Pyramid of Small Regrets

The corporate retreat had been Martin's idea—six days in Mexico to 'rebuild team synergy.' Elena stood on her balcony at 3 AM, tracing the silver strand in her hair that had appeared three months ago, right around the time she stopped sleeping through the night.

Below, a stray cat screamed—a sound like tearing silk—fighting over something in the darkness. She'd seen it earlier that evening, mangy and beautiful, watching them all from beneath a palm tree as they drank overpriced cocktails and pretended their marriages weren't falling apart.

The water in the glass on her nightstand had been still for hours, but in her mind it was still moving—the ocean from earlier, how she'd wanted to keep walking into it, let the salt water take everything she couldn't say aloud. Instead, she'd come back to the room and smiled at Martin when he finally stumbled in at midnight, smelling like tequila and someone else's perfume.

He was asleep now, breathing in that way that made her want to smother him with a pillow. Not because she hated him—she didn't, not really—but because she'd built a pyramid of small silences between them over twelve years, each brick carefully placed until there was no way across anymore.

She pressed her palm against the glass door, feeling the tropical humidity seep into her skin. Tomorrow they'd visit the ruins. Tomorrow she'd pretend everything was fine. Tomorrow she'd check for more gray hairs and wonder when she'd stopped being the woman who left, and started being the woman who stayed.

The cat screamed again, and somewhere in the darkness, something broke.