Breathing Underwater

The apartment felt hollow without him—the way a body feels after amputation, phantom sensations of where something used to be. Elena stood in the kitchen, staring at a bag of spinach that had gone slimy in the crisper drawer. Three weeks ago, Mark would have made some joke about her brown thumb, about how even vegetables died on her watch.

Now the spinach was just rotting vegetation, like their ten-year marriage.

Her iPhone buzzed against the granite counter—a notification from Sarah, asking if she was coming to the group dinner tonight. Elena stared at the screen until it went dark. Sarah, who'd been her friend since sophomore year. Sarah, who'd known about Mark's affair two months before Elena found out.

The swimming pool in the complex's courtyard glowed through the sliding doors, an artificial blue rectangle in the twilight. Elena had always found water soothing—something about the weightlessness, the way sound disappeared beneath the surface. Mark had never understood. He'd called it her "mermaid phase," made it sound like a eccentricity rather than survival.

Buster, their rescue lab, nosed her ankle, whining softly. The dog had stopped waiting by the door three weeks ago, but he still seemed confused by the quiet. Elena crouched down, burying her face in his fur, smelling the earthy comfort of him.

"At least one of us is loyal," she whispered.

She thought about Sarah's text. About the way Sarah had looked away that night at the restaurant when Elena mentioned Mark's late meetings. About the way Sarah had said nothing when Elena poured out her suspicions.

Elena stood up, grabbed the spinach, and marched to the door. Buster followed, his claws clicking on the hardwood.

The pool water was shockingly cold against her skin, but she kept going, diving until the pressure in her ears equalized, until the world above became muffled and distant. She opened her eyes, watched the way the pool lights fractured through the water, dancing like broken stars.

For a moment, everything was suspended. The betrayal, the loneliness, the gnawing uncertainty of starting over at thirty-eight—it all seemed distant underwater, manageable. Elena surfaced, gasping, her hair plastered to her face, water streaming into her eyes.

Buster waited at the edge, tail thumping against the chair legs.

Elena pulled herself from the pool, dripping and shivering, and fished her iPhone from her pocket. She typed three words to Sarah: I'm not coming.

Then she deleted the message and wrote: Dinner sounds perfect.

Some things you kept. Some things you let sink.