Floating

The papaya sat on the hotel room's nightstand, already softening in the Cancún heat. Maria had bought it from a street vendor yesterday, when she still believed this trip might save them.

Now she stood on the balcony watching Marco by the pool. He was laughing at something the woman from sales had said, his head thrown back, that familiar crease between his eyebrows smoothed away. The woman's wide-brimmed sun hat lay beside them on the lounge chair—a bright, defiant yellow that seemed to mock Maria from four stories up.

They were supposed to be here for a company retreat, but Marco had turned it into something else. Maria had seen it in the way he looked at the hat's owner during yesterday's presentation. In the way his phone had buzzed repeatedly during dinner, face down on the white tablecloth.

The papaya's skin was giving beneath her thumb now. She remembered how her mother used to cut them—slicing lengthwise, scooping out the black seeds slick as secrets, squeezing lime over the orange flesh. Some things you couldn't unlearn.

Down at the pool, Marco stood up. He was drunk on the combination of tropical sun and open bar. He stepped toward the water, stumbled slightly. The woman in the yellow hat didn't notice; she was scrolling through her phone.

Maria watched Marco teeter at the pool's edge. Part of her wanted him to fall. Part of her wanted to run down, grab his arm, save him from himself again. The way she always had. The way she was tired of doing.

Instead, she sliced the papaya. The knife slipped through softened fruit like it was waiting for this moment. She ate standing at the balcony railing, juices running down her wrist, sticky and shameless, watching her husband wade into the shallow end fully clothed.

The woman in the yellow hat finally looked up. Marco was laughing now, spinning in circles with his arms wide, water sluicing down his expensive suit. The woman wasn't laughing. She stood up, grabbed her hat, and walked away without looking back.

Maria finished the papaya and dropped the skin into the wastebasket. Somewhere beneath her, security would be coming. Marco would have explanations tomorrow—too much sun, the heat, the stress of work. He would be sorry. He would be gentle.

She went to the closet and took out her own suitcase. Some things, she decided, were better left floating.