Chlorine and Regret

The hotel pool was empty at 3 AM, which was exactly why Maya was there. She'd been running from her thoughts for three weeks now—literally running, six miles every morning before dawn—but tonight her legs had given out, and she'd ended up here instead, dangling her feet in the chemically blue water.

Her phone buzzed on the lounge chair. Another message from Sarah.

"You don't have to be a stranger just because we aren't together anymore. We were supposed to be friends."

Maya laughed, dark and hollow. Friends. The word felt like swallowing broken glass. Six months ago, Sarah had stood in this exact hotel room and said, "I can't do this anymore," and now she wanted to be friends. As if Maya could just neatly sort her feelings into a new category, like folding shirts.

She'd been living on vitamin supplements and takeout since the breakup. Sarah had been the cook, the one who made sure Maya ate actual vegetables. Now Maya's apartment was full of rotting spinach she kept buying because she remembered it was healthy, but she never ate it. It was a strange thing to mourn—the domestic rituals more than the person.

"Excuse me?" A voice from the pool deck.

Maya jumped. A woman in a hotel uniform stood there, holding a towel. "Pool's closed, ma'am."

"Right," Maya said. "Sorry."

As she gathered her things, she caught her reflection in the glass doors—hollow cheeks, hair that hadn't seen a brush in two days. She looked like someone who'd been running from something for a long time.

The vitamin bottle in her purse rattled as she stood. She'd been taking them religiously, as if they could fix something that was fundamentally broken. As if D3 and omega-3 could compensate for the way Sarah had looked at her that last night—pitying, exhausted, like Maya was a problem she'd finally given up trying to solve.

Back in her room, she texted Sarah: "I can't be your friend. Not yet."

Then she opened the minifridge and stared at the wilted spinach she'd bought from a corner store hours ago. It was pathetic. Everything was pathetic.

But tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow she would cook the spinach. Tomorrow she would stop running. Tomorrow she would figure out how to exist in a world where Sarah didn't love her, but Sarah was still somewhere in it, wanting to be friends.

For tonight, she swallowed another vitamin and let herself cry, finally, into the silence of a room that smelled faintly of chlorine.