The Bull and the Bear of Us

I watched the bull market die the same way our marriage did — not with a scream, but with the slow, suffocating silence of things left unsaid. Marcus stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of our apartment on the forty-second floor, his palm pressed against the glass as if he could somehow touch the city that had ruined us.

"They're calling it a zombie company now," he said, not turning around. "The firm. Just walking dead."

"The cable news needs a narrative," I replied, though the words tasted like ash. "You're not a zombie, Marcus. You're just... between things."

He laughed, a hollow sound that used to make me fall in love with him. "Between things. That's what my father called himself after the bear market of '08 took everything he'd built. Right before he..."

He didn't finish. He didn't have to.

I moved to him then, wrapped my arms around his waist from behind. For three years, I'd watched him ride the bull — fierce, relentless, convinced that momentum alone could carry us forever. The bonuses, the dinners, the penthouse we'd signed for because the market would never turn. We'd been so young, so certain of our own invincibility.

"What happens tomorrow?" I asked, my cheek against his back.

"Tomorrow I clear out my desk. Tomorrow the apartment goes up for sale. Tomorrow..." His voice cracked. "Tomorrow I figure out who I am without the ticker tape running through my veins."

I turned him toward me. His eyes were red-rimmed, exhausted. "You're still here," I said. "We're still here."

"Are we?" His palm came up to cup my face, his thumb tracing my jawline. "Or are we just another position that needs to be cut?"

The question hung between us, heavier than all the margin calls in the world. Outside, the city kept burning with its indifferent lights. Inside, something finally broke open.

"I'm not cutting anything," I whispered. "I'm riding the bear too, Marcus. Whatever comes."

He leaned his forehead against mine, and for the first time in months, I felt him breathe. Really breathe. The cable news droned on in the background, but neither of us turned it off. Let the market do what it would. We would be here, alive and terrified and entirely human, watching the darkness together.