Exit Strategy

Marcus stood by the pool edge at 2 AM, the water still as glass except for the single goldfish doing laps in the corner—some pet someone had abandoned or lost, now surviving on algae and the occasional cricket that fell in. He'd been coming here for weeks, sleepless since the divorce papers arrived, since he walked away from the firm.

"You're not actually thinking about jumping, are you?"

Her voice came from behind him. He turned to see Elena from HR, the one everyone called the fox behind her back—not because she was attractive (though she was, in that severe, tailored way), but because she'd outsmarted every partner who tried to cross her. She was wearing a trench coat over pajamas, holding a bottle of whiskey.

"The water's only four feet deep," Marcus said.

"Good. Then you won't drown, just embarrass yourself." She sat on the edge, feet dangling in, and offered him the bottle.

They drank in silence for a while. The goldfish joined them, nibbling at Elena's toes.

"I saw you today," she said. "At the office. You looked like a zombie walking through the lobby."

"I was picking up my stuff. They let me keep the bull paperweight—the one from the 1998 IPO." He laughed, bitter. "Fifteen years pushing paper and I leave with a brass bull and this." He gestured at nothing.

"Most of them are zombies, Marcus. They just don't know it yet." She swirled the whiskey. "I've been doing the math. If I stay ten more years, I can retire comfortably. If I leave now, I'm swimming in debt with no plan."

"So why haven't you left?"

She looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time. "Because tonight, I found myself wondering which was worse: staying or becoming the person who leaves."

The goldfish jumped, a small silver arc in the moonlight, and splashed back down.

Marcus took her hand. "Come swimming with me."

"I'm wearing pajamas."

"Exactly."

She hesitated, then stood, letting the coat fall. "If we get arrested, I'm blaming you."

They jumped together, the water shocking them awake, and for the first time in years, Marcus stopped calculating exits and started swimming toward something instead of away.