Thirst in the Bull Market

Marcus peeled the orange slowly, juice misting the air like regret. The trading floor was silent now—just him and the hollow echo of numbers that had meant everything twelve hours ago.

'You're drowning,' Sarah had said that morning. Her voice had been gentle, which was worse. 'And I can't be the one who holds you above the water anymore.'

He hadn't believed her. Not until the bull market turned and his position evaporated in a blur of red numbers and margin calls. Now he sat on the floor of his apartment—which Sarah had vacated that afternoon—surrounded by boxes he couldn't bring himself to pack.

Barnaby, his friend's golden retriever, nosed at his hand. Marcus was dog-sitting for the week, some cosmic joke about responsibility. The animal regarded him with patient eyes that seemed to ask why the human was sitting in the dark.

'Because I thought I could outsmart it,' Marcus told the dog. Barnaby thumped his tail once, indifferent to financial collapse.

The orange segments were tart on his tongue. He'd bought them on impulse at the bodega, flashing back to childhood summers when oranges had felt like luxury. Now they were just acidic brightness cutting through the stale air of failure.

His phone buzzed. A friend from the firm. 'You okay?'

Marcus typed 'Yeah' and deleted it. Typed 'No' and deleted that too.

The truth was, he didn't know. The bull had been so beautiful—relentless upward momentum, the dopamine hit of being right, being ahead. He'd stopped sleeping properly three months ago. Stopped calling his mother. Stopped noticing how Sarah's eyes had gone flat when he talked about work.

Barnaby whined and rested his chin on Marcus's knee. The weight was grounding.

'Yeah,' Marcus whispered, finally answering the question that mattered. He pet the dog's head, fingers sinking into coarse gold fur. 'Yeah. I think I will be.'

Outside, water drummed against the windows—summer rain washing clean something that had needed washing for a long time.