The Last Supper

Maya stood at the kitchen counter, crushing a vitamin C tablet into powder. David watched from the doorway, his silhouette backlit by the dying hallway light. They'd been avoiding each other for three weeks — since the night she'd asked him what he actually felt, and he'd offered a bull-shit response about needing space to process.

She stirred the powder into her water, watching it dissolve without a trace. That was the problem, really. Everything dissolved. Their arguments, their passion, the years she'd spent building a life around his silence.

"Dinner's ready," she said, not turning around.

The spinach salad sat wilting on the table. She'd made it because it was his favorite once, back when he still pretended to care about things like antioxidants and heart health. Now he just picked at it, moving leaves around his plate like he was rearranging his regrets.

"Maya." His voice cracked. "I can't keep doing this."

She finally looked at him. Really looked. The lines around his eyes had deepened, carved by months of pretending nothing was wrong. He looked like a man drowning in shallow water.

"Then don't," she said. "But don't tell me you need space. Don't tell me it's complicated. Just say it."

He didn't. He just sat there, pushing spinach around his plate, while outside the kitchen window, the world kept turning without them. Maya felt something ancient and stubborn rise in her chest — the part of her that had stayed through the canceled anniversaries, the unspoken grievances, the slow erosion of intimacy.

She stood up and walked to the sink. "You know what's funny? I read this article about how spinach contains iron that's actually impossible for humans to absorb. We've all been believing this lie for decades because of a decimal point error from 1890."

David didn't respond.

"Everything we think will save us," she said, turning on the tap, watching water cascade over her hands, "is just another thing we can't digest."