The Morning After

Maya's iPhone buzzed on the nightstand at 5:47 AM — the same time it had buzzed every morning for three years. She reached for it automatically, muscle memory overriding sleep, but her fingers hesitated. The notification wasn't from Sarah, her running partner and best friend of seven years. It was a security alert: someone had attempted to access her work emails from a new device at 3:14 AM.

She padded to the kitchen, the floorboards cold beneath her bare feet. Sarah was already there, stretching in the predawn gray of Maya's living room, her yoga mat unfurled with practiced precision. They met every Tuesday and Thursday for their morning runs, a ritual that had survived breakups, promotions, and Sarah's messy divorce.

"Rough night?" Sarah asked, not looking up from her hamstring stretch.

Maya watched her friend's profile, the woman who'd held her hair back during her darkest nights, who'd sat with her in the hospital when her mother died. The woman who'd suggested Maya apply for the senior analyst position at their firm last month, the position Sarah had also wanted.

"Just catching up on work," Maya said carefully.

Their runs had become conversations in motion, six miles of shared secrets and corporate gossip. But yesterday, Maya had noticed something strange: Sarah knew about the merger before the announcement. Sarah knew about the layoffs before the email went out. Sarah knew things she couldn't have known unless...

The iPhone buzzed again in Maya's hand. Another security alert. This time, she saw it — the device ID matched the iPhone Sarah had bought last week.

"You ready?" Sarah stood, rolling her neck.

Maya thought about their years of friendship, the trust built over morning coffees and late-night texts. She thought about the spyware app she'd found installed on her phone yesterday, the one that forwarded everything to a local server.

"Actually," Maya said, her voice steady, "I think I'll skip the run today."

Sarah's expression flickered — something like disappointment, or maybe resignation. "Your loss, Maya. Those quarterly reviews are coming up."

Maya watched her friend leave, the door clicking shut behind her, and wondered how long Sarah had been running with someone else's secrets tucked in her pocket.