The Animals in Us

The corporate retreat had been Elena's idea — team building at the boutique hotel with the infinity pool overlooking the valley. Now, at midnight, she found herself alone in the water, swimming slow laps while her colleagues slept or pretended to.

She felt like a zombie. Three years of mergers and layoffs and strategic pivots had hollowed her out. She went through the motions: the quarterly forecasts, the town halls where promises were made and quietly broken, the way she'd learned to nod through meetings while her mind drifted.

"You're a shark, Elena," David had told her during her performance review. His office had the corporate mission statement printed on the wall, framed beside photos of his sailboat. "You need to be more of a fox sometimes. Strategic. Know when to chase and when to wait."

The irony made her laugh now, breaking the surface with a splash that echoed off the tile. David, who'd been having an affair with the junior VP while his wife underwent chemotherapy. David, who'd called her into his office last month to explain that there were going to be some difficult decisions.

She'd survived the cuts. Four of her colleagues hadn't.

The water was cold enough to make her skin prickle. She floated on her back, looking up at the moon. Below, in the hotel bar, she knew Marcus was still drinking. They'd ended things three weeks ago after he told her he wasn't ready for anything serious, but he kept texting her at midnight.

Bullshit, she thought.

The word came unbidden. It was what her father used to say when she'd complain about workplace politics as a junior analyst. "It's all bull, Elena. Just keep your head down and do the work."

She'd spent a decade keeping her head down. She'd built spreadsheets that justified firing people she'd hired. She'd learned to make small talk at happy hours while calculating billable hours in her head. She'd become exactly the kind of person she used to despise — efficient, professional, hollow.

Marcus appeared at the pool's edge, blurry through the water refraction. He'd taken off his suit jacket. His tie hung loose.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

"I'm a zombie," she said, treading water. "Stopped sleeping three years ago."

He sat on the edge, feet dangling in. "I meant what I said, you know. About not being ready."

"I know," she said. "That's the problem."

"What if I changed my mind?"

Elena looked at him — really looked. The way his hair was thinning at the temples. The small scar on his chin from a childhood accident. The genuine uncertainty in his eyes.

"Fox," she said.

"What?"

"That's what David told me. Be a fox. Know when to chase and when to wait."

She swam to the edge and pulled herself up, water streaming off her skin. The night air raised gooseflesh on her arms.

"I'm done waiting," she said, and left him there with his feet in the pool, watching her walk away toward a future she'd finally decided to build herself.