Chlorine and Silence

The pool water shimmered like liquid obsidian under the floodlights, and Rebecca sat on the edge with her legs submerged, watching the ripples distort her reflection. She was thirty-four and felt like she'd been swimming in circles for years.

"You're going to turn into a prune," Marcus called from the patio, where he was aggressively chopping spinach for their supposedly healthy dinner. Their relationship had become a series of wellness rituals they performed like zombies—going through the motions without any real hunger.

Her phone buzzed on the lounge chair, another notification from work demanding something that couldn't possibly matter. She let it vibrate itself into stillness. Out here, there was only the smell of chlorine and the distant hum of traffic and the feeling of being suspended between two versions of her life.

Marcus's dog, a neurotic terrier named Einstein, barked at something invisible in the dark. "He sees ghosts," Marcus always said, but Rebecca suspected the dog was the only one paying attention.

She thought about her college boyfriend, the one who'd loved her before she learned to monitor herself, before she became someone who worried about antioxidants and networking and whether her apartment looked curated enough for Instagram. She'd traded that messy, passionate love for something stable and hollow. Now Marcus wanted to talk about trying for a baby, and she was terrified she'd already died inside and no one had noticed.

"Bec? You okay?" Marcus stood in the sliding glass doorway, backlit, holding a bowl of spinach dip like an offering.

"Just thinking," she said, pulling her legs from the water. The cold air hit her wet skin and she shivered. "About how we're all just walking around pretending we know what we're doing."

Marcus laughed, but she could tell he didn't understand. He set the dip down and crouched beside her. "You're overthinking again. Come inside. It's getting cold."

She looked at him—kind, steady, completely oblivious—and felt a wave of love mixed with something like grief. They'd grow old together. They'd have children who would also learn to pretend. They'd be happy enough.

"Yeah," Rebecca said, and reached for the towel. "Let's go inside."