Laps in the Dark

The pool closed at ten, but Elena swam anyway. The lifeguard had stopped caring weeks ago—she'd seen him smoking behind the maintenance shed, watching Elena's solitary laps through chain-link fence diamonds. The water was her only respite from the job that had turned her into something resembling a zombie, hollowed out by quarterly reports and HR meetings.

Tonight, the pool lights flickered, casting underwater shadows that reminded her of things she'd rather forget. James's departure still sat in her chest like something indigestible. Four days ago, he'd packed his life into cardboard boxes, leaving behind only the cat—a neurotic tabby named Marx who now yowled at Elena from the patio door, demanding someone who wasn't there.

She surfaced, gasping. The hat floated near the pool drain: James's Dodgers cap, the one he'd worn to every baseball game they'd attended together. She'd thrown it in the pool three nights ago, a childish gesture that made perfect sense at 2 AM. Now it bobbed against the tiles, a stubborn ghost.

"You're still swimming?" The lifeguard's voice cut through the humid night air. She hadn't heard him approach.

Elena treaded water, unable to see his expression in the darkness. "It helps."

He didn't ask what it helped. They never asked that anymore. Everyone was swimming through something.

She grabbed the hat on her way out. It smelled like chlorine and James's shampoo, a combination that made her throat ache. At the apartment, Marx wound between her ankles, purring with the desperate intensity of abandoned animals everywhere. Elena dropped the hat on the counter where James used to keep his keys, then opened a bottle of wine and waited for morning—a zombie walking through the hours until the next swim, when she could feel something like whole again.