Chlorine & Regret

The apartment complex pool at 2 AM reflected everything I was trying to drown out. My fifth vodka cranberry sat on the concrete edge, condensation weeping down the glass like I'd been weeping an hour earlier.

Forty-two years old and still making the same mistakes. Still choosing men who looked like safety but tasted like poison.

Marcus had moved out this morning. The closet felt cavernous without his meticulously arranged shirts. Our dog, Barnaby, a golden retriever with anxiety issues that mirrored my own, hadn't eaten since Marcus left. He lay pressed against the closed bedroom door, waiting.

I'd bought groceries on the way home, performing the ritual of self-care like a prayer I didn't believe in. Organic spinach. Multivitamins. The accoutrements of a woman who had her shit together. A woman who wasn't staring at a pool at 2 AM wondering why love kept proving itself conditional.

The last time Marcus and I had come here together, six months ago, he'd complained about the chlorine smell. Too chemical, he said. Too artificial. Now the scent filled my lungs, sharp and clean, scrubbing out the lingering traces of his cologne that still haunted our sheets.

Barnaby would need to be walked soon. The spinach would wilt in the crisper drawer. The vitamin supplements sat unopened on the counter, promising vitality I couldn't access. I'd run out of my actual medication three days ago, too paralyzed by the inevitable end to call for a refill.

My phone lit up with a text from my sister: "He was never worth your best years." She didn't understand. Those weren't my best years. These hollow, aching ones were.

The pool's surface rippled in the wind. I dipped my fingers in, cold water shocking me into clarity. Tomorrow I'd take Barnaby to the dog park. I'd cook the spinach. I'd swallow the vitamins. I'd learn how to exist in spaces that felt too large for one person.

But tonight, I let myself float in the artificial blue glow, feet dangling, watching the water distort my reflection until I couldn't recognize the woman staring back.