The Last Morning

Marcus felt like a zombie most weekdays now, shuffling through the glass doors of Jensen Capital by 7:15 AM. His ex-wife Elena's words still echoed: "You're not living, Mare. You're just not dying." Six months since the divorce papers, and he'd proved her wrong by absolutely nothing.

He spotted Chen at the padel court near the building, already sweating, already shouting at nothing. "Market's a fucking bull today, Marcus! We're back!" Chen had been saying this since November, through three bear markets and one nervous breakdown that had him sleeping under his desk for a week.

Marcus swam through another day of meaningless calls and spreadsheets that didn't matter. The new analyst, Sarah—twenty-six, hungry, terrible at hiding her pity—kept finding excuses to stop by his desk. "Want to grab lunch?" she'd ask, and he'd wave her off with some excuse about finishing a presentation that neither of them would remember by Friday.

It was 3 AM when he found himself standing in his living room, everything silent except the refrigerator humming. He'd woken from another dream about the lake house where they'd spent their last anniversary—not the fighting, but the morning after, when Elena had watched him swimming toward the dock and said, "You look like you're trying to escape something."

Maybe he was.

The next morning, Marcus didn't go to the office. He drove to the coast instead, parked at the first beach access he found, and walked until the water hit his knees. A woman walked past with a golden retriever, the bear of a dog splashing happily. She smiled like she recognized something in him.

He didn't go back to Jensen Capital. He didn't call Chen. Sarah would find someone else to worry about. Marcus stood there until his feet went numb, and for the first time in years, he didn't feel like a zombie at all.

He felt like a man who'd finally stopped swimming against the current.