Chlorine and Screen Light

The anti-depressants had turned me into something resembling a person, but only barely. A zombie with good posture and a respectable job, moving through the days with the appropriate social responses. That's how I found myself at the company retreat, standing by the hotel pool at 2 AM while my coworkers slept off their open bar euphoria.

The water shimmered with that artificial blue glow that pools always have at night. I'd left my iPhone on a lounge chair—its screen had been lighting up every few minutes with work emails that could wait until Monday, or forever. Sarah's name had appeared three times. Sarah, who'd looked at me across that terrible happy hour two months ago and said, "You're not okay, are you?"

We'd been friends since college, through her divorce and my promotion spiral, through the years when we'd both pretended adulthood was something you just eventually figured out. But I couldn't handle being seen anymore. So I'd stopped calling. Stopped answering. Ghosted her with the efficiency of someone who'd learned that vulnerability was just another word for professional liability.

A cat appeared then, climbing over the privacy fence with liquid grace. A black thing with golden eyes that fixed on me with unnerving intelligence. It sat beside my bare feet, watching the water as if it understood something about the way it reflected the moon.

"You're not real either, are you?" I whispered. The cat blinked slowly.

The irony burned: I'd spent fifteen years cultivating this life—the apartment, the career, the carefully curated social media presence where I posted sunsets and book covers and occasional sentimental quotes about living your best life. And now that I'd achieved it, I couldn't remember if I'd ever wanted it at all, or if I'd just misunderstood the question.

The phone buzzed again. Sarah, one more time. I picked it up, watched her message materialize: "I'm in town. The coffee shop on 4th. Tomorrow, 7 AM. No pressure. But I miss you."

The cat pressed its side against my ankle. I thought about the pool—how easily I could slip into that chemically bright water, let it fill my lungs, become something finally, authentically gone. Instead, I typed: "I'll be there." Then deleted it. Typed it again. And hit send.

The water kept rippling. The cat kept watching. And for the first time in months, I thought tomorrow might actually arrive.