Pyramids in the Palm

The org chart on Marcus's conference room wall was a pyramid, and he was somewhere near the middle—not quite buried, but far from the apex where the real decisions were made. At forty-two, with vitamin supplements he didn't believe in lining his bathroom cabinet and a condo he was overpaying for, he'd started wondering what he was actually building.

'You look like shit,' Jenna said, sliding into the chair beside him. Her palms were soft against his when she squeezed his hand—too soft for someone who'd just presented to the board.

'Rough night.' Buster, his twelve-year-old retriever, had spent it pacing at the foot of his bed, sensing something Marcus couldn't. The dog had been doing that a lot lately.

Jenna's eyes softened. 'The merger?'

'Everything.' He gestured vaguely at the pyramid on the wall. 'This. Us. The fact that I haven't felt real in months.'

She didn't pull away. 'I went to a palm reader yesterday,'

He laughed, sharp and surprised. 'You?'

'Desperate times.' She traced a line on his palm, mapping some future she couldn't possibly see. 'She told me I'd have to choose between safety and something real. Said the pyramid I'd built was beautiful but empty.'

Marcus looked at her then—really looked. The soft lines around her eyes, the careful composure she'd worn like armor since they'd started whatever this was three years ago. 'And what did you tell her?'

'That I already knew.' Jenna's voice dropped. 'That I'd been waking up at 3 AM thinking about how vitamins don't fix what's actually missing.'

The dog had sensed it too, he realized. Buster hadn't been pacing because of Marcus—had been pacing because he'd been waiting.

'Choose,' Marcus said, and the word hung between them, fragile and terrifying.

Jenna squeezed his hand again, her palm warm against his. 'I'm choosing,' she said. 'Question is what are you building, Marcus? Another pyramid to get buried in, or something you can actually live in?'

Buster whined in his dreams at home, alone in the apartment. Marcus thought of all the vitamins he swallowed daily, all the hollow things he did to feel whole.

'I'm done climbing,' he said finally.

'Good,' Jenna said. 'Then let's figure out how to live instead.'

Outside, the city kept building upward, but for the first time in years, Marcus wasn't looking at the top.