When I Go by Leslie Elman

“When I go, no one will find me,” Sunny said. 

They’d been watching a movie involving a woman who disappears herself from her life to start a different existence in a different place under a different name.

“What do you mean ‘when’ you go?” Tamra asked.

Steph gave a chuckle. “Something you want to tell us, Sunny?”
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Amaria picked up the empty popcorn bowl and brought it to the kitchen. Silent. As she hand-washed the stoneware bowl, Amaria pictured Sunny responding with a shrug and a smirk as she did when she wanted you to think she knew something you wished you knew. 

The cat rubbed against Amaria’s leg. She scooped wet food into the cat’s dish. Conditioned to respond.

Twenty-four hours later, Sunny was gone.

She had threatened to walk out plenty of times. That night was the first time she mentioned it in front of other people, only she’d left out what she usually told Amaria when they were alone: “I can do so much better than you.” 
Eventually, Amaria would have Tamra and Steph over for another movie night and tell them Sunny was gone. They’d be sympathetic. Not surprised. Not after all the cutting criticism and bruising remarks they heard Sunny level at Amaria. They stopped laughing that off a long time ago. Tamra and Steph were wise enough to figure what went on between Sunny and Amaria in private was worse than what they witnessed. 

The house felt bigger without Sunny. More light. More air.  Yet, sleeping without Sunny in the bed was more difficult than Amaria expected. When they’d spent nights apart recently, it felt like a reprieve to fall asleep without the need to fight through a layer of tension before her mind and body settled. The first night with Sunny truly gone, though, Amaria tossed and turned so much the cat hopped off the bed leaving a disconcerting warm indentation on Sunny’s pillow. 

The following evening, Amaria watched a Bollywood film that involved a love triangle, a gang war, an exploding helicopter, and people inexplicably breaking into song and dance. It covered pretty much every emotion she was feeling at the moment.

The cat jumped up on the couch, yawned, and rested her head and a paw on Amaria’s thigh. Amaria yawned and rested her hand on the cat. They closed their eyes and breathed together. Chests rising and falling. Warm blood pumping. 

Amaria would have made popcorn, but the bowl was gone. Shame. It was heavy, antique stoneware worth a good deal more than what she’d paid for it at a garage sale. Sunny would sneer and roll her eyes whenever someone complimented it. She’d done it the last time they were with Tamra and Steph. 

Inevitably, after Tamra and Steph had gone, Sunny picked a fight with Amaria. There was a slap. More than one. Then a thud as Amaria smacked the stoneware bowl into the side of Sunny’s head, connecting first with a steel-sharp cheekbone then with Sunny’s temple. More than once. Sunny went down with a mousy squeak, her fingers scratching the air. Then her mouth slacked and her fingers stopped scratching. Amaria froze. The unblemished bowl fell from her fingers and broke into pieces on the tile floor of the kitchen. The cat had studied her without judgment, lapped up some food, and walked out. 

Sometime before dawn, Amaria opened her eyes and recoiled at a mouse twitching, not quite dead, on Sunny’s pillow. The cat meowed, announcing her kill. Amaria swore. She might have cried. Then she took the mouse to the woods, dug a hole—another hole—and buried it where even the cat wouldn’t find it.

​© 2026 Leslie Elman

About the author:
​​Leslie Elman is an Edgar Award-nominated writer whose short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Vautrin, Stone’s Throw, and Mystery Magazine.