Sunday Nights at The Drowning Man

The water glass sat between them, sweating onto the coaster. Sarah had been watching condensation drip for twenty minutes—each drop a small surrender to gravity, to entropy, to the way things fall apart when you stop holding them together.

"You're doing it again," David said. "That thing where you disappear while I'm talking."

"Sorry." Sarah adjusted her sun hat despite the dim bar lighting. "Continue."

"I'm moving in with Jennifer." David's voice was gentle. "We wanted you to hear it from us."

From us. The words landed like stones. Jennifer had been Sarah's friend since college, the maid of honor at their wedding, the one who held Sarah's hair back when she drank too much at the reception and whispered that everything would be fine.

The cat hair on David's sleeve suddenly made sense—a single orange strand clinging to charcoal fabric. Jennifer's cat, Miso. The realization came with terrible clarity, like surfacing from deep water and gasping for air.

"How long?" Sarah asked.

"A year." David looked at his hands. "We tried to stop. We tried."

"A year." The word tasted metallic. "So while I was—while we were—"

"We know. God, Sarah, we know. That's why we couldn't tell you. You were already going through enough."

The bartender appeared, refilling Sarah's water glass. She watched the liquid rise, clear and merciless, remembering the ultrasound tech's face the day everything changed. The way silence could fill a room until there was no air left to breathe.

"You're both still my friends," Sarah said, surprised to find it was true. "I think that's the worst part."

David reached across the table, then pulled back. "What do you need?"

"I need—" Sarah stopped. "I need you to not make this about what I need. Not this time."

Outside, rain began. Sarah watched through the window as pedestrians scattered, umbrellas blooming like dark flowers. Somewhere in this city, Jennifer was probably waiting, probably feeling guilty—which was useless but also inevitable.

"I'll sign the papers," Sarah said. "And you can tell Jennifer she can stop hiding Miso at her place. I always knew."

David's head snapped up. "You knew?"

Sarah almost smiled. "David, you're allergic. You started taking antihistamines six months ago. I'm not an idiot."

The water glass sat between them, half-empty now. Sarah finished it in one swallow, stood up, and adjusted her hat.

"It's been a long time coming," she said. "I'll see you around, David."

She walked out into the rain without an umbrella, letting the water wash over her like something finally, irrevocably, beginning.