Submerged

The pool was still at 3 AM, that peculiar blue that only exists in photographs and the liminal space between midnight and dawn. Elena sat on the edge, legs submerged, her iPhone screen illuminating the ripples with a ghostly glow.

It had been six months since Sarah's funeral, though 'funeral' felt too generous a word for a closed-casket affair and a plaque in a garden. Sarah had been her friend—best friend, college roommate, the person who knew Elena's student ID number by heart and could identify her crying in a crowded room.

The iPhone in Elena's hand was Sarah's. She'd never returned it to the family, a small theft she justified as preservation. The password still worked: Sarah's birthday, the same lazy security they'd mocked together over wine.

Tonight, for reasons she couldn't name, Elena opened Sarah's messages. Not the obvious ones—the condolences, the work emails, the last frantic texts from that night. But the hidden folder. The one Sarah had shown her once, drunk, when they were twenty-three and invincible.

The messages were mundane. Grocery lists. Complaints about coworkers. Photos of cats. But the last one, dated three days before Sarah died, made Elena's breath catch:

'i can't do this anymore. i've ruined everything.'

Elena had assumed those words were about Sarah's divorce. Had offered wine and distraction and platitudes about fresh starts. But now, scrolling through the thread—the responses patient, measured, signed 'M'—she understood. M wasn't a coworker. M was Maria, the married woman Sarah had spent three years loving in secret.

The pool's surface reflected Elena's face distorted by waves. She realized now: Sarah hadn't been afraid of loneliness. She'd been afraid of authenticity.

The iPhone slipped from her hand, hitting the water with a soft splash. Elena watched it sink, Sarah's secrets and her own cowardice descending together into the blue. Some things, she decided, were better left submerged.