The Green Stain

The spinach wedge salad sat untouched between them, its vinaigrette beginning to separate into oily rivulets. Elena picked at her napkin, watching Marcus across the candlelit table. They'd been friends for seven years, since their first week at the firm, surviving layoffs and mergers and happy hours together.

"You going to eat that?" Marcus asked, gesturing with his iPhone as he set it face-down on the table. A habit he'd developed recently. The screen had flickered with something just before he'd placed it down—something that looked like her own face.

"Not hungry," Elena said. Her stomach had been in knots since the IT director had pulled her aside that morning. "Marcus, can I ask you something?"

He smiled, that easy grin that had made her trust him instantly. "Anything."

"Did you tell anyone about the Anderson account?"

The smile didn't waver. Not quite. "Just you. You know client confidentiality."

"Right. Client confidentiality." Elena's hand trembled as she reached for her water glass. "Because someone at corporate knows. Someone who shouldn't."

Marcus's phone buzzed against the table. He ignored it. "El, you're stressed. This merger has everyone on edge."

"The IT director showed me the access logs, Marcus." Her voice came out flat, stripped of emotion. "Someone used a remote viewing app. Someone with access to my personal device."

The silence stretched between them, filled only by the ambient chatter of the restaurant and the distant clinking of glasses. The spinach on her plate was wilting now, dark green leaves collapsing under their own weight.

"I'm not a spy," Marcus said quietly.

"But you're not just my friend either, are you?" Elena stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. "You're corporate development's plant. You have been since before we met."

Marcus's iPhone lit up with an incoming call. The name flashed across the screen: CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT.

"It's not what you think—" he started, but Elena was already walking away, leaving behind the salad, the friendship, and seven years of carefully constructed lies. The spinach would keep. Nothing else would.