Dissolving in Blue Light

The glass of water sat untouched on her nightstand, condensation pooling on the coaster like afterthoughts. Sarah stared at her iPhone screen, the blue light washing out her face at 3 AM. Another message from him—unsent, just visible in the notification preview that disappeared when she tapped it anyway.

She'd been taking the prenatal vitamins for three months now, a daily ritual of hope that felt increasingly like superstition. The orange bottle sat next to her phone, next to the water she kept forgetting to drink. Mark was in Chicago again. "Just one more quarter," he'd said, but the quarters were stacking up like unread emails.

Sarah picked up the water now, warm and flat. She thought about how she used to swim in college, how she'd stay underwater until her lungs burned, suspended in that blue silence where nothing could touch her. Now the only blue in her life was the screen glow and the pills.

She swiped open the message app. Not his—the fertility clinic.

"Negative. We recommend trying another cycle."

The vitamins were supposed to help. The water was supposed to help. The apps tracking her cycle were supposed to help. Everything was supposed to help.

Her phone buzzed. Mark: "Home Friday. Let's go to that Italian place."

Sarah typed: "Can't wait."

She deleted the words. Typed again: "Sounds perfect."

Sent.

She walked to the bathroom, poured the vitamins into the toilet. Watched them dissolve. The water in the bowl swirled, carrying away the orange shells, the hope, the manufactured promise that if you just did everything right, you'd get what you wanted.

Back in bed, she placed her iPhone face down. Drank the warm water in one gulp. Lay in the dark listening to Mark's side of the mattress still made, untouched, waiting for someone who might never really come home.