The Last Supper at Mario's

Elena pushed the spinach around her plate, the wilted leaves glistening with oil and regret. Across from her, Marcus studied the cable snaking across the restaurant floor—a thick black umbilical cord connecting some overhead light to reality, or perhaps just waiting for someone to trip and break the tension between them.

"So," he said, finally meeting her eyes. "Three years."

"Three years," she echoed, adjusting her hat as if it could shield her from the weight of everything they'd left unsaid. The fedora had been his gift—"For when you want to channel that noir aesthetic you're always going on about." She still wore it, but everything else had changed.

He was about to bear his soul—she could see it in the way his fingers traced the water glass, leaving condensation fingerprints like evidence. "I got married."

The words landed between them like a verdict. Not a friend's confession, but a stranger's news.

"Congratulations," she said, and her voice didn't break. She'd practiced this moment in a thousand imaginary conversations, in showers and cars and sleepless nights. But somehow she'd never imagined he'd be the one to say it first. She'd always pictured herself throwing her lack of commitment in his face, forcing him to choose. Instead, he'd simply moved forward while she was still standing still, waiting for a plot twist that never came.

"Her name's Sarah," he continued, either oblivious or cruel. "She's a veterinarian. She saves animals."

"That's nice," Elena said, and meant it. Really, she did. But she also thought about how she'd once been the person who knew his coffee order, his fear of bears, the way he hummed when he was nervous. Now she knew nothing of him except that he preferred his life without her in it.

"I still have that scarf," he said suddenly. "The blue one."

"Burn it," she said, and they both laughed, the sound fragile and startled.

"I wanted—" he started, then stopped. The waiter came with the check, breaking whatever spell had held them.

Outside, the air smelled like rain and possibility. He hugged her, his embrace careful, respectful, final.

"Take care of yourself, El."

"You too, Marcus."

She watched him walk away until the cable of streetlights swallowed him whole. Then she took off her hat, letting the evening air cool her forehead, and began the long walk home alone—finally, completely alone, and ready for whatever came next.