High Water

The meeting had gone off the rails at 2 PM. Mark's boss, a man who built his fortune on cryptocurrency and bluster, slammed his hand on the conference table. "That's the most **bull**shit argument I've ever heard," he'd said, and the room went silent. Mark had packed his laptop and walked out without a word.

Now he stands waist-deep in his apartment complex pool at midnight, the water cool against his skin. He'd forgotten to bring his **vitamin** D supplements on this business trip, and he can feel the absence in his bones—a heaviness that has nothing to do with nutrition.

His phone buzzes on the pool deck. Sarah again. They've been trying to have a baby for eighteen months. Each negative pregnancy test feels like another small death. She wants him to come home and talk about fertility treatments, sperm counts, the medicalization of their failure.

Instead, he's here, floating in the artificial **water** of a third-rate pool in Dayton, Ohio.

A security guard rounds the building with a flashlight—catches the beam on Mark's shoulders. "Pool's closed after ten," the guard calls out. Then the light shifts, illuminating a golden retriever sitting obediently at the guard's side. The **dog** wags its tail once, hopeful.

"Just five more minutes," Mark says. "Please."

The guard hesitates. Then: "Make it quick."

Mark ducks beneath the surface, holds himself there until his lungs burn. In the silence, he realizes he's been waiting for someone to save him—from the job, from the fertility appointments, from the growing quiet between him and Sarah. But down here, in the water, he understands there's no rescue coming. He'll have to save himself.

When he surfaces, the dog is still watching, tail thumping against the concrete. Mark wades toward the edge, toward the phone that stopped ringing five minutes ago. Toward whatever comes next.