Electric in the Water

The pool was empty at 2 AM, which was exactly what Elena needed. She'd been swimming laps for an hour, her body moving through the chlorinated water with the mechanical precision of someone trying to outpace their own thoughts. Her marriage had dissolved four months ago, and somehow her skin still remembered the ghost of his touch, her fingers still reached for the empty side of the bed each morning.

Her hair—once a thick cascade of dark waves that Richard had loved to bury his face in—was now cut short against her skull, a jagged pixie she'd given herself with kitchen scissors after moving out. It was easier this way. Less to hold onto.

A flash of lightning fractured the sky beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the pool in a sudden wash of blue-white. Elena stopped swimming, treading water in the deep end. The storm had been forecasted for days, hovering on the horizon like the arguments she and Richard never finished.

"You okay?" A voice from the pool deck.

Elena turned to see the night guard, a man named Marcus with kind eyes and a cat named Jazz who sometimes wandered the hotel grounds. The cat appeared now, weaving between Marcus's ankles, its fur standing on end from the static electricity in the air.

"Just swimming," Elena said, not sure why she was explaining herself to this stranger.

Marcus nodded, understanding passing between them like the lightning that flashed again, closer this time. The rain began to hammer against the glass, a sudden downpour.

"Storm's getting worse," Marcus said. "You should come out."

Elena rested her chin on her crossed arms at the pool's edge, looking up at him. Something shifted in her chest—like a tectonic plate finally finding its place. "What if I don't want to?"

Marcus smiled then, a small, knowing expression. "Then stay. But know that eventually, everyone has to come up for air."

The cat leapt gracefully onto a nearby chair, watching them both with amber eyes. Elena realized she was tired of swimming in circles, tired of holding her breath, tired of the weight she'd been carrying like water in her lungs. She pulled herself up the ladder, water streaming off her body, feeling lighter than she had in months.

"You're right," she said, wrapping a towel around herself. The lightning flashed again, but this time she didn't flinch. "It's time to come up."