Learning to Breathe

The bottle of **vitamin** D supplements sat on her bathroom counter, a daily reminder from Dr. Martinez that her body was starving for something sunlight couldn't provide anymore. Elena swallowed one each morning with water that tasted like copper — the same metallic tang that had coated her mouth since David moved out three months ago.

She'd started **swimming** at the YMCA on Tuesdays and Thursdays, mostly because her sister said she needed something that wasn't work or drinking wine alone in her apartment. The chlorine smell triggered something in her chest — memories of summer camp, of being twelve and believing the world could be wonderful if you just kicked hard enough. Now, at forty-three, Elena mostly wanted to float.

The pool was mostly empty at 6 AM. Just her and an elderly man who walked laps in the shallow end, his white hair plastered to his skull like something ancient that belonged in the ocean. Elena swam until her arms burned, until the rhythm of stroke-breathe-stroke crowded out the thoughts of David's new girlfriend, of the empty spot in their closet where his suits used to hang.

"You look like you're training for something," the elderly man said one morning, watching her gasp at the wall.

Elena laughed, the sound echoing off the tiles. "Just training to be okay again."

Later, she bought **spinach** at the grocery store because she was supposed to be taking care of herself now. The bag sat in her refrigerator, slowly turning to slime while she ordered takeout and fell asleep to the same three movies on rotation. But sometimes, standing in front of the open fridge at midnight, she thought about how she'd wanted to be the kind of person who ate greens and swam laps and didn't need a pill to feel like herself.

The morning she finally ate the spinach — sautéed with garlic and too much olive oil, eaten standing over the sink — she realized something as she chewed: the supplements and the swimming and the vegetables weren't about becoming someone new. They were about remembering who she'd been before she became David's wife.

She swam harder that day, harder than she ever had, until her lungs burned and she couldn't hear her own thoughts anymore. And when she finally pulled herself from the water, dripping and exhausted, Elena understood she wasn't learning to swim again.

She was learning to breathe.