The Predator at the Pyramid

The fluorescent lights of the conference room gave Sarah a headache. At 42, she was too old for this bullshit, yet here she sat, watching Derek—sleek, predatory, devastatingly charming—work the room like a pyramid scheme evangelist. Which, she supposed, he was.

"Who's ready to unlock their potential?" His smile was all teeth.

Her cat, Miso, was at home alone, probably sleeping in the sunbeam that hit the living room floor at 2 PM. Some days Sarah envied that simple, uncomplicated existence. She reached into her purse and found her vitamin D supplement—her doctor's orders for chronic fatigue. Or, as Marcus had called it before walking out three months ago: "another thing you're doing wrong."

Outside, lightning illuminated the conference center's glass facade, sudden and violent. The storm matched her mood.

"You've got the instincts of a bear," her mother had once said, half-accusation, half-admiration. "You hibernate when things get hard. You go to ground."

Sarah had never denied it. Depression ran in her family like a tide, pulling everyone under eventually. She'd spent years learning to recognize the riptide.

Derek locked eyes with her from across the room. The predator had spotted prey. He began weaving through the crowd toward her, that practiced smile widening.

Sarah remembered the night Marcus left—the way he'd packed while she sat on the couch, unable to move, barely able to breathe. The shame of it still burned.

But not today.

She stood up, collected her things with deliberate, unhurried movements. Let him come. Let him try. She wasn't the woman who froze anymore.

"Sarah!" Derek called out, too loud. "We were just getting to the good part."

She walked toward the exit, toward the storm and the taxi stand and the cat waiting at home. Behind her, the pyramid trembled.