The Art of Drowning

The spinach kept catching between my teeth, tiny green daggers reminding me of everything I couldn't say. Across the table, Marcus swirled his water — he always swirled it first, a ritual I'd found charming for seven years and now found strangely performative.

'You're not listening,' he said, and I realized I wasn't. I was watching the dog outside the restaurant window, some mutt that kept scratching at the glass, wanting in or out or simply to be seen.

'I am,' I lied. 'Go on.'

Marcus had been my friend since we were twenty-two, since we'd both been broke and hungry and convinced the world would eventually make sense. Now we were thirty-four, and the only thing that made sense was how thoroughly we'd learned to perform friendship rather than feel it.

He was talking about his promotion, about the office politics I'd stopped caring about three jobs ago. The sunset beyond him had turned that bruised orange color, like something healing and something dying all at once. I thought about how I'd cried in the shower that morning, how water had covered everything — my face, my sounds, my shame — and how nobody had noticed.

'I'm leaving the city,' I said, interrupting him.

Marcus froze. His water glass paused mid-swirl. 'What?'

'I'm done. With this, with — everything.' I gestured vaguely, taking in the restaurant, our friendship, the accumulated weight of years spent pretending.

The dog outside finally gave up on the glass and trotted away toward something more promising.

'You can't just —' Marcus started, then stopped. His phone buzzed. He checked it automatically, then caught himself. 'Sorry.'

'It's fine.' I signaled for the check. 'You have your spinach,' I said, gesturing to his teeth, 'and I have mine.'

He wiped at his mouth, missing the spot entirely. Some things you can't fix for people. Some things they have to find themselves, if they ever bother to look.

I walked home through the gathering dark, past closed storefronts and the distant hum of traffic I'd never hear again. Somewhere, a dog barked at something only it could see. Somewhere, water was rising, falling, flowing toward somewhere else. The orange memory of Marcus's face in that last light stayed with me, startled and strangely young, like he'd just remembered how to be afraid.