Still Water at Midnight
The motel pool sat empty, its surface like a black mirror reflecting nothing but the sickly orange glow of the vending machine sign. Elena sat on the plastic lounge chair, still wearing her work clothes—slacks now stained with grass where she'd sat in her own front yard, refusing to go back inside even as the sun went down.
She peeled the orange she'd taken from the breakroom, its sharp citrus scent cutting through the chlorinated air. Juice ran down her thumb, sticky and bright against her pale skin. Somewhere in the room behind her, her phone buzzed for the twentieth time. Mark, probably. Or her mother. Both wanting explanations she couldn't yet form into words.
The water lapped gently against the pool's tiled edge. She'd always found water soothing, the way it kept moving regardless of what was happening on land. Her father had been the opposite—stubborn as a bull, immovable, the kind of man who'd rather drown than change course. She saw more of him in herself every year, especially in moments like this, when being right felt more important than being happy.
"You're just like him," Mark had said, his voice cracking with something between anger and exhaustion. "You dig in your heels and you don't care who gets hurt."
She'd walked out instead of answering. Some habits ran deeper than love.
A moth beat itself against the orange light, drawn to something that would burn it. She watched it, feeling suddenly tired—bone-tired, the kind that accumulated over years of being the person who never yielded, never apologized first, never let herself need anything enough to ask for it.
Elena stood and carried her orange half to the pool's edge. The water was still, waiting. She could dive in, let it wash away the sticky juice and the day and everything she couldn't take back. Or she could go back inside and answer the phone.
The moth escaped the light and spiraled into darkness. Elena dropped the orange into a trash can and walked toward the room where her phone continued its small, persistent buzzing.