The Last Supper on Mercer

The spinach lay wilting on Julia's plate, a testament to how long she'd been pushing it around with her fork. Across the table, Marcus laughed at something Elena said—head thrown back, that careless gorgeous laugh that had once made Julia forgive him anything.

"You're not eating," Marcus said, suddenly noticing her. The warmth in his eyes had been the first thing to go, sometime between the promotion and the move to Brooklyn.

"Not hungry." Julia set down her fork. "Just like you weren't hungry for the last three years of our marriage?"

Elena's smile froze. She was supposed to be Julia's friend—had been, since freshman year, before Julia introduced her to Marcus at that gallery opening. Before the late-night texts Julia found at 3 AM, before she came home early to find what she'd always suspected.

"Julia," Elena said, "we didn't come here to—"

"To what? To play house with my leftovers?" Julia's voice didn't shake. She was proud of that. "You know what he does? He leaves cabinets open. He forgets anniversaries. And somewhere in this apartment, he's hiding the fact that he never wanted a dog."

Marcus stiffened. "This isn't about—"

"It's about the cat, actually." Julia's gaze shifted to the window, where a stray tomcat—rangy, battle-scarred—sat on the fire escape, watching them with proprietary interest. It had started showing up after Julia moved out. Marcus hated cats. Julia had always suspected that was why she'd started feeding this one, leaving bowls on the fire escape when she came back to collect the rest of her things.

"That cat hates me," Marcus said tightly.

"Cats know." Julia picked up her wine glass. "They can smell when someone's been lying for months."

"I didn't lie." Marcus reached for Elena's hand. Elena pulled away.

The silence stretched, thin and terrible. Julia thought about spinach. She thought about all the meals she'd made, thinking she was building something. She thought about how love wasn't one big betrayal—it was a thousand small ones, stacked like plates in a sink you kept meaning to wash.

"You know what kills me?" Julia said finally. "Not that you slept with her. That you made me feel crazy for suspecting it. That's the part that actually breaks something."

Outside, the cat yowled—a sharp, lonely sound. Julia stood up.

"Where are you going?" Marcus asked, and for the first time, she heard something like panic in his voice.

"Home." She didn't look at either of them. "The cat's waiting. And unlike some people, he's actually happy to see me."