Salt Water and Other Betrayals

The palm tree outside our balcony had died months ago, its fronds brown and curled like burned paper. Neither of us had mentioned it, just as neither of us had mentioned the half-empty box of condoms in his bedside drawer—the box that expired three months before we met.

"You're staring again," Marcus said, not looking up from his phone. The screen reflected an orange glow across his face—sunset, or maybe just the harsh backup lighting of the hotel restaurant downstairs.

"I'm not staring." I poured myself more water from the pitcher on the nightstand. Condensation dripped down my wrist. "I'm existing in the same room as you. There's a difference."

He laughed, that soft, practiced laugh that had made me fall in love with him eight months ago. Now it just sounded like something he'd rehearsed.

"You know," he said, finally setting down his phone, "Sarah asked about you."

My hand froze around the water glass. Sarah—his best friend, his "work wife," the one who sent him texts at 2 AM and called it "collaborating." The one whose name appeared on his screen more often than mine.

"What did she ask?"

"How we are. If you're still..." He waved his hand, searching for the word. "If you're still you."

"And what did you say?"

"I said you're fine." He met my eyes then, and for the first time all week, he didn't look away. "I said you're fine because that's what you want everyone to think."

The water in my glass trembled. A single drop overflowed onto the carpet, instantly invisible.

"Marcus," I said, and my voice sounded like someone else's—like a stranger's, like a friend's, like someone who had already left this room and this conversation far behind. "Did you sleep with her?"

The silence that followed was louder than anything I'd ever heard. It stretched between us, elastic and terrible, until the orange light from his phone screen finally died, plunging us into darkness.

"The water," he said, his voice cracking. "The water's running in the bathroom again."

"I know," I said, standing up. "I've been hearing it for months."

Outside, the dead palm tree rattled against the sliding glass door, and somewhere in the distance, the ocean kept pulling at the shore, relentless and patient and completely alone.