Salt Water Regret

The vitamin C bottle sat on her nightstand for three months after she left. A rusty orange testament to their fights, each pill a tiny timestamp of arguments about health and control. 'You never take care of yourself,' she'd said, packing her bags. 'You don't even take a simple vitamin.' Now she was gone, and the pills remained, mocking him with their expiration date: 2024. He swallowed one dry each morning, a ritual penance.

Their cable bill came due—the first bill in his name alone. $147.99 for channels he watched in 4AM insomnia,吸纳 her ghost in every commercial. She'd loved those home renovation shows, pointing at screens, saying 'we could do that.' Now 'we' was a failed grammar. He called to cancel, listened to the retention specialist's-scripted empathy, and thought about how 'we' dissolves so easily into just 'I'.

He started swimming at the municipal pool, 6AM weekdays. The water was always cold, shockingly blue, empty except for one elderly woman doing water aerobics with agonizing slowness. He'd swim laps until his arms burned, until he couldn't think about cable bills or vitamins or the way her shampoo smell lingered on his pillowcase. Underwater, everything was muffled and suspended—a mercy.

The lifeguard, a college-aged girl with neon braces, watched him with mild concern. 'You okay, sir?' she asked one morning as he emerged, gasping. 'You've been at it for an hour.' He wanted to tell her about the vitamins his ex-wife bought, the cable he couldn't cancel, the way his apartment felt like a museum exhibit of a life that no longer existed. Instead he just nodded, hoisting himself out of the pool.

That afternoon, he threw away the vitamin bottle. He called the cable company and canceled everything—no retention, no negotiating. He stood in his apartment, stripped of her things, and thought about the way water holds you up if you stop fighting it. The pool opened at 6AM tomorrow. He would be there, learning finally how to float.