Electric Waters

The neighborhood cat watched from the safety of the porch as Maria stripped down to her underwear and stepped into the abandoned pool behind the Miller house. The water was green with neglect, but she didn't care. She needed to feel something other than the hollow ache in her chest.

Three hours ago, David had packed his things. Their marriage hadn't ended with screaming matches or thrown plates—it had unraveled quietly, like a sweater catching on a nail, one loose thread at a time. He'd said he was tired of swimming upstream against the current of her depression, exhausted from the constant effort of keeping them both afloat.

She slipped beneath the surface, holding her breath until her lungs burned. When she emerged, gasping, the first lightning bolt cracked across the sky. The storm had been threatening all afternoon, heavy and purple-veined, much like the bruised state of her heart.

From three blocks away, she could hear the crack of a baseball bat against leather. The summer league played on, indifferent to personal tragedy. She'd always hated baseball—its slow rhythm, its arbitrary rules, the way it demanded attention she couldn't spare. David had loved it. He'd wanted to teach their future children how to keep their eye on the ball, how to swing for the fences even when they missed.

Another lightning strike illuminated the pool's surface, and for a moment, she saw her reflection fractured across the water. Not-Maria. Not-David's-wife. Just a woman treading water in a stranger's pool at dusk.

The cat jumped down from the porch and approached the water's edge, meowing softly. It seemed to ask: What now?

Maria swam to the side and pulled herself up, shivering as the air hit her wet skin. The storm was breaking now, rain falling in sheets, washing away the stagnant water and the person she used to be. She gathered her clothes and walked home, leaving wet footprints on the sidewalk like breadcrumbs she wouldn't follow back.

Tomorrow, she'd call her mother. Tomorrow, she'd find a therapist. Tomorrow, she'd learn to swim in waters that didn't require someone else's lifeboat. But tonight, she stood in the rain and let herself be electric, alive in her devastation.