The Last Bull Market

Maggie's lungs burned as she pounded the pavement at 5 AM, running harder than she had any reason to. The city was still asleep, steam rising from subway grates like ghosts of yesterday's commuters. She needed this — the rhythm, the pain, the certainty of one foot in front of the other. Everything else in her life had become negotiable.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she didn't stop. It was probably him again. Richard, with his apologies that sounded like excuses and his promises that dissolved like sugar in rain. He'd told her yesterday that he'd made a killing in the market. "Bull run, Mags," he'd said, eyes bright with that predatory gleam she used to find charming. "We're set."

But she knew better. Richard had been chasing highs since they met at that baseball game seven years ago — a Mets versus Yankees matchup where he'd spent nine innings explaining the statistics instead of watching the game. She'd loved his intensity then. Now it just felt like he was always playing defense, always protecting something he couldn't name.

The sun was coming up when she finally slowed, walking the last three blocks to their brownstone. Richard's car was in the driveway. He was sitting on the front steps, elbows on knees, head in his hands.

"Where were you?" he asked, not looking up.

"Running," she said, and the word hung between them like something solid.

"The market crashed," he said softly. "That bull I told you about? It gored everybody."

Maggie looked at him — really looked at him — for the first time in months. She saw the lines around his eyes, the way his shoulders had started rounding forward, the exhaustion that lived in the marrow of him.

"I know," she said. "I wasn't running away from you, Richard. I was running toward something."

He raised his head then, and she saw it again — that same look from the baseball game, when he'd turned to her in the seventh inning and said, "You know, statistics don't mean anything. Not really. It's about showing up."

"Show up for me," she said.

Richard stood up slowly. "Okay."

Inside, the coffee was cold, but for the first time in a long time, Maggie felt something warm and dangerous growing between them again. Not a bull market — something realer than that.