Electrolytes and Exits

The lightning struck somewhere behind the hills as Emma lowered herself into the hotel pool at 2 AM. Chlorine stung her nose, sharp and familiar. She'd chosen this place specifically for the pool—the indoor kind, always open, no questions about why a thirty-four-year-old woman swims alone in the middle of the night.

Her phone sat on a deck chair, face down. Richard's text had come through three hours ago: *Sarah left me. Can you believe it? After eight years?*

Emma kicked off the wall, gliding through water that felt like forgiveness. Richard had been her best friend since college. He'd also been the reason she'd started taking vitamin D supplements back when they worked together in that windowless office, him insisting they both needed it after he'd read some article about seasonal affective disorder. Every morning at 9 AM, they'd meet at the communal kitchen to wash down their pills with lukewarm office coffee. A ritual.

That ritual had ended when Richard married Sarah. Emma had been a bridesmaid in a dress the color of depression, smiling through the reception while Richard danced with his wife.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the skylights. The storm was moving closer.

She surfaced, gasping. The text message hadn't been asking for comfort—it had been an invitation. Richard and Sarah's separation was barely twelve hours old, and already he was reaching out. Not to his bros, not to his family, but to Emma.

The weight of it pressed against her chest like water. Eight years of friendship had always contained this possibility, this unacknowledged tension. She'd dated other people. He'd married someone else. But they'd remained constants in each other's lives, their daily vitamin texts evolving into memes, complaints, occasionally: *I miss the old office.*

*Did you miss the office,* she'd once wanted to ask, *or did you miss having me available?*

She treaded water, watching the storm through glass. Lightning illuminated everything in strobe-light flashes—the pool, the empty deck chairs, her own pale reflection in the darkened windows.

She climbed out, dripping and shivering. The phone screen lit up with another message: *You up?*

Emma didn't answer. She gathered her things, leaving the vitamins—still in their communal bottle on her bathroom sink—exactly where they'd stayed since Richard's wedding day. Some rituals aren't meant to be resumed.