Goldfish in the Deep End

Elara swallowed her vitamin D supplement with the morning's papaya, the fruit's orange flesh sweet against her tongue. At forty-seven, she'd started measuring her life in daily nutrients and preventive measures, each pill a tiny prayer against the inevitable decline.

The resort pool glittered below her balcony, an impossible blue that seemed to mock the desert surrounding it. She adjusted her wide-brimmed hat, a recent purchase she couldn't really afford, before descending to meet him.

Marcus was already there, lounging on a chaise with the casual confidence of men who never questioned their place in the world. They'd been orbiting each other all week at this wellness retreat — two strangers running from different things, finding unlikely kinship in the buffet line and yoga sessions neither took seriously.

"You're hiding again," he said, gesturing at her hat.

"Skin cancer waits for no one," she replied, though they both knew it wasn't about cancer. Her health scare last winter had sent her running here, desperate to outrun mortality with juice cleanses and meditation. But fear has a way of following you, even to paradise.

He stood, slipped into the water. "Come in."

"I didn't bring my suit."

"So?"

Elara hesitated, then stepped in fully clothed. The water shocked her skin, electric and alive. Marcus treaded water nearby, watching her with an intensity that made her chest tight.

"My father had a pond full of goldfish growing up," he said suddenly. "Dozens of them, swimming in endless circles. Beautiful, useless creatures. He'd feed them every morning and they'd come to the surface, mouths opening and closing like they were thanking him. But they weren't. They were just hungry."

"Why tell me this?"

"Because I feel like one of them. Swimming in circles, waiting to be fed. And I think you do too."

Elara looked at the papaya stain on her dress, her absurd hat floating beside them. Something in her chest cracked open. "I'm so tired of being afraid."

"Then don't be."

They treaded water as the sun climbed higher, two goldfish in a too-small pond, finally honest about the circling.