What We Feed

The goldfish circled his bowl on the restaurant table, oblivious to the demolition happening between us. Marcus hadn't touched his lobster. I'd stopped pretending to eat somewhere around his confession about the London office—the one he'd taken without discussing it with me.

"You're like that fish," I said, gesturing with my wine. "Swimming in circles, thinking you're getting somewhere."

"That's not fair." Marcus reached for his glass, his hand trembling slightly. I'd never seen his hands shake before. Not when his father died. Not when he lost the Anderson account. But now.

I'd always admired what I thought was his cunning—that fox-like ability to talk his way out of anything, into anything. The way he'd charmed me at that corporate Christmas party three years ago, standing beneath a plastic sprig of mistletoe like he'd planned the whole thing. Now I wondered if there was a difference between cunning and something else.

"What about Seattle?" I asked. "We were supposed to move there. You promised."

"The market's different. You know I had to take the London position when it was offered. The managing partner practically put it in my hand."

"Bull." The word came out harder than I intended. A waiter glanced over, then quickly looked away. "You didn't even tell me you'd applied. I found the acceptance letter in your briefcase by accident."

Marcus's face did that thing I'd grown to hate—where he looked like a kicked dog even as he held the leash. "I was protecting you from the disappointment if I didn't get it."

"From disappointment? Or from the choice?" I signaled for the check. "You know what the sad part is? I would have gone with you. We could have talked about it. Made a plan. But you decided for both of us. Again."

The goldfish surfaced, gulped air, and descended again.

"Rachel—"

"No. I'm done. I loved your ambition, Marcus. I thought we were building something together. But I'm not going to spend the next decade following someone who doesn't see me as a partner."

I stood up. He stayed seated, watching me like he still couldn't quite believe I'd learned the trick.

"You're really leaving? Over a job?"

"Not over the job," I said, feeling something strange and light open up inside me, like surfacing after too long underwater. "Over the way you keep deciding I don't get a vote in my own life."

The goldfish kept swimming, endlessly looping its glass world. I walked out into the London rain and didn't look back.