Market Corrections

The bull market had been good to them. Or so Elena kept telling herself.

She watched Julian pace their penthouse—fifteen hundred square feet of glass and chrome that felt more like a terrarium than a home. The floor-to-ceiling aquarium hummed in the corner, its two goldfish circling endlessly in water that had grown cloudy with neglect. Julian had bought them on impulse three years ago, naming them Alpha and Beta, because even his pets needed to reflect something about returns.

'I'm saying it's time to cash out,' Julian said, not looking at her. 'Before the correction.'

Elena touched the copper hair that fell over her eyes. Her mother used to call her her little fox—too clever by half, always sniffing out opportunities others missed. She'd sniffed out Julian at a Goldman mixer, all arrogance and ambition, exactly the kind of man she thought she wanted. Now she wondered if the fox had been tricked by its own nature. 'You said that last quarter. And the quarter before.'

'Because I've seen this before.' Julian finally stopped pacing. 'I saw what happened in '08. My father lost everything—'

'Your father still has a house in the Hamptons.'

'A smaller one.' Julian's jaw tightened. 'I'm trying to protect us, Elena.'

The water heater chose that moment to give a final, wheezing groan before flooding their basement. Elena stood watching the murky liquid spread across their pristine concrete floor, realizing with cold clarity how much of her life had become about waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the correction. For the bubble to burst. For something to finally make her feel something again.

The goldfish surfaced simultaneously, mouths opening and closing in silent screams.

Their fortune wasn't in the markets anymore. It was in the six inches of space between them on the sofa each night, growing wider by the day. And for the first time in four years, Elena found herself wondering what it might feel like to be the one who left.