What We Owe Each Other

The dog needed to walk, that was the excuse I gave myself when I saw Elena sitting on the park bench at 2 AM. Barnaby — my rescue lab with the anxious eyes — pulled toward her with recognition. He'd always liked her better than he liked me.

"Running from something?" Elena asked, not looking up from her phone. Barnaby pressed his wet nose into her palm, traitor that he was.

"Running toward sleep, maybe," I said, sitting beside her. The October air bit at my exposed neck. "What's your excuse?"

She pocketed the phone and turned to me, and in the sodium glow of the streetlamp, I saw it — the thing I'd been refusing to see for six months. The way her eyes flickered toward my building whenever she thought I wasn't looking. The questions about our merger negotiations that had seemed like friendly curiosity. The "accidental" encounters with my boss at coffee shops.

"I was going to tell you," she said quietly.

"You're a spy." It wasn't a question.

"Corporate intelligence," she corrected, with that slight smirk she'd worn since we were twenty-two and sure we could take on the world. "There's a difference."

"Is there?" I thought about the late nights we'd spent pouring wine and dissecting our failed marriages, the way she'd held me when my mother died. "You know about the layoffs coming, don't you? The ones after the merger falls through."

She nodded once, not looking away. "I know the numbers. I know who stays and who goes."

"And I'm guessing you're not allowed to tell me."

"I'm not."

Barnaby whined, pressing between us, sensing what we couldn't say. The problem wasn't that she'd betrayed me — we were too old for that kind of clarity. The problem was that she'd done her job well, and I'd have done the same in her position. We were running on the same hamster wheel, just different colored cages.

"Are you okay?" I asked, and she laughed, startled.

"I thought you'd ask if I'm your friend."

"I know you are," I said, and the honesty of it surprised us both. "That's the terrible part."