The Last Supper at Applebee's

The restaurant was half-empty, fluorescent lights humming overhead like dying insects. Sarah picked at her spinach artichoke dip, staring at Mark across the booth. His baseball cap—worn backward, the way she used to find endearing—now seemed like a mask he refused to remove.

"You're not even listening," she said, her iphone vibrating against the table. A text from her boss: 'Need that report tonight.' She ignored it.

"I'm listening," Mark said, not looking up from his menu. "I just don't understand why this is such a big deal. It's just a job transfer."

Just a job transfer. Three months in Denver. Three months apart. Their relationship had been living on borrowed time since the miscarriage last winter, since they'd stopped speaking in anything but logistics and chores and passive-aggressive observations about whose turn it was to bear the emotional weight of their silent apartment.

"A bear could hibernate through winter and wake up more affectionate than you've been in six months," she said, the words tasting like venom.

His jaw tightened. "Here we go again."

"No, Mark. Not again. For once, we're actually having this conversation."

The waitress appeared, saving them for a moment. She took their order—both ordering the same burger they'd been getting since college, as if repetition could somehow anchor them to who they used to be.

"I got you something," Mark said suddenly, reaching into his jacket pocket.

Sarah's chest tightened. Gifts were his thing. Not flowers or jewelry, but thoughtful, specific things that showed he knew her. The vintage typewriter he'd found at a garage sale their second year together. The first edition of her favorite childhood book. Always something that said: I see you.

He placed a small box on the table. Not jewelry. Not small enough.

She opened it. A Yankees baseball hat, but not just any Yankees hat—the vintage wool kind, with the uneven stitching they stopped making in the nineties. She'd mentioned wanting one exactly like this once, three years ago, during a game they'd watched from a bar in Boston, half-drunk on cheap beer and new love.

"I remembered," he said softly. "I was saving it for your birthday next month, but..."

Sarah's phone buzzed again. Her boss. She flipped it over, face-down.

"Mark," she said, her voice cracking. "I don't know if I can wait three months for you to figure out if you still want this marriage."

He reached across the table, his hand covering hers. His palm was warm, his fingers familiar. "Then don't. Come with me."

The spinach dip congealed between them. Outside, rain began to fall against the restaurant windows. Somewhere in the distance, baseball season was ending for someone, beginning for someone else. But here, in this moment, something entirely new was starting—or ending, depending on which of them was brave enough to say the next word first.