You’re eating a flaccid burrito with your ex-husband on the day of your divorce finalization and there’s a significant likelihood that you’ll never speak again. Larynx cancer will do that.

“So what’s the next step?” you ask.

He wipes a dab of fire sauce from his once-ironic now-earnest mustache. “Move your stuff out of the apartment, I guess.” He smacks his lips and talks with his mouth full, which could justify a division of assets on its own accord, but you want to reach across and kiss his big dumb face.

“At least we don’t have kids. Imagine…”

“Imagine,” you echo, picturing a smaller version of the man-boy before you, mustache and all. You take a bite, then wait for a turn, to sip from the same medium cup of lemonade.

“Will it work?” he asks.

You choke and take another sip. “You get everything. I have no assets, part-time work, and I’m six months from the grave without chemo. Doc says they can expedite Medicaid. Once I’m eligible, between that and the GoFundMe, I should be okay.” Your shoulders fold inward. You always yearned to be smaller.

He sporks taco confetti from the wrapper into his gob, “And you don’t think my taking you to your appointments will raise red flags?”

“No, no,” you say, certain. “Divorces don’t have to be acrimonious anymore. It’s the twenty first century. Progress.”

“Yeah, but back-alley abortions might be coming back.”

You recoil. “Jesus.”

“Too much?” he asks, wiping his face but missing a string of cheese on his chin.

“No. Too real.”

You sit with it, and he plays with the dent on your finger where the wedding ring used to be. “Sometimes people just fall apart,” he says.

“Irreconcilable differences.”

“Exactly. Irreconcilable.”

You pull from his hand to take another sip of lemonade, but the cup is empty. “Sometimes two people just… need to commit felony fraud to avoid financial ruin. It’s a tale as old as time.”

He smiles for the first time all day. “Of course. We’re practically innocent.”

“Absolutely innocent,” you say. “We’re victims… of Big Pharma… of a corrupt government… of capitalism!” You smack the table.

“We’re basically freedom fighters,” he says, trying to match your enthusiasm.

“Fucking freedom fighters!”

You sigh and rejoin hands across the formica table, noticing an anarchist A carved into it. You inhale together, as one pair of lungs. For an instant, it doesn’t hurt.

“Is this the right move?” you ask. It hovers over you like an intravenous bag of cisplatin.

“I don’t know,” he says, looking scared for the first time. “But I want to find out together.”

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Kyle Joseph Kennedy is a writer from Metro Detroit, Michigan. In a previous life, he performed sadsack midwest anti-folk to half-filled cafes, basements, and bars. Now he sings silly songs to two little monsters and writes during lunch breaks to ward off the demons of suburban Millennial ennui. He is currently seeking a home for a novel about a fascist takeover of a small midwest school. A list of publications can be found at kennedykylejoseph.wordpress.com