The Goldfish Won't Beg

Margot stood in the doorway of Marcus's office, the box in her arms suddenly impossibly heavy. Three years of her life reduced to a plant that had given up weeks ago and a goldfish that swam in endless, indifferent circles.

"You're really taking the fish?" Elena asked from the hallway. She wore that ridiculous wide-brimmed hat to the Christmas party last year—the one Marcus had laughed about in bed. Now Elena wore nothing but a satisfied expression.

"His name is Bubbles," Margot said, though the name wasn't hers to give. "Marcus got him for me. After—the miscarriage."

Elena's face shifted. "Oh. I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't. You were his work wife. His friend."

The word hung poisoned between them. Outside, rain sheeted against the windows—water blurring the city skyline, making everything soft and forgiving. Margot wanted softness. Instead, she got Elena's perfectly manicured hand on her arm.

"Margot, it wasn't like that. We never—"

"Save it. Have the office. Have the career he built on my consulting work. Have the corner office with the view." Margot shifted the box. The fishbowl glugged dangerously. "Just know that Bubbles remembers nothing. He doesn't know who fed him, who talked to him when the nights got too long and quiet. He just swims."

"That's not fair."

"Fair?" Margot laughed, and it sounded like breaking glass. "Marcus left me a note. Three lines. Said he needed to 'find himself.' Then I found out he'd already found himself—with you."

A dog barked somewhere in the distance—someone's pet, waiting for an owner who wouldn't come back. Marcus had wanted a dog. She'd said not yet. Not yet became never.

"What do you want me to say?" Elena's voice cracked.

"Nothing." Margot adjusted her grip on the fishbowl. "Just that when he gets tired of you too—and he will, Elena—he's terrible at being happy—don't say nobody warned you."

She walked out, past the receptionist who wouldn't meet her eyes, past the security guard who'd known her name for three years. Outside, the rain had stopped. The world washed clean.

The goldfish swam on, oblivious to the wreckage of human lives. Margot supposed there was something to learn from that. She set the bowl on the passenger seat and started the car, already forgetting what she'd come here to say.