The Blue Pyramid

The water in the hotel pool was that unnatural, chemically perfect blue that only exists in places trying too hard to sell you an experience. Elena floated on her back, letting the chlorine burn her eyes, pretending she was somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Below the surface, her ex-husband's voice echoed from the poolside bar where he held court with the venture capitalists he'd been trying to impress for six months. "—it's not a pyramid scheme if the product actually has value," Marcus was saying, his salesman's voice rising and falling in practiced rhythms.

Elena dipped her head completely under, the sudden silence a relief. Six months ago, she would have been at his side, smiling and nodding, making sure everyone knew how brilliant he was. Six months ago, she still believed that being a good wife meant being his best friend, his business partner, his everything.

She surfaced, gasping, to find Marcus watching her. He'd stopped mid-pitch. There was something in his expression she couldn't read—genuine concern, or maybe just calculation. "You okay, El?"

"Fine." She swam to the edge, pulled herself up. Water cascaded off her like she was shedding something. "Just thinking."

A woman stood behind Marcus—tall, striking, with a tattoo of a bear on her shoulder that moved when she laughed. Marcus had mentioned her. Sarah, his new business partner. His new friend.

"The water's too cold," Sarah said, extending a hand. "Come have a drink. Marcus was just explaining his distribution model."

Elena looked at the woman's bear tattoo, then at Marcus's hopeful face, then at the desert beyond the pool's edge where a half-built pyramid-shaped resort rose against the sunset like some expensive mistake.

"You know what they say about pyramids," Elena said, pulling herself out of the pool. "The only way to the top is on someone else's back."

She walked past them both, dripping and glorious, toward the bar. The air was suddenly full of possibilities she'd forgotten existed.

"After all," she called back, not looking, "I hear the view from the top is lonely as hell."