Cat Jacobi

By Catherine Jacobi | Fiction | Short Story | 2025

I didn’t cry at my ex’s funeral.

Not because I didn’t care. Not because I was “over it.” But because my shoes were too tight, the priest was too young, and someone played Coldplay during the slideshow like that was a normal thing to do. I sat in the third pew next to a girl he used to flirt with in the comments of my Instagram posts. She was crying like she’d lost a twin flame. I just blinked a lot.

Afterward, someone handed me a sandwich and said he “always had such a good sense of humor,” which felt like a war crime. I went home. I watched The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills until my face went numb.

I thought I’d cry eventually. I didn’t.

Until Zara.

It happened two months later, during a mid-season sale at the Soho location, under fluorescent lighting that made everyone look a little bit like they’d seen God and weren’t impressed.

There was this coat.

Long. Camel. Belted. The kind of coat that says, “I have my shit together,” even if you cried into a bag of pita chips last night while watching a TikTok about penguins mating for life. I reached for it at the exact same time as a girl in Adidas Sambas and headphones bigger than her skull.

She looked at me. I looked at her. For one tense moment, it was girlhood as contact sport.

But I let go. “You can have it,” I said, like some retail-era Mother Teresa. She took it, smiled, disappeared into the chaos.

And then—I cried.

Right there. Next to a pile of jeans I knew wouldn’t fit and a pair of kitten heels that screamed “sponsored divorce lawyer.”

It wasn’t about the coat.

Okay, maybe a little about the coat. But mostly it was about how my grief had no designated outlet. No clean narrative. He wasn’t my boyfriend when he died. He wasn’t even speaking to me. We’d ghosted each other into oblivion over a string of fights so stupid they sound like Tumblr posts now.

“You never listen.”
“You’re emotionally constipated.”
“You made me watch Joker twice.”

The last time I saw him, I said, “I hope you figure your shit out.” He said, “I won’t.”

Then he didn’t.

So how do you mourn someone who stopped being yours before they stopped being?

Capitalism doesn’t care. Capitalism loves a mess. There are no sympathy cards for “emotionally complicated situationships.” There is no bereavement leave for “girl who used to make fun of him in group chats but also once planned your imaginary wedding.”

But there is Zara.

There is the pantomime of progress. There is fabric. There is texture. There is the dopamine rush of “New In.” There is the religion of dressing for a version of yourself that doesn’t sob in fitting rooms.

I bought a skirt I didn’t need. Wore it to brunch the next day. Got compliments. Said “thank you” like I was fluent in moving on.

I don’t believe in ghosts.

But sometimes I see a guy in a beanie who walks like him and I flinch. Sometimes I read old texts like they’re scripture. Sometimes I think about how he cried when Eternal Sunshine ended and how I laughed at him for it. Sometimes I think I’ll never be loved that irrationally again.

And sometimes, I think that coat would’ve looked so good on me.

I didn’t cry at his funeral. But I cried at Zara.

And I think that’s okay.

Because grief is weird and late capitalism is weirder and sometimes the only way out is through a final sale rack and a full-body meltdown under LED lights that hum like an elegy.

Anyway. The coat went out of stock.

But I’m still here.