The Goldfish at the End of the Bar

The goldfish had been swimming in the same tight circles for three years, its orange scales dulling in the harsh light of Sarah's apartment. I watched it while she poured us more water, the ice cubes clinking like afterthoughts.

"You haven't looked at me once since you got here," she said, setting the glass down with deliberate precision.

My iPhone buzzed on the table — Mark again. Six missed calls since I'd left our apartment two hours ago. I'd told him I needed air. What I'd needed was someone who knew me before I became the person who answers emails at midnight and cries in showers with the water turned up so loud it drowns out the sound of my own disappointment.

"I'm looking at the fish," I said.

"Chester. His name is Chester."

"Right. Chester."

She'd been my friend since college, since we were both going to be writers who lived in Paris and fell in love with men who quoted Proust at dinner parties. Instead, I'd married Mark, who worked in private equity and thought Proust was something you ordered at Starbucks. Sarah had bought a goldfish and stopped writing.

"He's dying, you know," she said, not looking at Chester either.

"What?"

"The fish. I haven't changed his water in three months. I keep meaning to, but then I think — what's the point? He's just going to keep swimming in the same circles until he dies anyway. Changing the water just prolongs it."

My iPhone buzzed again. This time I picked it up, saw Mark's name light up the screen, saw the text: *Come home. We need to talk.*

"What did he do?" Sarah asked, reading my face like she used to read my drafts in workshop, finding the things I'd tried to hide between the lines.

"Everything. Nothing. The usual." I drained my water. "I think I'm like Chester."

"No," Sarah said, finally looking at me, really looking at me, for the first time all night. "Cheger's still swimming. You're just drowning."

She stood up, walked to the fishbowl, and poured Chester into a mason jar. "Come on. There's a pond three blocks from here. Let's put him somewhere with room to actually move."

I grabbed my iPhone, declined Mark's call, and followed her out the door.