What the Market Giveth

Marcus stood on the balcony of his penthouse, the **lightning** splitting the sky above Chicago's skyline like cracks in a porcelain plate. Three years ago, he'd been standing in this same spot when he got the call—margin call, they called it. His **bear** market bets had gone spectacularly wrong, leveraging everything he had against a rally that refused to die.

He adjusted the fedora on his head—a **hat** he'd bought in London with money he no longer possessed. It was all costume now. The cars, the apartment, the watches. His ex-wife Sarah had seen through it months before the crash. "You're like a **bull** in a china shop," she'd told him the night she left, "except you're the one breaking yourself."

She was right, of course. She always was.

The phone buzzed in his pocket. Unknown number. He almost didn't answer.

"Marcus?"

Her voice. After eight months.

"Sarah."

"I heard about the fund. I'm—I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said. "I deserved it. The arrogance, the risk. I thought I was the market."

"You called me," she said softly. "That night. Drunk. Said you'd give it all back just to have coffee with me."

Marcus remembered. Shame burned hot behind his eyes.

"I'm in town," she said. "Just for tonight."

The lightning flashed again, closer this time. Rain began to fall, straight and hard and washing.

"I could come to you," he said. "If you wanted."

Silence on the line. Then: "I'm at the Omni. Room 412. I'm not staying long."

Marcus took off his hat and set it on the balcony railing. Let the rain take it. Let the market have it back.

"I'll be there," he said.

He walked away from everything he'd built, toward whatever was left to salvage.