Clementines at Sunset

The pool water turned the color of a bruised plum as dusk settled over the backyard. Maria sat on the concrete edge, legs dangling in the water, nursing a gin and tonic that had gone watery twenty minutes ago. Inside, the dinner party was winding down—laughter and clinking glasses drifting through the sliding glass door like ghosts of better moments.

"Thought you'd be out here with the rest of the smokers," a voice said.

David. Of course. She didn't turn around. "Quit three years ago. Just needed air."

He sat beside her, close enough that she could smell his cologne—cedar and something synthetic, like the car freshener he'd kept hanging from his rearview mirror throughout college. The memory hit her with unexpected force: that first road trip, the way he'd sung along to the radio, hands drumming on the steering wheel. The baseball cap he'd worn backward, the one she'd stolen and kept for years after.

"Your husband seems nice," he said.

"Tom's great." She peeled an orange from the bowl beside her, juice misting her fingers. "Great job. Great house. Great."

"Great."

"Yeah. Great."

The silence stretched, heavy and uncomfortable. The bull—David's fraternity nickname, earned during some hazing ritual she'd never understood the full scope of—shifted beside her. He'd always been like this: charging through conversations, bulldozing subtlety, but tonight something felt different. Or maybe she was different now.

Her iPhone buzzed in her dress pocket. Probably Tom, checking in. Or her mother. Or someone from work who didn't understand boundaries. She ignored it.

"Remember that summer," David said suddenly, "when we drove to Chicago for that Cubs game?"

She remembered. 97 degrees. They'd gotten bleacher tickets, drunk cheap beer, and sweated through nine innings. She'd never cared about baseball—still didn't—but she'd cared about the way his hand felt in hers when the crowd roared. The way he'd looked at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention.

"That was a lifetime ago," she said.

"Was it?"

He turned to her then, and something in his chest—his eyes, his face, whatever—seemed to collapse. "Because sometimes I think about that summer and I can't remember why I ever let you go."

Maria's breath caught. She'd wondered the same thing, in the quiet moments of her very nice, very planned life. The organic dinners with Tom. The career moves plotted like military campaigns. All of it perfect on paper.

"David."

"I know. You're married. You're happy." He stood up, brushing concrete dust from his slacks. "I just needed to say it. Once."

She watched him walk back toward the house, his silhouette becoming part of the artificial light spilling from the windows. The party was loud again, someone was shouting about something trivial and safe.

Maria finished the orange, section by section, letting the tart juice wake her from the daydream. She dove into the pool, clothes and all, letting the chlorinated water wash away the scent of cedar and the memory of hands in hers during baseball games, surfacing only when her lungs burned, alone in the deep end where she could pretend, just for a moment, that she didn't know exactly what she'd chosen and why it still hurt.