The Blue Hour

I counted out my supplements with surgical precision: Vitamin D for the Seasonal Affective Disorder that had settled into my bones like marrow, B-complex for the energy I couldn't seem to summon anymore, biotin for the hair that had begun appearing in stray wiry threads on my pillow each morning. Forty-two felt less like an age and more like a slow erosion.

The pool was empty at 5 AM—that was the point. I slipped into the water, its silver surface breaking around me as I began my laps. Swimming had become a kind of mourning ritual I couldn't quite name. Six months since David left. Six months since he'd told me he was "tired of drowning in my sadness," as if grief were something I could simply choose to shed like old skin.

My strokes grew more violent, splashing water into my eyes until they stung. This was the only place I allowed myself to feel anything—the sharp clarity of chlorine filling my lungs, the burn of muscles pushing against resistance, the absolute solitude of being underwater where no one could ask if I was okay yet.

After, sitting on the pool's edge with my legs still in the water, I noticed it: the softest white hair gleaming at my temple. I pulled it taut, watching it shimmer in the harsh fluorescent lighting. Another thing I couldn't control.

My iPhone buzzed against the concrete—a text from my sister asking if I'd heard back about the job interview I hadn't told her I'd failed. Another notification: a promotional email for hair dye with the subject line "Don't let them see you fade."

I turned off the phone and slipped back into the water, floating on my back, staring up at the ceiling where fluorescent tubes flickered like dying stars. The vitamin pills sat in their little plastic organizer on the bench above, waiting to fix what couldn't be fixed. Maybe some things weren't meant to be solved. Maybe some gaps were just gaps—permanent, necessary, the places where light and water could finally get through.