, still waiting for it to taste the way he'd described: like earth and renewal and second chances.

The phone buzzed. Elena.

"You're still thinking about him, aren't you?" Elena's voice came through, stripped of its usual patience. "Margaret, you're forty-two years old. You can't spend another year running in place."

Margaret watched steam rise from the pot. "I'm not running. I'm processing."

"Processing? You haven't dated since he left. You haven't even gone back to your running club. Remember how you used to talk about the marathon? Now you won't even jog around the block."

The spinach collapsed further, turning a darker green. Marcus had been her friend first, for three years before anything changed. That was the part she couldn't untangle — the friendship underneath everything, the way he'd known her coffee order and her fear of flying and her tendency to retreat.

"Elena," she said quietly. "Did you know he reached out?"

Silence.

"Last week. He wants to meet. Says he has things to explain."

"And you're considering it?"

"I don't know." Margaret turned off the stove. "Maybe he's different now. Maybe people do change."

"Or maybe you're still the kind of person who believes in second chances because it hurts less to hope than to accept that some endings are permanent." Elena paused. "You want to know what I think?"

Margaret hesitated, then nodded before realizing Elena couldn't see her.

"I think you should go for that run tomorrow morning," Elena said. "I think you should let yourself feel how much stronger you are now. And I think you should dump that spinach in the trash and make something that's actually yours."

Margaret looked at the pot. At the spinach that had meant to be one thing and had become something else entirely — a memorial to a version of herself she'd outgrown.

"Okay," she said. "I will."

After she hung up, she scraped the spinach into the compost. Then she laced up her running shoes, opened the door, and stepped into the cold morning air.