Chlorine and Regret

The hotel pool was empty at 5 AM, which was exactly why Elena had chosen it. She slipped into the water, her chlorine-stiffened hair plastering against her skull like a second skin. Thirty-eight years old and still learning how to be alone without feeling lonely.

She'd been running every morning since the divorce — not because she enjoyed it, but because her therapist insisted it would help process the grief. What it actually did was leave her exhausted enough to sleep through the night, which was something.

The fertility vitamins sat on her nightstand at home, a daily reminder of the future she and Mark had planned together. Some days she took them out of habit. Some days she flushed them.

"You're going to freeze out here."

Elena hadn't heard Marcus approach. He stood at the pool's edge, silhouette sharp against the dawn sky. They'd been dancing around each other all conference — the tension between them thick enough to choke on.

"I like the cold," she said. "It feels honest."

Marcus sat on the edge, rolled up his pant legs, dipped his feet in. "Mark's an idiot."

"That's not what we're supposed to say about colleagues."

"He's also a bull in situations requiring finesse. The way he talked about you during the merger discussion..." Marcus shook his head. "I almost said something."

"But you didn't."

"No. Professional boundaries. All that crap." He splashed water toward her. "Elena, you're taking this out on yourself. The vitamins, the running until you can't walk straight. I see you."

Something in her chest cracked open. She swam to the edge, rested her arms on the concrete beside his legs. The water buoyed her weight, made her feel lighter than she had in months.

"I'm running out of time," she whispered. "For everything."

Marcus slid into the pool beside her, fully clothed. The water soaked his shirt, made it cling to his chest. His hand found hers underwater.

"You don't have to run alone," he said.

The hotel room curtains flickered with movement from above. Somewhere, breakfast service was beginning. But here in the pool, with chlorine stinging her eyes and Marcus's thumb tracing circles on her palm, Elena felt something she hadn't expected.

Hope, dangerous as it was, rising anyway.