The Dead Man's Float

The office had turned Marcus into something resembling a zombie—hollowed out by fluorescent lights and quarterly reports. He'd catch his own reflection in bathroom mirrors: skin gray as notebook paper, eyes glassy and unfocused. At forty-two, he'd become the walking dead, a man who'd traded his pulse for a paycheck.

The new VP was a bull of a man, all blunt force and no subtlety. stormed through meetings like he was charging through china shops, leaving careers shattered in his wake. Marcus had stopped fighting back. What was the point? He'd just put on his hat—a literal fedora he'd started wearing to hide his thinning hair—and keep his head down.

Then came the night Elena called.

"Swimming," she said. "Remember how we used to swim across the lake at your grandmother's house? Every summer, like clockwork."

Marcus hadn't thought about those summers in twenty years. Elena had been his friend since kindergarten, the one person who'd known him before he'd become this hollowed-out version of himself.

"I'm at the lake," she said. "I drove six hours. Meet me."

He didn't ask why. He just got in his car.

The water was freezing when he waded in, moonlight painting everything silver and black. Elena was already there, cutting through the water with strong, sure strokes. She'd always been braver than him.

"You look like shit," she said when they surfaced, treading water in the middle of the lake.

"Feel like it too."

"That job," she said. "It's eating you alive."

"It pays the bills."

"So does dealing meth," she said, and he laughed—really laughed, for the first time in months. "Marcus, you're drowning in shallow water."

They swam until their arms burned, then floated on their backs, staring up at a sky thick with stars. The bull of a VP, the zombie existence, the hat he hid behind—none of it mattered out here. Just water and silence and a friend who'd driven six hours to remind him how to swim.

"I think," Marcus said, watching his breath turn to steam in the cold air, "I might be ready to come up for air."

Elena reached over and squeezed his hand underwater. "About fucking time."