Goldfish in the Glass

The goldfish in the reception tank had been there longer than Elena had worked at the firm. Three years she'd been a corporate spy, extracting trade secrets from competitors while pretending to be a mid-level analyst. The goldfish — an orange comet named Harold by the receptionist — had lasted five.

Today, Elena swam laps in the building's pool before work, trying to drown out the memory of what she'd done to Sarah.

Sarah had been her friend. The kind of friend who brought you soup when you were sick, who remembered your coffee order, who trusted you with her startup's confidential prototype specs. Elena had harvested those specs over wine and complaints about dating, packaged them into a report, and watched Sarah's company crumble under a competitor's preemptive launch.

The worst part? Sarah never suspected her. That's what made Elena good at her job.

Now Sarah worked two floors above Elena at the same corporation that had hired her after destroying her dream. She wore Elena's old hat sometimes — a gray beanie Elena had left at her apartment during their friendship, before everything. Sarah thought Elena had lost it during a move.

The swimming helped. The water muted the world, made everything distant and blue. Elena could almost forget she was living off the ruin of the only person who'd ever truly known her.

She emerged from the pool, towel-drying her hair, and saw Sarah standing in the doorway. Not wearing the hat today. Just Sarah, looking at her with an expression Elena couldn't read.

"You're here early," Sarah said. Then: "I found this file. From when my company was investigated."

The pool's filtration hummed. Water dripped from Elena's hair onto the tiles.

"The IP leak," Sarah continued, her voice cracking. "It came from your email address. Encrypted, but the timestamp matches."

Elena stopped breathing.

"I've been telling myself it was some elaborate mistake," Sarah said. "That my friend couldn't have... but I'm not stupid, Elena."

She set the gray hat on the bench between them.

"I kept this. Thought you'd come back for it someday. But I don't think you ever really left, did you?"

The goldfish in reception would still be swimming tomorrow. Some things kept going regardless of what they broke against. Elena watched Sarah walk away and understood, finally, what it meant to drown while still breathing.