Chlorine and Regret

The pool sat empty at 3 AM, its surface still except for the occasional ripple from the wind. Marco had the key—maintenance privileges, though really it was just that the manager knew he had nowhere else to be.

He'd brought the cat against regulations. Buster, a rescue with one ear and an attitude problem, padded along the concrete edge, tail switching with interest at something only cats could see. Marco watched him and thought about how animals lived entire lives without ever questioning their purpose.

"If only it were that simple," he said aloud. Buster ignored him.

The pill organizer sat on the small glass table beside his lounge chair. Vitamin D, B-complex, omega-3—a daily ritual his doctor insisted would help with the depression, as if nutritional supplements could patch the hole where his purpose used to be. He swallowed them dry, chasing the taste with lukewarm gin from a plastic cup.

Three years ago, this pool had been where he and Elena celebrated her promotion. They'd floated on inflatable unicorns, drunk and laughing, making promises about the future. She was going to be somebody. He was going to write that novel. Now she was gone—New York, or maybe Chicago—and he was still here, forty-three years old and floating in place.

His phone lit up. A message from her: *Saw something that reminded me of you today.*

Marco's thumb hovered over the screen. A friend would respond warmly. An ex-lover would ask what. But they were something else now—strangers who shared history, tethered by nostalgia and nothing else.

Buster hopped onto the lounge chair, circled three times, and settled against Marco's leg, purring like a small engine. The cat didn't care about his failures. The cat didn't care about the mortgage, the unfinished manuscript, the years accumulating like pool scum.

Marco typed: *I'm at the pool.*

Then deleted it. Some things didn't need to be said.

He closed his eyes and listened to the water moving against the tiles, the cat's steady heartbeat against his shin, the distant sound of the city that had kept moving while he'd stayed still. Tomorrow he would take his vitamins. Tomorrow he would open the document and write three pages, even if they were garbage. The small things—the cat, the ritual, the possibility that someone somewhere might still remember him—that was enough for now.