The Dead Don't Swim Alone

The rooftop pool at the W Hotel reflected nothing — not the sky, not the city lights, not the hollow-eyed woman staring back at Elena. She'd been functioning on autopilot for months now. Her colleagues had started calling it 'going zombie' in Slack: that particular glazed-over look you got after your fourth consecutive quarter of 60-hour weeks.

She slipped into the water, letting the heated silence swallow the corporate panic email still open on her phone. That's when she saw him.

Marcus. Ten years older, carrying an extra thirty pounds, wearing a wedding ring she'd never expected him to put on anyone's finger. They'd spoken maybe twice since he'd moved to Seattle and their friendship had quietly suffocated under distance and missed calls.

"You look like hell," he said, sitting on the edge of the pool, pants rolled up. He wasn't wrong.

"I feel like something that's already dead but hasn't stopped moving yet," she said. "How's Seattle?"

"Same. Different rain." He trailed his fingers through the water. "I heard about the merger. My team got absorbed last month."

So they were both casualties now. She'd thought she was the only one.

"I'm done, Marcus," she said, and it came out easier than she'd expected. "I'm done being this. Whatever this is."

He nodded like he'd been waiting for her to say it for years. "The pool's still open. No one's watching. Swim until you can't feel your arms anymore. Then figure out who you are when you finally climb out."

So she did. She swam until her muscles burned, until the zombie feeling washed away, until she remembered what it felt like to want something. Marcus waited by the side, checking his watch, then checking it again. And for the first time in a long time, Elena didn't feel like she was walking dead — just tired, and finally ready to wake up.