Running from Ghosts

The hat sat on the passenger seat of my car for three weeks after the funeral. A faded blue baseball cap, stained at the brim from where he'd constantly adjust it while thinking. I kept meaning to throw it away, but instead I found myself running my thumb over the fabric whenever I stopped at red lights, as if the friction could somehow transfer some piece of him back to me.

My iPhone buzzed with another notification from the swimming pool group chat. They were planning a memorial service for Marcus at the community center where we'd all met for laps every Tuesday morning for seven years. I'd been avoiding the pool since it happened. The water felt too heavy now, too full of memory.

"He was your best friend," Sarah had said the night before, pressing her forehead against my shoulder. "You need to go."

"I don't know if I can," I admitted, the truth tasting metallic in my mouth. "Every time I close my eyes, I see him on the bottom of that pool. I see myself reaching down, my hands missing him by inches."

The memorial was held at the community center, not the pool itself. Someone had set up photos of Marcus along the folding tables—Marcus at his retirement party, Marcus holding his first granddaughter, Marcus wearing that ridiculous hat at a beach cleanup we'd organized in 2018. I kept catching myself waiting for him to walk through the doors, cracking some terrible joke about how he'd beaten us all here.

Afterward, I found myself driving to the pool anyway. The building was closed, but the security guard remembered me and let me in. The water was still, reflecting the overhead lights in long shimmering ribbons. I sat on the edge, my legs in the water, and cried for the first time since the ambulance arrived.

Now I'm back in the water three mornings a week. Some days, when I'm swimming laps and my breathing falls into that steady rhythm, I swear I can feel him beside me, his arms cutting through the water with that perfect efficiency he'd never stop bragging about. The hat is gone now—I finally gave it to his daughter—but sometimes, when I'm alone in the pool, I take off my goggles and imagine I hear his voice calling from the other end, telling me to pick up the pace.