Floating

The spinach had been stuck between his teeth for twenty minutes before she noticed. They were at the padel club, their first attempt at something normal after the divorce papers were signed. Elena ran a hand through her hair—now chopped into a sharp bob that felt more like hers than the long waves she'd worn for fifteen years—and considered telling him.

'You have—' she started, but Marcus was already mid-sentence about his co-worker's retirement party, his enthusiasm grating against her exhaustion. She let it go. Let the spinach stay. Let him smile through the court hearing next week with green flecks in his teeth. Small revolutions were all she had left.

After the match—a crushing defeat that neither of them had the heart to care about—they sat by the pool. The water glimmered with that artificial blue that promised clarity it couldn't deliver. Marcus's dog, a rescue terrier named Barnaby who'd chosen sides immediately and picked hers, rested his head on her knee. She scratched behind his ears, the simple devotion almost enough to break her.

'I was thinking,' Marcus said, 'maybe we could try counseling again. Not for us. For the—'

'For the goodbye?' Elena finished.

He looked at her then, really looked, and she watched the realization settle in his eyes. The spinach was still there. She'd tell him after.

Later, she floated on her back in the pool alone, the water holding her up in a way that nothing else did lately. The divorce would finalize in three weeks. The house would sell. Barnaby would sleep beside her in a smaller apartment. She'd grow her hair out or cut it shorter, whichever felt right. The spinach was gone—she'd told him in the parking lot, watched his mortification, felt nothing at all.

Tonight, she would order takeout and eat over the sink. Tomorrow she would wake up and do it all again. The water buoyed her, weightless and wondering when she'd stop feeling like she was waiting to actually begin.