Office Party

They did not make it as far as the couch.

Julian sat on the kitchen floor with his back against the cupboards and the wine forgotten on the counter above them, and told her the rest of it without trying to soften any of it. He had sat on the fund’s board for two years. He had signed off on quarterly reports he trusted because trusting them was easier than questioning a man who had taught him to ride a bicycle. By the time he finally understood what the numbers meant, it was already too late to matter to the four thousand people who had needed him to understand sooner.

“I’m not asking you to forgive it,” he said, to the cabinet across from him rather than to her. “I don’t think there’s anything to forgive, exactly. There’s only what I did, and what I didn’t do, and the fact…