Drowning in Shallow Water

The spinach sat rotting in Maya's refrigerator, a small bag of organic greens she'd bought three days ago—back when she still believed in meal planning, back before everything fell apart. Back before Elena's funeral.

Maya stood on the balcony of her apartment, overlooking the complex's swimming pool. It was October, the water already drained, leaving behind a blue expanse that looked like a bruise against the autumn sky. She smoothed the front of her dress, fingers grazing the wide-brimmed hat Elena had given her last summer—a silly, dramatic thing with a silk flower that Maya had only ever worn to make Elena laugh.

"You're going to that party dressed like the 1950s called," Elena had said, leaning against the doorframe, cigarette smoke curling around her. "God, I love that you give absolutely no fucks what people think."

They hadn't been lovers, not quite. The territory between them had remained stubbornly undefined—a decade of late-night conversations, shared apartments, the kind of intimacy that doesn't require naming. Maya had never found the courage to cross that line, and then Elena had gotten sick, and then Elena was gone.

Now, looking at the empty pool, Maya understood suddenly: the water hadn't been shallow. She'd simply refused to see how deep it actually was. She'd confused safety with cowardice, mistaken silence for contentment.

Her phone buzzed—Elena's brother, asking if she wanted anything from the storage unit. He was clearing out Elena's apartment. There were boxes, he said. Things she might want.

"No," Maya typed, then deleted it. "Yes," she typed, then deleted that too. The spinach would keep rotting. The pool would refill next summer. Some things stayed empty on purpose.

She placed the hat on her head and went inside to throw away the spinach. Some griefs, she decided, required smaller gestures than others.