Chasing Oranges

The baseball sat on the mantle for three years before I finally threw it out. It was a futile gesture — Marcus had been gone longer than that, and no amount of clearing space would change the fact that I was the one who'd stopped calling.

I found myself at the community pool instead, at six in the morning, when the water was still glass-calm and the only other person there was an orange tabby cat that watched from the fence, its tail twitching with what looked suspiciously like judgment. I'd never been much of a swimmer, but Marcus had loved the water. He'd claimed it washed away the parts of yourself that didn't fit anymore.

"You're overthinking it," he'd said once, floating on his back while I sat on the dock, fully clothed, nursing a beer. "Some friendships just run their course. Doesn't mean they weren't real."

I'd wanted to believe him. I'd wanted to believe that our slow drift apart was natural, inevitable — like autumn, like the way daylight shrinks. But the truth was harder: I'd been angry. Angry about the promotion I didn't get. Angry about his easy confidence, his assumption that everything would work out, his refusal to acknowledge that some doors, once closed, stayed closed.

The cat meowed from its perch, startling me. I treaded water, my breath coming harder than it should have. The chlorine stung my eyes, or maybe that was something else.

An orange rolled across the deck — someone's forgotten breakfast, I assumed, until I saw the man standing at the pool's edge, looking down at me. Not Marcus. Someone else entirely, holding a mesh bag of oranges.

"Mind if I join?" he asked. "Usually have this place to myself."

I hesitated. The water lapped against my chest, cold and demanding.

"No," I said, finally. "I could use the company."

He nodded, sat down, and began peeling an orange, the scent sharp and sudden in the morning air. I thought about the baseball, about Marcus floating in water just like this, about the way some things stay with you whether you want them to or not.

"I'm Sam," I said.

He held out a slice of orange. "David. And welcome back."