Glass Walls

Elena adjusted her visor, sweat trickling down her spine as she smashed the padel ball against the glass wall. The enclosure amplified every sound—the sharp *thwack* of her racquet, Mark's heavy breathing, the hollow echo of their deception.

"You're getting better," Mark said, wiping his forehead with the hem of his polo shirt. His smile didn't reach his eyes anymore.

"Practice makes perfect." She returned his smile with one equally curated.

Three months ago, she'd been hired to gather intelligence on his pharmaceutical company. The directive: find evidence of the clinical trial manipulation. The method: infiltrate his Sunday padel league, become his friend, his confidante, whatever unlocked the files on his private server.

The job was straightforward. The complication was Mark himself—divorced, lonely, generous with his laugh and his bottles of chilled rosé afterward. He talked about his daughter in college, his dead dreams of becoming a chef, his conviction that the new drug would change lives. Elena stopped taking notes after week two.

In his office, where she'd "accidentally" ended up after their matches, there was a goldfish bowl on his mahogany desk. A single orange fish swam in endless circles, its mouth opening and closing in silent repetition. She found herself staring at it during their conversations, hypnotized by its blind persistence, its inability to recognize its own enclosure.

Last night, lying beside Mark in his silk sheets, she'd finally cracked the password. His birthday. The files were there—everything she needed to destroy him, to collect her commission, to disappear like she always did.

"Earth to Elena." Mark waved his hand in front of her face. "You okay? You've been somewhere else all morning."

She looked at him, really looked at him. The man who'd shown her his mother's recipe collection, who held her too tightly when he thought she was asleep, who trusted her with the one thing that could ruin him.

"Just thinking," she said, gripping her racquet. "Let's play another set."

The goldfish circled its bowl, and for the first time in five years, Elena wondered who was actually trapped behind the glass.