The Last Supper

The restaurant was nearly empty, just the hum of refrigeration and the clink of silverware against porcelain. Elena sat across from David, the man she'd spent seven years building a life with, two years destroying it, and another three trying to forget.

"You look good," David said, stirring his coffee though he'd barely touched it. His eyes had that familiar crinkle at the corners—the first thing she'd fallen for, now the thing that haunted her most.

"So do you." A lie. He looked tired. They both did.

The waitress arrived with their salads. Elena watched David push the spinach around his plate, his fork making deliberate, geometric patterns. He always ate like he was solving a puzzle, methodical and precise.

"How is Buster?" The question came out before she could stop it.

David's fork paused. "He died last month."

The air between them grew heavy. That dog had been the one thing they'd fought over in the divorce, both too stubborn to concede, both too proud to be the one who kept calling to check on him. In the end, neither had him.

"I'm sorry, David."

"Yeah. Me too." He looked up, and for the first time that evening, his guard dropped. "I kept thinking he'd outlive us both, you know? Stupid to grieve a dog like this, but..."

"It's not stupid."

"It's not just the dog." His voice cracked. "It's everything he represented. Everything we..." He stopped himself.

Everything they'd lost. The house with the peeling porch. The way she'd laugh at his terrible jokes. The mornings wrapped around each other in sheets that smelled like coffee and possibility. All of it gone, except for the monthly alimony payments and this annual dinner they couldn't seem to stop having.

"Why do we keep doing this?" Elena asked, not really expecting an answer.

David shrugged. "Tradition? Masochism? Because neither of us can bear to be the one who says 'never again' first?"

He'd used the word deliberately, she knew. Bear. As if either of them had truly borne anything since each other.

"Your spinach is wilting," she said softly.

"So's yours."

They sat in silence, the meal between them growing cold, the weight of what they couldn't say pressing down like hands on their shoulders. Somewhere in the kitchen, a dish crashed. Someone laughed. The world kept ending and beginning, over and over, right there on Main Street, while they sat trapped between their past and whatever came after.

"Next year," David said, finally taking a bite of his salad, "let's come here and order something we actually want to eat."

Elena felt something loosen in her chest. "I'd like that."

Outside, the rain had started. They paid separately, like always, and walked out into the wet street, shoulders not quite touching, going in opposite directions.