Swimming in Circles

The pool at the Hotel Valencia was empty at 2 AM, the water still and black as obsidian. Elena sat on the edge, her feet dangling in the chlorinated chill, holding a martini she'd retrieved from the corporate open bar before it closed. Below the surface, the pool lights cast undulating shadows that reminded her of the way her ex-husband used to look at her—as if she were something beautiful but vaguely disappointing, like a painting hung slightly crooked.

She thought about Barnaby, Marcus's Golden Retriever. That damn dog had been the only genuine thing about their marriage. Barnaby would rest his head on her lap when she cried after Marcus's business trips, those weekends that always seemed to extend by two days, his phone going straight to voicemail. The dog had better emotional intelligence than her husband of seven years.

During their last conversation, Marcus had compared them to the goldfish they'd won at a carnival their first year married. He'd said it in that calm, reasonable voice that made her want to scream: 'We're just swimming in circles, Elena. Thinking we're getting somewhere, but we're just in the same bowl we started in.' He'd used their goldfish's inevitable death three weeks later as proof that some things weren't meant to last.

That was six months ago. Now she was at this corporate retreat, sleeping in room 412, avoiding Marcus's new executive assistant—a twenty-three-year-old named Chloe who seemed genuinely surprised to learn Elena existed.

Elena finished her martini and set the glass on the concrete. She watched her reflection ripple in the water, distorted and ghostly. Maybe Marcus had been right about the circles. But standing up, pulling her feet from the water, she realized something: goldfish didn't know they were swimming in circles. They didn't have the capacity to imagine an ocean.

She did.

Tomorrow she'd call the realtor. Tomorrow she'd adopt her own dog. Tomorrow she'd stop letting men describe her life in aquarium metaphors.

Elena walked back to the hotel, leaving the black water still and waiting for someone who knew how to drown.