The Last Supper at Sol

Emma pushed the **spinach** around her plate with her fork, the wilting greens mirroring exactly how she felt inside. Across the table, Sarah laughed—too loudly—at something Mark said, her head thrown back, that familiar throat-exposed vulnerability that used to make Emma protective, now just made her tired.

They were at Sol, their place. Or what had been their place before Sarah slept with Emma's husband. Before the **friend** who'd held her through three miscarriages became the reason her marriage ended. Six months of radio silence, then this text: *Can we talk?*

Emma should have said no. But grief had a way of making people nostalgic for the very things that destroyed them.

"Remember my **goldfish**?" Sarah asked, her voice softer now, picking at her papaya and yogurt bowl. "The one that died when we were twelve?"

Emma remembered. She remembered the funeral they'd held in Sarah's backyard, the tiny shoebox coffin, the way Sarah had cried for three days. She remembered thinking: this is what it means to love someone so much their loss destroys you. She hadn't understood then that the same principle applied to people too.

"You made me give the eulogy," Emma said.

"I couldn't speak. I was devastated." Sarah smiled sadly. "You were always the stronger one."

Strength. That's what everyone called it when Emma swallowed her feelings and soldiered on. When she didn't scream at the grocery store clerk, didn't break down in her therapist's office, didn't drive over to Sarah's apartment at 3 AM and demand to know WHY.

"I'm not playing **padel** on Saturday," Emma said abruptly.

Sarah blinked. "What?"

"The doubles tournament. You invited me, Mark invited Brian. Like we could all just pretend." Emma's voice shook. "I'm not doing it."

The table went quiet. Mark looked at his hands. Sarah's perfect composure cracked.

"I didn't think—"

"No. You didn't." Emma stood up, leaving her uneaten food, leaving the papaya turning brown on Sarah's plate, leaving fifteen years of friendship scattered across a restaurant table like so much debris. "And that's the problem."

She walked out into the bright afternoon, alone, finally. Behind her, she imagined she could hear something breaking—something tiny and iridescent, like fish scales catching the light, like the sound of a friendship ending. It didn't feel like strength, this walking away. It felt like survival.