Drowning in the Shallows

The spinach was stuck between her front teeth, a tiny green flag of surrender. Maya pressed her tongue against it for the third time while Marcus droned on about synergy and quarterly deliverables, his tie slightly undone, his wedding ring catching the fluorescent light. She'd chewed too vigorously during their lunch meeting, trying to appear engaged, trying not to think about his hand on her lower back under the table. Now she was trapped—caught between the humiliation of excusing herself and the horror of continuing the conversation with her dental display on full view.

Later, she found herself at the pool, the only one foolish enough to swim laps at 9 PM on a Tuesday. The water was shockingly cold, a necessary violence against her skin. She'd been swimming here for months, since the first time Marcus invited her to "discuss the project" over drinks, since she'd started looking forward to his texts more than she should, since she'd begun calculating how many more times she could lie to David before the math stopped working.

Her mother had kept bulls on their farm when Maya was a girl—massive, dangerous creatures that seemed so gentle until they weren't. She remembered watching her father wrestle a yearling once, the dust and fury of it, how he'd said afterwards: "They don't know their own strength. That's what makes them dangerous." Marcus reminded her of those bulls. He didn't know his own power, the way he could tilt her world with just a look across a conference room.

Maya pushed off the wall, slicing through the water, her strokes rhythmic and desperate. She was good at swimming. Good at staying above the surface while everything beneath roiled and churned. Good at holding her breath. The chlorine burned her eyes, a small, clean pain she welcomed.

Her phone buzzed on the deck—David, asking what she wanted for dinner. Marcus, asking if she was still awake. The spinach was probably still there, that small, stubborn thing she couldn't work loose. She tread water in the deep end, suspended between the surface and the bottom, and for a moment, she didn't kick toward either one.