The Bottom of the Pool

Marcus stood at the edge of the swimming pool, the evening light turning the water into something that looked less like liquid and more like crushed glass. He'd been here forty-five minutes already, nursing the same scotch, watching the graduation party swirl around him like a carousel he'd fallen off of.

"You look like you're considering whether to jump in or burn the place down."

He didn't turn. He knew Sarah's voice—the way it had sharpened over the past year, like glass being cut against glass. "The latter seems more productive."

She stepped up beside him, and despite everything, his body still leaned toward hers instinctively. Some muscle memory didn't know the war was over.

She held out her palm, face up. A small, dark object rested there. A baseball from their honeymoon in Mexico, when they'd played catch on the beach at sunset and he'd told her he wanted to spend the rest of his life making her laugh.

"I found it in the garage," she said. "When I was packing."

"You're really doing it."

"Marcus, we've been swimming in circles for months. Drowning isn't the same thing as fighting to stay above water."

The pool lights clicked on, and the water transformed again—now blue and artificial and oddly beautiful, like something that couldn't hurt you even as it pulled you under.

"I don't know how to be the person who walks away," he said, finally looking at her.

"You don't have to be," she said, closing her fingers around the baseball. "You just have to be the person who lets someone else swim to shore."

She walked back toward the party, toward the future she'd already built without him. Marcus finished his drink, set the glass on a nearby table, and realized with sudden clarity that he'd been waiting for permission to leave the pool for years.

The water kept moving, indifferent and ongoing, like time itself.