Chlorine and Silicon

The pool lights flickered underwater—broken, like everything else in this house. I sat on the deck with a glass of whiskey, watching Elena swim laps in the darkness. Her movements were precise, mechanical, the way she did everything now.

On the lounge chair beside me, the orange coaxial cable still lay coiled from where the cable guy had left it three weeks ago. We hadn't bothered to hook up the television. What was there to watch, anyway? The endless scrolling of disasters on phones was enough.

I downed another vitamin D supplement—Doctor's orders, though I suspected they were prescribing sunlight in pill form because they knew I wouldn't get it any other way. Not when I was spending twelve hours a day at the office, running a team that hated me, running toward a promotion I wasn't sure I wanted anymore.

Elena surfaced at the pool's edge, slicking back her hair. She looked at the cable, then at me, then at the vitamin bottle.

"You're still taking those?" she asked, her voice echoing slightly off the water. "You haven't slept in three days."

"They're supposed to help with energy."

"Everything's supposed to help with something." She pulled herself out of the pool, water cascading off her skin like time itself—relentless, impossible to hold. "The cable guy asked if we wanted the premium package. Said there was a documentary about coral reefs."

"Coral reefs are dying."

"Exactly." She wrapped a towel around herself. "I ordered pizza. It's coming in twenty minutes. Unless you're still running that analysis?"

"The analysis can wait."

"Everything can wait." She walked toward the sliding glass door, leaving wet footprints on the concrete. "That's the problem."

I looked at the water, still rippling from her absence. My phone buzzed in my pocket—work email, always work email. I left it there. For once, I let it buzz without reaching, watching the pool settle into something resembling stillness, thinking how coral reefs might be dying, but at least they died together.