The Last Authentic Thing

Elena spent three years as a corporate spy, harvesting trade secrets from tech startups while pretending to be their friend. The money was excellent. The conscience was optional, or so she told herself during the first year. By year three, she moved through her days like a zombie, performing emotional labor until she forgot what genuine feelings felt like.

Her Golden Retriever, Buster, was the only creature who received her true self. He didn't know she made six figures lying to strangers. He only knew that she was the person who scratched behind his ears and threw the tennis ball until her arm ached.

Tuesday evenings were for padel with Marcus, a target she'd aborted months ago when she found herself actually liking him. They played without speaking much, the rhythmic thwack of ball against glass walls the only conversation they needed. Sweat pooled at the small of her back. Her muscles burned. For ninety minutes, she wasn't a spy or a fraud. She was just someone trying to return a serve that skidded dangerously close to the line.

"You're distracted tonight," Marcus said afterward, sitting on the bench while she gulped water from a plastic bottle. The condensation cooled her palm.

Elena wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Work's been demanding."

He studied her face in the fluorescent light. "You know, you never talk about it. What you actually do."

The question hung between them like the smoke from her apartment fire that she'd set to cover her tracks three years ago. She looked at him—really looked—at the sweat matting his dark hair, the exhaustion etching fine lines around his eyes, the gentle way he waited for her answer.

"I'm considering a career change," she said, and it wasn't a lie.

Marcus smiled, not suspecting that he might be the reason. "Good. Whatever it is, I hope it makes you happier. You look like you're carrying something heavy."

The water from the bottle hadn't quenched her thirst. It never did. But Marcus's words, unasked for and sincere, hit something vital inside her chest. For the first time in three years, Elena felt something besides performative emotion.

"Maybe," she said, "I just needed someone to notice."

Buster greeted her at the door with furious tail wags, his unconditional love the only thing that remained untouched by the lies she told herself. Tomorrow, she would resign. Tonight, she would sleep with the lights off, dreaming of water that finally washed her clean.