What We Said at Dinner

Mara watched the papaya bleed orange onto her white plate, the fruit's sweet flesh glistening under the restaurant's harsh lights. Across from her, David was still talking—something about the merger, about his boss being a total bull about the quarterly projections. His hands moved when he spoke, the way they always did, chopping the air between them into smaller and smaller pieces.

She'd forgotten how exhausting he could be. They'd been friends first, colleagues who met at the same startup where she'd lasted three years and he'd lasted seven, his ambition calcifying into something she no longer recognized.

"You're not listening," he said suddenly.

"I am."

"No, you're not. You're thinking about that cat again."

The cat had been dead for six months. Bastet had lived nineteen years, longer than most of Mara's relationships, longer than her mother's sobriety. Sometimes she still woke to the phantom weight of paws on her chest, the demanding mrrow of breakfast at five AM. Grief was like that—it didn't ask permission. It didn't follow reasonable timelines.

"She's been gone half a year, David. Can't I miss something without you analyzing it?"

He signaled for the check. "I'm just saying. You're stuck."

"I'm not stuck."

"You are. You're still in that apartment. Still at that job. Still—" He broke off, but she heard the word he didn't say.

Still alone.

Outside, the city had grown dark. They walked toward the subway without touching, the papaya's aftertaste still sweet in her mouth, cloying and wrong. She thought about telling him what she'd really been thinking at dinner—how she'd watched him talking and realized she didn't know him anymore. How his ambition looked less like drive and more like fear.

"Same time next month?" he asked at the turnstile.

She thought about lying. Friends did that—protected each other with small deceptions. But the truth rose in her like something living.

"Actually, I don't think so."

His face changed. "What? Why?"

"Because I'm not stuck, David. I'm just not in the same place as you anymore."

He laughed without humor. "That's rich. From the woman still mourning a cat."

"At least I know what I miss."

The train came. She watched him step into the car that would take him back to his life—the promotions, the momentum, the forward motion that was really just running in place. Then she turned and walked up the stairs toward the surface, toward the quiet apartment where a ghost still waited, where grief had made room for something new.

She would buy papaya tomorrow. Cut it open in the kitchen light. Eat it alone and not feel sad about it at all.