High Water Mark

The market's been a bull for so long, nobody remembers what a bear looks like anymore. That's what Victor told me three months ago, nursing his third whiskey at O'Malley's, his eyes already glassy at 2 PM on a Tuesday. I should have known then.

Now I'm standing on the pier watching the water lap against the pylons, gray and relentless, thinking about how Victor emptied my 401(k) with the same confident smile he used to sell bullshit penny stocks to our clients. Some friend.

"You're overthinking it," Sarah had said that morning, watching me pack the box with my framed degrees and the plant I'd kept alive since 2018. "Victor made a mistake. A big one. But he's still the guy who covered your rent when you got divorced."

She was right, and that was the problem. Victor had held my hair back when I puked tequila on his birthday. He'd flown to Chicago when my mother died. But he'd also transferred $47,000 from my investment account into his offshore shell corporation, and now the SEC was asking questions I couldn't answer.

The water keeps rising with the tide. I check my phone – another missed call from the fraud investigator. Victor's probably on a beach somewhere, or maybe he's just another casualty of his own scheme. It's hard to mourn someone who might still be alive, who might be watching the same water from a different pier, wondering if you'll forgive him.

I light a cigarette, something I haven't done in five years. The smoke tastes like regret and nicotine, familiar and awful both at once. Sarah's voice again: "People are complicated. Victor's complicated."

But some complications are bullshields. Some betrayals don't have explanations, only consequences. I toss the phone into the water. It disappears without a splash, swallowed like everything else.