Current Affairs

Elena swam every evening at 6 PM, precisely when the office drones were commuting home to their microwave dinners and muted televisions. The water was her refuge—chlorine-scented silence where the only sounds were her own rhythmic breathing and the persistent ache in her shoulders that had nothing to do with exercise and everything to do with Thomas leaving eight months ago.

She was swimming laps when her phone buzzed on the pool deck. The cable guy was early.

Elena wrapped herself in a towel, water dripping onto the concrete as she led him to the junction box in her bedroom. Marco was younger than she expected, with grease-stained fingers and eyes that lingered on her wet hair a second too long.

"Bad connection," he said, kneeling beside her bed. "Whole building's been having issues since the storm."

She watched him work, the way his back muscles shifted under his uniform, the efficient precision of his hands as he stripped wires and reconnected them. Something about the intimacy of a stranger in her bedroom, fixing what she couldn't fix herself, made her throat tight.

"Your husband usually home for this?" Marco asked without turning around.

"Ex-husband. And he wasn't much help even when he lived here."

Marco paused, a cable coiled around his palm like a dark snake. "Sorry. I shouldn't have assumed."

"It's fine." Elena sat on the edge of the bed, water still slick on her skin. "We all make assumptions."

He finished quickly, testing the connection on the television mounted on her wall. The screen flickered to life—some reality show she'd never watch, people screaming about dinner reservations. It all seemed so far away.

"All set," Marco said, gathering his tools. He hesitated at the door. "I swim at the Y on Tuesdays. If you ever want a lane partner."

The invitation hung in the air between them, fragile and hopeful. Elena thought about the water, about how it held you up if you let it, about how she'd been treading water for months without anyone noticing she was barely staying afloat.

"I'd like that," she said.

Later that night, she floated in her bathtub, the water cooling around her, and realized she was finally ready to swim toward something instead of just away from everything else.