The Art of Drowning

The cat watched me with judgment in her yellow eyes as I stood in the middle of the living room, surrounded by half-packed boxes. Sarah had left three days ago, taking most of the furniture but leaving Misty—and leaving me feeling like something that used to be human, some hollowed-out thing going through the motions of life. A zombie, really, shambling through the apartment that no longer felt like home.

I tripped over the coaxial cable she'd disconnected from the wall when she unplugged the TV. The damn thing snaked across the hardwood like a dead animal, and I nearly went down. This was my life now: stumbling through rooms that echoed with absence, always on the verge of falling.

Wednesday nights had been padel with the guys. Sarah would come sometimes, sitting on the sidelines with a drink, laughing at our terrible form. Last night I'd stood on the court alone, racket in hand, while they asked where she was. I couldn't form the words. I just served into the net, over and over, until they stopped asking.

Now the bathroom mirror showed someone I didn't recognize. The water was cold when I stepped into the tub, but I needed it. Needed the shock of it, the way it filled my ears and muffled the world. I went under, opened my eyes, and just floated there, swimming through nothing, suspended in blue silence where there were no questions, no accusations, no empty spaces where her laughter used to be.

My lungs burned before I broke the surface, gasping. Misty was sitting on the bathmat, staring at me like I'd lost my mind. Maybe I had. I pulled the drain and watched the water spiral away, thinking about how we're all just swimming until we're not. The cable lay on the bedroom floor like a question I couldn't answer. Some things, once broken, you can't just reconnect.