Buoyancy

Maria adjusted the strap of her swimsuit, the synthetic fabric biting into shoulders that had grown broader with age. At forty-seven, she'd stopped caring whether the gray threads running through her dark hair made her look distinguished or merely tired.

The resort pool was hers at this hour—7 AM, when the wealthy guests still slept off their champagne headaches from the night before. Maria swam laps religiously, breaststroke, steady and rhythmic, while her husband Richard and his business partners dominated the adjacent padel court. The thwack-hiss of rubber balls against glass walls provided the soundtrack to her morning meditation.

"Maria!" Richard called from the court, sweating through his linen shirt. "Come meet Elena—she just flew in from Madrid."

Maria pulled herself from the water, chlorine stinging her eyes. Water sluiced down her body as she approached the court. Elena was twenty-five if she was a day, with hair that fell in perfect, expensive waves, laughing at something Richard had said with just enough tilt of the head to suggest practiced flirtation.

"So you're the famous wife," Elena said, extending a manicured hand. "Richard says you don't play padel. Something about preferring swimming alone?"

"Alone," Maria agreed, not touching her. "It's quieter."

Richard's phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then at Elena, then at Maria. "Actually, Elena was just telling me about this new app concept. You mind if we grab coffee? Business."

Maria watched them walk toward the clubhouse, Richard's hand already drifting to Elena's lower back. She returned to the pool, diving deep, holding herself underwater until her lungs burned. The muffled sounds of laughter and business talk filtered through the surface.

She surfaced gasping. Her hair plastered against her skull like a second skin, heavy and alien. In the distorted reflection of the pool's glass wall, she saw herself: forty-seven, saturated with water, watching her husband walk away with someone whose whole life stretched ahead like an unwritten page.

Maria began her laps again, harder now. Each stroke was a rebellion against buoyancy, against the way water wanted to hold her up. She would sink before she'd float, drown before she'd drift, even if the salt water stung like tears she'd forgotten how to shed.