Exit Strategy

Sarah sat at her desk, feeling like a zombie—another gray-skinned creature in a gray cubicle farm, hungering for brains but feeding only on spreadsheets. Three years after David left, taking the good blender and her will to innovate, she'd become an expert at going through the motions.

The dog had been David's parting gift—a golden retriever puppy named Atlas, now seven and the only living thing that still looked at her with something resembling enthusiasm. Atlas waited at home, probably asleep on her favorite pillow, the one she'd given up trying to reclaim.

Her phone buzzed. Mom again, asking if she'd found a nice man yet. Sarah stared at the framed photo on her desk: her college graduation, arm around that ridiculous stuffed bear David had won her at a carnival their first week together. She'd kept it after he left. Some small, pathetic part of her still hoped he might come back for it, for her, for whatever they'd been building before everything collapsed.

"Team huddle!" came the cry from the open-plan area. Their manager's name was actually Pyramid—Pete to his face, but everyone called him Pyramid behind his back because all the shit rolled downhill and eventually landed on someone else's desk. He loved corporate hierarchies the way some men loved boats or golf.

Sarah stood up. Her knees cracked. She was thirty-four, single, and her most meaningful relationship this past year had been with a barista who sometimes gave her an extra shot of espresso.

"What's the word, Pyramid?" someone asked as they gathered around the whiteboard.

He drew a triangle. "We need to climb to the top," he said, marking an X at the peak. "This quarter's about ascension. Who's ready to ascend?"

Sarah thought about Atlas at home, waiting for her. She thought about the box in her closet with the stuffed bear inside. She thought about the way David used to look at her when she was half-asleep and reading, like she was the most interesting thing in the room.

"You know what," she said, and her voice sounded strange to her own ears—clearer than it had been in years. "I think I'm done ascending."

Pyramid laughed, nervous. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm going home to my dog." She grabbed her bag. "It means I'm going to take that stuffed bear out of the box and finally throw it away. It means I'm done climbing triangles that don't lead anywhere."

She walked out. Her hands shook, but her feet didn't.

Outside, the air smelled like rain and possibility. Sarah breathed it in, really breathed, and for the first time in three years, she didn't feel like the walking dead at all.

She felt entirely, terrifyingly alive.