Geometry of Hunger

Elena floated on her back in the infinity pool, the water so warm it felt like amniotic fluid. Below, the lights of Cabo stretched like spilled jewelry, but she was focused on the moon—full, heavy, a white disk bearing down on her chest.

Forty-two years old and she'd finally done it: walked away from the marriage, the corner office with its view of other corner offices, the whole pyramid scheme of adult life where you climbed just to find more people below you stepping on your fingers. Dave had called her selfish. Her boss had called it a "sabbatical," as if she'd return.

"Mind if I join?"

She treaded water. A man stood at the pool's edge—broad shoulders, silver at the temples, the kind of handsome that made you suspicious.

"Bear," he said, extending a hand. "Like the animal."

"Elena."

They swam in companionable silence until he climbed out, water streaming from his back like he was some creature emerging from primordial seas. She watched him dress—a cardigan, rumpled linen. No wedding ring. The papaya she'd left on the deck chair glistened in the moonlight, its flesh the color of something healing or something dying, depending on how you looked at it.

"You ever feel like you're a fox in a story someone else wrote?" he asked suddenly, not looking at her. "Like you're supposed to be cunning, but you're just trying not to get hunted?"

Elena thought of her mother's voice, her therapist's notebook, Dave saying she was too sensitive. She thought of the papaya's sweetness, how it rotted so quickly once cut open.

"I'm done with stories," she said.

Bear nodded, like this was the truest thing he'd heard in years. He didn't ask for her number. She watched him walk away, past the papaya, toward the darkened resort.

She kept swimming until dawn, until her fingers pruned like they'd been underwater for years. She didn't go back to Dave. She didn't go back to the office. She bought a one-way ticket to a coastal town in Portugal where she didn't know the language or a single soul. Some mornings, she still woke up feeling like she was drowning. But at least the water was her own.