The Architecture of Loss

The corporate restructuring chart looked like a pyramid scheme, which was fitting, considering how Eleanor had been systematically climbing over people for fifteen years. She sat in her corner office on the thirty-seventh floor, staring at the plastic container of orange slices she'd packed that morning. They were starting to brown at the edges, much like her own reflection in the window.

"You can't keep doing this," Marcus had told her three nights ago, his voice thick with sleep and resignation. "The promotions, the late nights—you're becoming someone I don't recognize."

He'd been her friend first, before anything else. Back when they were both junior analysts making copies and dreaming of corner offices, Marcus had brought her an orange every morning. "Vitamin C," he'd say, "for when this place tries to eat you alive."

Eleanor's cat, Binx, wound around her legs now, meowing for dinner. She'd adopted him after Marcus moved out—a guilty impulse adoption from the shelter down the street. He was the only living thing in her apartment that didn't look at her with quiet disappointment.

Her phone buzzed. Another congratulatory email about her promotion to VP. Someone had cc'd Marcus. He probably wouldn't reply. He never did anymore.

The pyramid on her whiteboard had her name at the top now, exactly where she'd always wanted it. She'd built it brick by brick, compromise by compromise, until the foundation was nothing but the things she'd traded away.

Eleanor picked up an orange slice. It was warm and slightly mushy. She ate it anyway, staring at the city below, where millions of people were making their own trades, building their own monuments to ambition. Somewhere down there, Marcus was probably eating breakfast. He'd always liked his oranges cold.

Binx jumped onto her desk and knocked over the container. Orange slices scattered across her restructuring charts like blood on a battlefield. Eleanor didn't move to clean them up. She just watched them settle into the valleys between departments, between teams, between the past and whatever came next.