The Tank at Thirty Thousand Feet

The office goldfish—Bernard, according to the sticky label on the bowl—stared at Elena with his perpetually open mouth, as if asking the question that had been haunting her for months: What are you doing here?

She'd transferred to the London office during the bull market, when everything felt possible. Now, three years later, she was swimming in debt and sleeping with a man she wasn't sure she could trust.

"You're quiet tonight," Marcus said, setting down their drinks at the pub around the corner from their Canary Wharf high-rise. He worked in compliance. They'd met at the Christmas party, when he'd caught her crying in the loo about her divorce. His kindness had felt like a lifeline.

Elena swirled her gin. "Just tired. The merger's eating me alive."

"I heard something," Marcus said, not meeting her eyes. "About the deal. About why your company's really acquiring us."

Her stomach dropped. She'd been warned during her security clearance that corporate espionage was rampant in the sector, but she'd never suspected—

"Marcus, what did you hear?"

"That you're not really an analyst. That you were sent to find weaknesses. That you're a spy, Elena."

She laughed, but it came out strangled. "What?"

"I checked your references. Your previous employer? They've never heard of you."

She thought about the goldfish in his bowl, trapped, watched, utterly exposed. She thought about how she'd been swimming through lies for so long she'd forgotten what truth felt like. Not corporate lies. Personal ones.

"I'm not a spy," she said quietly. "I'm just divorced, Marcus. I lied about my job history because I was ashamed of getting fired. I needed this position to survive."

His shoulders dropped. "Oh."

"But you checked up on me?"

"I got scared. You were pulling away, and I've been burned before, and—" He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm an idiot."

"We're both idiots," she said, and when she leaned across the table to kiss him, she felt like she was finally surfacing after holding her breath for three years.

Bernard the goldfish was still swimming in circles when she got to work the next morning. But somehow, watching him, she didn't feel quite so trapped anymore.