Chlorine and Sunset

The pool was empty at 6 PM—just how I liked it. I'd been coming here every Thursday for three months, since the funeral. The lifeguard, a college kid with tired eyes, barely looked up from his phone as I dove in.

Swimming had always been her thing. Sarah—my best friend since we were seven—had been the one who dragged me to swim practices, who joked about us being mermaids in past lives. Now I was the only one left swimming laps through chlorine-blue water, trying to outpace memories that surfaced like gas bubbles.

I touched the wall, gasping. The sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was burning orange, that particular shade of sunset she'd always claimed was 'God showing off.' I'd roll my eyes, but she'd make me pull over the car whenever it happened. Look at this, she'd say, like it was proof of something bigger than us.

Back then, I was just going through the motions—work, sleep, repeat. A zombie in an office job I hated, too numb to notice how grey everything had become. Sarah was the technicolor in my world. When she died—sudden, stupid, aneurysm at thirty-two—the color drained out of everything.

I floated on my back, watching the orange light ripple across the ceiling. The water held me up. For a moment, I could almost pretend she was there, treading water beside me, making fun of my stroke technique.

'You're overthinking it,' she'd say. 'Just feel it.'

I kicked off from the wall again, slicing through the water. Something shifted in my chest—not lighter, exactly, but different. The zombie-like numbness that had been my constant companion since her death felt less like a permanent state and more like... a season.

The orange light faded to purple, then grey. I climbed out, water dripping onto the concrete. The lifeguard nodded as I gathered my things.

'Same time next week?' he asked.

'Yeah,' I said. 'Next week.'

For the first time in months, I meant it.