The Goldfish at 3 AM

Marcus had been running for years. Sarah suspected from himself.

She found him at 3 AM in the break room, watching the office goldfish drift through cloudy water. Her hair was still wet from her midnight run, steam rising from her skin in the chilled air.

"They've stopped eating," he said, not turning around.

Sarah set the papaya on the counter. "Maybe they know what's coming."

The layoffs would be announced at 9. Marcus and Elena had nearly been something, once. Now they worked different floors, and the space between held everything they'd never said.

"I never thought I'd be forty and feeding office goldfish," Marcus said.

Sarah saw her reflection in the tank glass - disheveled, exhausted, running toward something she couldn't name, running from a marriage that ended in quiet surrender.

"Papaya?" she offered, slicing into the fruit.

Marcus took the piece. "You ran past my apartment at midnight. I saw you through the window."

"You were supposed to be sleeping."

"I was supposed to be a lot of things."

The goldfish surfaced, breaking the water's tension. Sarah felt something crack - not quite desire, not grief, but the hollow space where both might have lived.

"We should change the water," she said. "Before we go."

"There's a note," Marcus said. "Feed them twice a week. Someone will come after us."

"Someone always does."

They stood in the fluorescent hum, eating papaya with their fingers. At 9, Marcus would walk out for the last time. But right now, they were just two people and fish and fruit on their tongues.

Sarah thought about hair - how she'd cut hers short after the divorce, how she was letting it grow back. What you cut away, and what you let return.

"We could get coffee," Marcus said. "After."

Sarah looked at him and saw what she'd been running toward all along.

"Okay," she said.

The goldfish surfaced again, and for the first time in months, Sarah didn't feel like running at all.