Salt Water Signals

The iphone vibrated against her thigh—his third text tonight. Maya watched it light up through the fabric of her dress, a pulse of blue-white in the dark beach house. Outside, the Pacific roared.

"You up?" it read.

She pressed her palm flat against the cool glass of the sliding door, remembering how his hands used to feel on her waist—calloused, warm, sure. Three months since he'd walked out. Eighty-seven days of careful silence, now crumbling at 2 AM because he'd had too much to drink and suddenly remembered he loved her. Or remembered he was lonely. The distinction mattered, though he'd never understood why.

Barnaby, her brother's retriever, stirred at her feet. The old dog had been sleeping beside her since she'd fled the city, his golden fur now flecked with white. He'd witnessed the phone calls, the wine, the nights she'd screamed into the ocean's roar until her throat gave out. Dogs didn't judge. They just waited, their devotion a mirror she couldn't bear to look into sometimes.

The screen lit up again: "Can we talk?"

Water lapped at the shore below, the tide coming in. Maya had grown up watching this beach, learned to swim in these waves, understood that the ocean gave nothing back without taking something first. Her mother had taught her that. Her mother, who'd stayed twenty years with a man who looked right through her.

Maya's palm left a fog on the glass. She thought about the text she'd sent him after he left, the one she'd rewritten twelve times before hitting send: "I deserve someone who doesn't need to lose me to know I'm worth keeping."

The iphone chimed. A voicemail.

She didn't listen. Instead, she slid the door open and stepped onto the deck. Salt air hit her face, thick and alive. Barnaby followed, pressing his warm side against her leg. The moonlight traced silver paths across the water, beautiful and indifferent.

Some messages were meant to stay unread. Some loves were like tides—they came in, they went out. The trick was learning to stand on solid ground while they washed over you.

She muted the phone and watched the waves, her palm resting on the dog's head, both of them breathing in the dark.