Surface Tension

The padel court echoed with the sharp crack of racquet against ball, but Marcus wasn't really playing anymore. He was going through motions while Elena watched from her lounge chair, her iphone glowing in her lap, illuminating the downward curve of her mouth in the gathering dusk.

"You're not even trying," she said later, standing at the kitchen counter while he watched her chop spinach with vicious precision. The knife hit the cutting board harder than necessary. Everything lately was a weapon—every dinner, every silence.

"I'm tired, El. That's all."

"You're always tired. You're tired of me."

He didn't answer. Couldn't, without saying things that couldn't be unsaid.

The pool behind their house sat stagnant. He hadn't cleaned it since winter, and now the surface was choked with leaves and algae, a green mirror reflecting back everything they'd stopped trying to fix. Some nights he stood at the edge, tempted to wade in, let the murk swallow him whole.

"Marcus?"

He found her at the pool's edge, her phone discarded on a patio chair, her toes inches from the water's surface. Moonlight caught the wet tracks on her cheeks. His stomach dropped.

"Elena—"

"I threw dinner in the trash," she said. "The spinach. Everything. It just seemed pointless."

He stepped closer, close enough to see the water trembling at her feet. "We don't have to do this tonight."

"When, then? You keep saying later, Marcus, but later never comes."

The pool lights flickered on, revealing the full extent of the neglect. Years of it. And somewhere beneath that surface, something might still be alive, waiting for someone to reach in.

"Help me clean it," he said.

She turned. "What?"

"The pool. We could start there."

She didn't smile, but she didn't turn away. "It's going to take more than a net."

"I know."

Her hand found his in the darkness, and for the first time in months, neither of them pulled away.