The Last Supper at 8:47 PM

Mara watched the spinach leaf lodged between Richard's front teeth as he explained the multi-level marketing opportunity to everyone at the table. She took a sip of water, wishing it was something stronger—tequila, gasoline, anything to numb the evening.

"It's like a pyramid," Richard said, his iPhone face-up on the table, screen lighting up with notifications he ignored. "But ethical. Revolutionary."

Mara thought about the word *bull*—the animal, and everything Richard said—and how she'd spent seven years listening to him describe moments as 'pivot points' that were actually just mistakes he refused to acknowledge. The weight of her own silence sat in her chest like a stone.

"We're talking about residual income," Richard continued, gesturing with his fork. A piece of spinach flew off and landed on the pristine white tablecloth. Neither of them noticed. "Generational wealth."

Mara thought about her mother, dead two years this March, who'd never owned anything newer than a flip phone and had somehow understood more about what mattered than Richard would learn if he lived to be a hundred. She'd packed Mara lunchboxes with containers of fresh spinach, told her that greens were 'the only thing keeping you from becoming your father.'

The waitress came by to refill their water glasses. Mara caught her eye—something passing between them, a recognition of how exhausting it was to watch men perform importance they didn't feel and couldn't sustain.

"Bullshit," Mara said.

Richard stopped mid-sentence. The table behind them went quiet.

"Excuse me?"

"Bullshit," she said again, louder this time. "The pyramid scheme. The 'residual income.' The breakfast meetings. The 'we're so close to the breakthrough.' All of it. Bullshit."

She pulled her iPhone from her purse. She'd already transferred her half of the savings that morning. Already booked the flight to her sister's in Oregon. Already drafted the text that would end seven years of polite surrender.

"You're leaving?" Richard asked, and for the first time, his smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Left," she said. "Past tense."

She walked out into the cold night air, leaving Richard with the check and the spinach on his teeth and the pyramid schemes nobody was buying. For the first time in years, she could breathe.