The Corporate Pyramid Scheme

The pyramid sat on my desk—a small glass paperweight Emma gave me three years ago, before everything between us curdled into something unrecognizable. I'd been staring at it for twenty minutes, feeling like a zombie moving through another Tuesday at the firm.

"Bull market's eating us alive," Marcus said, dropping into the chair across from me. He looked like he hadn't slept since the Fed announcement. "Hedge funds are circling. Division wants blood."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Marcus didn't know about Emma's midnight text last night—or how I'd almost replied. He didn't know about the way she'd moved through our breakup like a fox, all sharp angles and calculated wounds, leaving me to wonder what she'd really felt versus what she'd needed to feel to get what she wanted.

My phone buzzed. A photo from my sister: Barnaby, her elderly tabby, curled on a windowsill back home. The message read: "He still waits by your old bedroom door."

That's when it happened—the thing that had been building for months. The pyramid on my desk caught the light, fracturing it into a thousand tiny rainbows, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt anything real. Not the hollow victories at work, not the carefully curated presentations, not even the memory of Emma's laugh, which had started to feel like something I'd invented.

I stood up. "Marcus?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm taking the rest of the week."

"What?" His jaw dropped. "You're kidding. We're in the middle of—"

"I know what we're in the middle of." I grabbed my coat. "I'm going home to see my sister. And her cat."

"You're seriously leaving? Now?"

The bull in the room—that crushing, irrational pressure I'd been accepting as normal—suddenly seemed ridiculous. I thought about Emma's parting shot: You're the most alive person I know, when you remember to be alive.

"Yeah," I said. "I think I've forgotten."

The pyramid stayed on my desk. Some things, like guilt and ambition, are heavier than glass.