Laps in the Shallow End

The pool water was colder than she remembered. Maya surfaced, gasping, her lap swimming routine interrupted by the phantom sensation of someone watching her. She wiped chlorine from her eyes and reached for her iPhone on the deck—no new messages. Just as well.

Three years ago, this pool had been their sanctuary. David would sit on the bench wearing his faded baseball cap, reading while she swam laps. Afterward, they'd walk to his apartment, where his ancient goldfish, Bubbles, would greet them with that particular fish-like hopefulness that only creatures with three-second memories can sustain.

"You're running yourself into the ground," he'd told her that last night, his voice thick with alcohol and frustration. "Running from what, Maya? From us? From yourself?"

She'd found herself running literally at first—morning jogs that stretched into hours, then actual running shoes, training for marathons she never finished. The running became a way to exhaust herself so she wouldn't think about the empty space beside her in bed, about the goldfish that died two weeks after he left (coincidence, she told herself), about the way he'd looked at her like she was both too much and not enough.

The baseball cap still sat in her closet, along with everything else she couldn't quite bring herself to throw away. Her iPhone held his last text message, unread for eight hundred days: "I still love you. That's the problem."

Maya pulled herself from the water, her body heavy and light all at once. The locker room was empty, fluorescent lights humming overhead. As she changed, her phone buzzed—her sister, asking if she'd come to dinner.

She thought about declining, about going home to her empty apartment and losing herself in another episode of running that led nowhere. Instead, she typed: "Yes. I'll be there."

Some depths you couldn't swim out of alone. Some tides you just had to let carry you.