Chlorine and Regret

Arthur sat on the edge of the hotel pool, legs dangling in the water that smelled of artificial summer and other people's skin. He was forty-three, and this was the first time he'd traveled alone in eighteen years of marriage.

Behind him, kids splashed and screamed. One boy in a faded baseball cap kept diving to the bottom, retrieving weighted rings, resurfacing with triumph that made Arthur's chest ache with memories he couldn't quite access. The swimming had been Rachel's idea—lessons for the kids, Sunday mornings at the YMCA, her floating on her back while he pretended not to notice how the water made her swimsuit transparent, how she'd stopped looking at him like that years ago.

"You need to take better care of yourself," Dr. Patel had said that morning, sliding a prescription across the desk. Vitamin D supplements, because Arthur spent his days in windowless conference rooms and his nights avoiding conversations with his wife. The little orange pill sat in his pocket, a stone of condescension he refused to swallow.

A woman in a red one-piece climbed out of the pool nearby, water streaming from her like shedding skin. She adjusted a wide-brimmed hat—striking, deliberate, the kind of accessory that announced I have not given up yet. She caught Arthur watching and offered a small, knowing smile. He looked away, ashamed of being seen, ashamed of wanting to be seen.

His phone buzzed. Rachel: "Kids ask when you're coming back."

He typed: "Tomorrow." Deleted it. Typed: "Soon." Deleted that too.

The boy in the baseball cap surfaced again, gasping, grinning, holding up a plastic ring like it was gold. Arthur remembered the summer Rachel had taught him to swim at this same age—her hands under his back, her voice saying "I've got you, I won't let go," the way she'd stopped saying it years ago.

He pulled the vitamin bottle from his pocket. The label said TAKE WITH FOOD. He hadn't eaten all day.

The boy's hat floated away from the pool edge, drifting toward the deep end. Nobody noticed. Arthur watched it go, thinking how easy it would be to just let things drift away, how some things, once lost, were better left unretrieved.