Chlorinated Dreams

The hotel pool was supposed to be romantic, an oasis in the desert of their seven-year marriage. Instead, Elena sat on the edge, legs dangling in water that smelled of artificial summer and other people's skin, watching her husband inside their room.

Marcus was on the phone with technical support, arguing about the cable package. His face illuminated by the flickering television, she could see the tension in his jaw, the way his free hand kept clenching and unclenching. They'd come here to reconnect, but he'd spent the first hour furious about premium channels not working.

She'd ordered room service earlier—spinach salad with warm bacon vinaigrette, trying to be healthy, trying to care about something. Now the wilted greens sat on the nightstand, dressing congealing, while Marcus demanded to speak to a supervisor.

"You don't understand," he was saying, "I paid for the upgrade."

Elena pulled her legs from the water, droplets running down her calves like the years she'd waited for him to notice she was drowning. The pool's surface rippled, reflecting a sky too blue to be real.

She remembered their wedding reception, how he'd left her alone at their table to fix a sound equipment issue. The spinach salad at dinner that night—she'd been so nervous she could barely eat. She'd thought it was charming then, how he wanted everything to work perfectly.

Now she watched him through sliding glass doors, a silhouette against the television's glow, and realized he'd never stop trying to fix things that weren't broken while ignoring what was.

The cable guy finally arrived, and Marcus let him in with the relief of a man whose problems could finally be solved by someone else. Elena walked to the pool's deep end, where the water turned darker, mysterious. She dipped her toes in.

Some marriages, she thought, are like hotel pools—pretty from a distance, but underneath it's all concrete and chemicals, and you're never supposed to dive in too deep.