Palms Wet With Regret

The water in the glass trembled, reflecting hands that shouldn't have been shaking. Elena sat alone at the hotel bar, three margaritas deep, watching the sunset paint the sky orange over Palm Beach. The corporate retreat had been her idea — brilliant leadership, they'd called it, right up until everything fell apart.

"You're obsessing," she whispered to herself, tracing the condensation on the glass. Her palms were sweating, just like they'd been yesterday when Richard's wife had walked into the conference room.

She'd met Richard by the water cooler three months ago. He'd been holding an orange, peeling it with meticulous precision, joking about vitamin C and stress. Elena had been married for seven years then. Richard had been wearing a gold band that should have meant something.

"The affair wasn't the problem," her therapist had said during their last session. "It was that you thought it would fix something."

Now she was here, watching the palm trees sway in the breeze, wondering how she'd become the kind of person who ruined lives — her own, her husband's, Richard's, his wife's. The water in her glass had melted into diluted nothingness.

"Another?" the bartender asked.

Elena shook her head. She needed to call Marcus. Her husband had been waiting by the phone for two days. She'd been too cowardly to answer, too ashamed to explain that the promotion she'd celebrated last month had come at the cost of her integrity.

The sun dipped below the horizon, that brilliant orange fading into purple twilight. Tomorrow she'd face the board, explain why their regional director was embroiled in a scandal she'd orchestrated with her terrible choices. Tonight, she'd call her husband.

Elena wrapped her hand around her phone, palm sweating against the sleek surface. The water in the glass rippled with her shallow breathing. She pressed Marcus's number.

He answered on the first ring.

"Elena?"

"I'm coming home," she said, and something in her chest finally broke loose. "And I'm so, so sorry."