Drift

Mara found herself running at 2 AM, sneakers pounding against the wet pavement, her breath visible in the cold November air. The physical exertion was the only thing that drowned out the silence of her apartment—the space where David's laugh used to echo, where his shoes used to sit beside hers.

Her iphone buzzed in her pocket, lighting up the darkness. Another notification she wouldn't check. Maybe his sister asking if she'd heard from him. Maybe his friends, still caught in the messy middle of a separation no one saw coming. She kept running, past the closed storefronts and streetlights that flickered like dying stars.

She ended up at the community center, where she'd taken swimming lessons last spring—David's idea, something they could do together. The pool was empty, lit by harsh fluorescent lights that reflected off the still water like broken glass.

Mara let herself in with her old key, still on her ring after all these months. She stripped down to her underwear and slid into the water. The cold shocked her system, and for a moment, she couldn't breathe. Then she began to swim, laps back and forth, her body moving through the water with a rhythm that felt like something she used to know.

She thought about the orange juice David used to bring her every Sunday morning, how he'd remember she liked the pulp, how he'd wake up early just to surprise her. She hadn't bought orange juice since he left. The grocery aisle was still too much.

Her phone vibrated on the pool deck. Mara ignored it, pushing off the wall, swimming harder, faster, until her muscles burned and her mind went quiet. She thought about how she'd been running for months—from the grief, from the questions, from herself. Maybe it was time to stop.

She climbed out, shivering, and finally looked at her phone. Not David. Never David anymore. Just a reminder for a meeting she'd forgotten, her life continuing without him, moving forward in ways she couldn't control.

Mara wrapped herself in a towel and sat on the edge of the pool, watching the water settle, and for the first time in eight months, she didn't feel like she was drowning anymore.