The Bear Market of Regret

Margot stood on the balcony of her forty-third floor apartment, watching lightning fork across the Manhattan skyline like cracked glass. The storm matched her mood—electric, dangerous, about to break.

Three hours ago, she'd discovered the emails. Her husband of twelve years, a man who'd built his reputation on being bullish in all things—stocks, negotiations, life—had been spending their savings on a secret apartment. And not for himself. The spyware she'd installed on his laptop had revealed everything.

She thought back to their honeymoon in Aspen, how he'd carried her across the threshold like she weighed nothing. How they'd seen a black bear at the edge of their rental cabin, and he'd held her close, whispering that they'd face whatever wilderness came together. The bear had lumbered off without incident, but something wild had been born in her chest that day—the fierce, terrifying knowledge that she would destroy anything that threatened them.

Now the dog, Lucas—a Golden Retriever who'd been a wedding gift from her mother—rested his head against her leg, sensing the shift in atmospheric pressure. Lucas, who had slept beside her through two miscarriages, her father's slow decline, and promotions that felt more like prisons than achievements. Lucas, who loved someone who was about to become a stranger.

Her phone buzzed. Marcus.

"Come home, M. The storm's getting worse."

She thought about the bear again—how it had looked back at them with eyes that held ancient knowing. How Marcus had pulled her inside and made love to her with the kind of desperate intensity that only comes from mortality breathing down your neck.

"Marcus," she said, her voice steady. "Did you ever love me, or was I just another acquisition?"

Silence, except for the rain. Then: "Where are you?"

"Standing at the edge of something."

Another flash of lightning illuminated the city below—thousands of lives, thousands of betrayals, millions of people bearing the weight of things they couldn't say. She realized then that the market had crashed long ago. She'd just refused to read the ticker.

"I'm not coming home."

"Margo—"

"No. You want something bullish? Here it is: I'm selling everything."

She hung up as the sky tore open. Lucas whined softly, and she sank to the floor, holding him as the rain washed over the city—no wilderness, just the wild, unnamable ache of starting over.