The Aquarium of Us

The goldfish had been doing laps for three years. Elena watched it from the dining table, its orange scales catching the light from the chandelier, and thought: we are not so different.

"Are you listening?" Marcus asked, his iPhone face-up on the table between them like a boundary line. "I said I've got padel at seven."

"Padel," she repeated. "Right."

She'd stopped listening months ago. Maybe years. Their marriage had become something they performed—a careful choreography of dinners and weekend plans, both of them moving through the motions like zombies, neither willing to admit they were already dead.

The spinach stuck between Marcus's teeth as he smiled at something on his screen. She considered telling him, then didn't. It felt petty, and anyway, what was the point? There were so many things she wasn't saying anymore.

"I'll be late," he said, standing up. "Don't wait up."

She didn't. Instead she poured herself another glass of wine and watched the goldfish swim its endless circuits. The fish didn't know it was trapped. It probably thought the glass walls were the whole world.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Julian: *Still thinking about you.*

Elena's thumb hovered over the screen. For three years, she'd been faithful. For three years, she'd swum in circles while Marcus made plans without her, built a life that didn't include her, treated their marriage like something he could maintain on autopilot.

The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent O's.

Elena typed back: *Me too.*

She pressed send. Then she stood, turned off the lights, and left the fish to its darkness. Some circles, she finally understood, were made to be broken.