What the Goldfish Knew

The office goldfish had been watching Elena for six months. Its bulbous eyes followed her across the open-plan workspace, a silent witness to the unraveling. Feed me, it seemed to say with its perpetual O-mouth. Feed me like you're feeding yourself to the wrong man.

Elena dropped another flake into the tank. The fish darted upward, orange scales catching the fluorescent light, consuming without gratitude. Just like him.

Her iPhone buzzed against her hip—the third time this hour. Mark again. Always Mark now, since that night at the holiday party when his hand had lingered too long on her lower back, his wedding band cool against her skin through the fabric of her dress. She'd pulled away then. She hadn't pulled away last Tuesday.

You're doing it again, she told herself. You're twenty-eight years old and making the same mistake your mother made at forty.

The goldfish swam to the glass, pressed its mouth against it, left a smudge. Elena's reflection stared back—dark circles under eyes that had seen too many 2 AM texts, hair she hadn't bothered to straighten in three days because what was the point?

"You know," a voice said behind her.

Elena jumped. It was Sarah from Accounting, the one with the perfect blowout and the husband who brought her lunch every Tuesday. Sarah leaned against the partition, her blonde hair catching light like something from a commercial.

"I saw you two," Sarah said quietly. "At the O'Henry's last Friday."

Elena's stomach dropped through the floor. The goldfish continued its oblivious laps.

"He's not worth it," Sarah said. "I had my Mark. I had my three years of midnight calls and feeling alive in all the wrong ways. And then I had a divorce and a promotion and the realization that I'd been someone's distraction the whole time."

She touched Elena's shoulder lightly, fingers brushing the messy bun Elena had thrown her hair into that morning.

"Your husband—your actual husband—brought you coffee yesterday. Did you notice?"

Elena had. She'd noticed and felt like screaming.

Her iPhone lit up again. Mark: I can't stop thinking about Tuesday.

The goldfish bumped against the glass, its mouth opening and closing, opening and closing.

Elena reached for the phone. Her thumb hovered over the screen.

"Don't," Sarah said, not unkindly. "Some fish are better left unfed."

Elena looked at the glass, at her reflection beside the fish—eyes wide and waiting, mouth caught somewhere between suffocation and speech.

She powered off the phone.