Physics of Drowning

The iphone lay face down on the mosaic table, a black rectangle of judgment. Mara hadn't touched it in two hours—didn't need to. She'd already read the message twelve times, each word a separate blow: *I think we should see other people. You deserve better.* The cowardice of it, delivered via text while she sat at her sister's engagement party surrounded by happiness she couldn't borrow.

She stared at the pool instead. Water the color of sanitized gemstones, lapping gently against the tile edge. Someone's children screamed with joy, cutting through the ambient pop music and the murmur of fifty conversations she wasn't part of. Her dress—a vintage silk thing she'd bought for this occasion, for *them*—felt too fragile against her skin. She'd spent forty minutes on her makeup this morning, believing she'd spend the evening being looked at with love. Now she felt like a fraud in someone else's life.

"You okay?"

Mara jumped. Ben, the groom's brother, stood beside her holding two champagne flutes. He was the kind of handsome that made you forgive his excessive optimism.

"Just needed some air," she said, accepting the drink. "It's a lot."

"Yeah." He leaned against the railing. "Sarah cried three times before the ceremony. Happy tears, she said. But still. Crying."

Mara laughed, surprised into it. The sound felt foreign in her throat. She turned toward him and noticed his eyes drop briefly to her mouth, then back up. A gesture so subtle she might have imagined it.

"You have—" He gestured vaguely at his own teeth. "Spinach. From the appetizers."

The humiliation was complete. She excused herself to the restroom, where she scrubbed her teeth with a paper towel until her gums bled. When she returned, Ben was still there, waiting. He didn't mention it again. Instead he said, "You want to get out of here? There's a rooftop bar nearby."

Her phone buzzed on the table. Another message, probably. She didn't check.

"Yes," she said, and for the first time all day, she meant it.

The pool water shimmered behind them, indifferent, as she walked toward something that wasn't a ending at all.