Poolside Solitaire

Marcus sat at the edge of the hotel pool at 2 AM, still wearing his work clothes from the corporate merger that had cost him his marriage and his dignity in one clean surgical strike. The pool lights cast rippling shadows across his face like the water itself was trying to tell him something he already knew: some things don't reflect the same way twice.

He'd been running from this conversation with himself for six months — literally running, ten miles every morning before dawn, as if cardio could outrun the sound of Sarah packing her suitcase. Tonight though, his legs had given out somewhere around mile seven and he'd ended up here at the Marriott in the city where they'd spent their honeymoon, watching the pool's surface grow still again and again.

The poolside bar had left complimentary vitamin C packets on the lounge chairs, the kind Sarah used to take religiously every morning with her green juice. Marcus remembered finding them scattered across the bathroom counter after she left, like those effervescent orange tablets were mocking his newfound bachelorhood. He'd thrown them all away except one, which he still carried in his wallet like a talisman against the loneliness that had moved into his chest like a second, colder heart.

His phone buzzed with an email from his assistant about tomorrow's 7 AM meeting, but Marcus couldn't bring himself to care about shareholder value or the brutal arithmetic of modern corporate warfare. Instead he found himself thinking about the last time he'd felt something approximating joy — it was in this same pool nine years ago, drunk on champagne and possibility, before he'd learned that promotion meant losing pieces of yourself one handshake at a time. Before he'd understood that baseball had taught him the wrong lesson: sometimes you strike out looking, and the pitch keeps flying past you forever.

Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out the vitamin packet, watching the pool lights dance across its bright orange surface. Somewhere in the room above him, a couple laughed. He dropped the packet into the water and watched it sink, thinking how strange it was that the things that keep you alive can also remind you of what's already dead inside.