The Weight of Oranges

David found me by the hotel pool at 11 PM, nursing my third gin and tonic. The blue-black water reflected nothing, and neither did I. Three years since we'd spoken, and here he was, holding a shopping bag like it was something precious.

"I heard about the layoffs," he said, sitting beside me. Not hello. Not I'm sorry. Just straight to the wound.

"Yeah. Forty people gone. My department's a ghost town."

He pulled an orange from the bag and began to peel it, his fingers working the rind in long, practiced strips. Citrus scent cut through the chlorine smell. This was what he used to do during finals week sophomore year, peeling oranges while I panicked about exams, feeding me segments like I was a child.

"There's a pool, you know," he said quietly. "In the office. Betting on who's next."

I laughed, but it came out wrong. "Am I on the list?"

"You're the favorite to go." He placed an orange segment in my palm, his fingers lingering. "I tried to talk them out of it. I reminded them what you did for the company."

"But you didn't tell me."

"Would you have believed me? After what happened with Sarah?"

His ex-wife. My now-wife. The story wrote itself.

"You could have tried," I said. "You could have been a friend."

"I am your friend. That's why I'm here."

The pool lights flickered off, leaving us in darkness. Something broke in me then—some dam I'd been holding back for years. I ate the orange segment. It was impossibly sweet, like candy, like something that shouldn't exist in this world.

"I bet on myself," I said into the dark. "Fifty bucks. If I'm fired, I win."

David laughed, surprised and genuine. "That's messed up."

"That's corporate America. You win by losing."

We sat there until the oranges were gone, until the gin bottle was empty, until the night guard told us the pool was closed. We were still friends, I realized. The worst kind—the kind who know exactly where to stick the knife, and do it anyway, because sometimes survival requires choosing between two evils and choosing the one that lets you sleep at night.

I'd see him at the office tomorrow. I'd probably be laid off by Friday. But for tonight, there were oranges and darkness and the weight of everything we'd done to survive.