Surface Tension

The chlorine stung my nose, sharp and chemical, as I sat by the hotel pool, margarita sweating onto the glass table. Richard was three courts over, playing padel with her—Elena, the corporate trainer with the laugh like wind chimes. I watched his shirt cling to his back, the way he moved differently now, at forty-seven, than he had at twenty-seven when we met.

They'd been playing together for months. "Just work friends," he'd said, but I'd seen the texts. The orange peel I'd found in his passenger seat last Tuesday, still sticky with juice, when he'd sworn he'd driven straight home from the office. The little lies accumulate like sediment.

I'd spent our marriage building this life—house, career, the illusion that we were happy. Now it felt like walking on a frozen pond. The ice had been thinning for years, but I'd pretended not to notice the cracks.

Richard approached, towel around his neck, his skin smelling of sunscreen and exertion. "We crushed it," he said, avoiding my eyes. "Elena's got quite a backhand."

"I bet," I said. My heart was doing something strange, not racing but fluttering, like a dying moth. "You hungry?"

He hesitated. "Actually, Elena was thinking about trying that place downtown. The tapas place. She was going to ask if..."

I picked up my orange, my thumb pressing into the rind until the juice ran down my wrist. Sticky, like everything else.

"You should go," I said.

"Sarah?"

"Go. Have fun with Elena."

He stood there, the pool water lapping against the tiles behind him, rhythmic and endless. Something in his face shifted. Not relief—regret, maybe, or just the slow realization that I wasn't angry anymore. That indifference was the opposite of love.

"I'll skip it," he said finally, sitting beside me. "Let's order room service."

I didn't answer. I just watched the pool, the water distorting everything beneath its surface, making it impossible to tell what was real and what was just the light playing tricks on us both.