Animals We Keep Inside

The chlorine stung my eyes as I pulled through another lap, the water dragging at my skin like all the regrets I couldn't quite shake. It was 2 AM at the university pool, my second night of swimming insomnia, and the bear was still asleep back in our apartment – his massive frame sprawled across the mattress, oblivious to the way his presence had slowly begun to feel like a question I didn't want to answer.

My third lap always brought Richard back. The fox, he'd called me, his voice thick with that particular mixture of admiration and condescension that had made me fall for him at twenty-three. You're all angles and evasion, Sarah, sharp and beautiful and impossible to pin down. He'd loved that about me, until he didn't. Until he wanted someone who would stay put, someone soft and domesticated, someone more like the cat he'd gotten six months before he left – a creature of predictable routines and lap-seeking affection. I'd tried, God knows I'd tried, but some animals don't take to the leash.

Then there was Michael, the dog who'd loved me through my worst years, through the Richard aftermath and the slow rebuilding. He'd been simple and loyal and devastatingly earnest, asking only that I show up, that I be present. But I'd treated his love like something to be managed, a responsibility I discharged efficiently but never really felt. He'd deserved better than a woman who was always thinking about what came next, already planning her exit strategy.

My strokes faltered as I hit the wall. The bear – David – had proposed last week. He didn't understand that his gentleness was its own kind of cage. He wanted to protect me, to be the shelter I'd never had, but I'd spent forty years learning to survive alone. I'd become an expert at escape, at becoming whatever someone needed just long enough to keep them at arm's length.

I floated on my back, staring at the ceiling lights rippling above me. The water held me up, as it always did – this element that accepted everything, demanded nothing, required only that you keep moving. Maybe that was my problem. Maybe I was just another animal who'd forgotten how to be still.

The fluorescent lights flickered. In the quiet, I finally understood what the bear, the fox, the cat, and the dog had all been trying to tell me. You can't outrun your own nature forever.

I climbed out of the pool, water streaming off my skin, and knew it was time to go home. Time to let myself be held, time to stop swimming away from everything that might save me.