The Art of Drowning Together

The apartment was silent except for the bubbles. Marcus watched the goldfish — he'd named it Clifford, though Elena always forgot — drift against the glass of its too-small bowl.

"We're like fish," she'd said three nights ago, her voice flat with that particular exhaustion that comes after seven years of trying to make something work that maybe never should have. "Just swimming in circles, thinking we're going somewhere."

Now she was gone. Left with a single suitcase and the cat — Barnaby, a judgmental tabby who'd always preferred Marcus anyway. The cat's carrier sat by the door like an accusation.

Marcus had gone swimming that morning, laps at the university pool where they'd met. He'd wanted to drown himself in the rhythm of it, the way he used to drown in her presence. But the water had felt empty without her watching from the sidelines, grading papers and pretending not to notice when other women looked at him.

He'd driven home thinking about how love isn't a single choice but thousands of them — small compromises that accumulate like sediment until you're sleeping in separate rooms, having the same argument about whose turn it is to buy cat food, realizing you can't remember the last time you made each other laugh without calculation.

Barnaby meowed from his carrier, hungry and confused. Marcus poured food into the cat's dish, then sprinkled flakes into Clifford's bowl. The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in that perpetual, silent O of surprise.

"You're the only one left," Marcus told the fish.

Clifford didn't respond. Just kept swimming, loops and figure-eights, content in his small world.

Marcus sat on the floor beside the cat, who deigned to rub against his thigh. Outside, the January light was already failing. He thought about calling her, but some griefs require swimming through alone.