Chlorine and Regret

The community pool was nearly empty at noon on a Tuesday—just the lap swimmer in lane three and Elena sitting at the edge, her legs submerged in water the color of a bruised sky. She hadn't planned to be here. She'd meant to drive straight to work, but her hands had steered the car here instead, to the place where she'd last seen him three months ago.

She pressed her palm against the rough concrete, feeling the grit dig into her skin. The same way Mark's hands used to feel—rough from labor, sure against her body in the dark of their kitchen.

"You're blocking the filter," a voice said.

Elena jumped. The lap swimmer had stopped at her end of the pool. Water streamed from his bald head, down shoulders that sagged with age or exhaustion. He wasn't Mark. Of course he wasn't.

"Sorry." She pulled her legs out, water dripping onto her work slacks. Dark circles spread like ink stains.

The old man hoisted himself up, joints popping. "You okay? You look like someone who's swallowed something wrong."

Elena laughed, startled. "Just spinach," she said, the lie automatic. "From breakfast. Gets stuck every time."

He nodded knowingly. "My wife hated spinach. Said it tasted like depression. She's gone now, you know. Five years this month."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He reached into his bag and pulled out a baseball—scuffed, the stitching coming undone at one seam. "Found this in her things after she died. She kept it all those years. From our first date, she said. A baseball game, cheap hot dogs, sunshine." His fingers traced the raised stitches. "Funny what people keep."

Elena thought of the box under her bed. Mark's old t-shirts. The ticket stub from their last movie. The dried orange peel she'd pressed into a book because he'd said, "This smells like us, doesn't it? Like something sweet that's already starting to rot."

"Funny," she agreed.

"You should go back," he said suddenly. "Whatever you're running from. Or toward. The water's fine either way."

He kicked off from the wall, slicing through the water with rhythmic grace. Elena watched him, then slipped back into the pool. The cold shocked her lungs, clean and sharp. She floated on her back, face to the sun, and finally called Mark's name to the empty sky—just once, testing how it sounded in the open air.

The water held her up. She would call him later. She would. She sank beneath the surface, holding her breath, counting the seconds before she had to rise again.