The Storm in the Breakroom

The spinach wilted in the corner of my Tupperware, much like my enthusiasm for this job. I'd been packing my own lunches since the incident three months ago—since I discovered someone had been helping themselves to my fridge stash, one precise bite at a time.

I knew who it was. Marcus from Accounting, with his designer suits and desperate eyes and marriage that was reportedly collapsing like a poorly built house of cards. I'd seen him at the fridge, midnight hunger in his posture, hovering like he was deciding between my leftover pasta and moral ruin.

Tonight, lightning cracked across the sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the breakroom. The storm had been brewing for hours, atmospheric pressure matching the tension between my departments—Sales vs. Marketing, the eternal war, and me, the corporate spy embedded in the enemy camp, leaking their quarterly projections to my actual team.

"You're still here?" Marcus's voice behind me. I turned, spinach sandwich halfway to my mouth. He looked wrecked. Tie undone, circles under his eyes, rain plastering his hair to his forehead.

"Storm trapped me," I said. "Train delays."

He laughed bitterly. "Lightning strike took out the signals. Whole line's dead."

We stood there as the room flickered with each flash, two people at midnight in an office building, neither willing to go home to what waited there. His wife had asked for a divorce yesterday; my own husband had stopped asking when I'd be home months ago.

"Can I have half?" Marcus nodded at my sandwich. "I haven't eaten since breakfast."

I considered being petty. Considered reminding him that he was the reason I started bringing my own food. Instead I split it down the middle, spinach leaves falling onto the counter between us like dark green secrets.

We ate in silence as the storm raged outside, two corporate spies in our own lives, taking what small comforts we could find in the breakroom darkness.