Terminal Velocity

The orange sunset bled into the hotel carpet, an ugly bruise of color that matched the way my stomach felt. I hadn't seen Marcus in seven years—not since the wedding where he'd drunkenly announced that I was living a lie, that my corporate job was slowly killing my soul, that I was just a goldfish swimming in circles, forgetting I'd already seen the same castle three times ago.

"You look exactly the same," he said, appearing beside me with a drink in each hand. He'd acquired lines around his eyes, a good sign. We'd both been thirty then, pretending we had time. Now we were thirty-seven, and the pretense had worn thin.

"And you look," I paused, "happy."

He laughed—a real one, not the performative chuckle we'd both mastered in conference rooms. "I'm selling insurance now. Can you believe it? Me, the guy who swore he'd never wear a suit."

He pressed a cold glass into my palm. "But Sarah left me two months ago. Said I was too emotionally absent. Which is rich, considering she's the one who started texting someone else before moving out."

The air between us softened. This was what we'd been, once—friends who stripped down to bone, who told each other the truths that felt like revelations until they didn't.

"I was laid off in January," I said. "That corporate job? Gone. And you know what the worst part is? I don't miss it. I don't miss anything about it. I miss the idea of who I thought I was, but that person never existed."

Marcus set his drink down on a table—someone's forgotten hat lay beside it, a crushed velvet thing that looked like it had been stepped on. "Remember that night in college? When we sat on the roof of the art building and talked about how we'd never compromise?"

"We were such arrogant little shits."

"We were hopeful," he corrected. "There's a difference."

A goldfish darted through an enormous vase behind the hotel reception desk, its orange scales catching the dying light. Same castle, new day.

"You want to get out of here?" Marcus asked. "There's a dive bar three blocks over. We can be disappointed somewhere cheaper."

I checked my watch—nothing to check, really, just an old habit. No emails to answer, no meetings to prepare for. Just time, suddenly abundant and terrifying.

"Yes," I said. "God, yes."