The Art of Drowning

Mara stood on the balcony of the twelfth-floor office, watching the rain blur the city lights below. The **water** streaked the glass like tears she wouldn't allow herself to cry.

"You don't have to do this," Liam said from behind her. His voice was soft, the same tone he'd used when he convinced her to join the firm, when he promised the long hours would be worth it.

She turned. In the harsh fluorescent light, he looked different—not the ambitious golden **fox** she'd fallen for, but something smaller. Something cornered.

"I found the emails, Liam. The shell companies. The money flowing from the **cable** deal to your offshore accounts."

He laughed, a hollow sound. "You think you're the first person to notice corruption in this industry? You think anything changes?"

Mara remembered **palm** Sunday three years ago—how he'd pressed his palm against hers during the service, both of them pretending at faith they didn't feel, pretending at a morality they'd both abandon for the right price. The memory made her chest ache.

"I can't **bear** it," she said. "The lying. Not to the SEC, not to the investigators—to myself. Every morning, waking up and putting on this suit, pretending I'm something I'm not."

"You think quitting fixes anything?" Liam stepped closer, his cologne familiar. "The world doesn't change because you have a conscience, Mara. It just churns on."

She looked past him to the rain-slicked city, to the millions of people making compromises, cutting corners, learning to live with the weight of their own quiet betrayals.

"No," she said. "But I do."

Mara walked to the elevator and didn't look back.