Dead Fish at the Bottom

The pool water shimmered that artificial turquoise, the same shade as the rash guard Sarah's kid wore. I stood at the edge, nursing a warm beer, watching children cannonball into the deep end while their parents clustered around patio furniture, talking about gentrification and school districts.

Gary was by the snack bar, holding court with three women who laughed at everything he said. We hadn't spoken in three months, not since the night he told me he'd been sleeping with my sister. Not that it mattered now—Sarah had left weeks ago, and something about Gary's betrayal felt less like a wound and more like confirmation of everything I'd already suspected about him.

We'd played baseball together every summer from age eight to eighteen, shared a goldfish we won at a carnival that lived for seven inexplicable years in a cloudy bowl on his windowsill. Some friendships are like that fish—they survive on neglect and memory long after they should've died.

Now Gary ran triathlons and quoted Stoic philosophy on Facebook. I ran, too—but only from conversations like this one, from the kind of honest assessment that would require me to admit I'd been tolerating his narcissism since we were twelve.

He caught my eye and raised his plastic cup, a gesture that could have been reconciliation or just acknowledging another audience member. I didn't raise mine back.

A toddler's red ball drifted toward the deep end. None of the adults noticed. I watched it bob there, unreachable, while Gary made another joke and everyone laughed and the pool filter hummed its endless hungry song, and I thought about how sometimes the people you think will be with you forever are just the ones who stick around because they haven't figured out how to leave yet.

I set down my beer and walked toward the gate, leaving them all behind. The goldfish had died sophomore year of college. I should've known the rest would follow.