The Dead Pool

The betting pool had reached eight hundred dollars when Elena finally stopped running.

She'd been running from the truth for months: her marriage had become a zombie—shambling forward through the motions of daily life, animated only by habit and fear of being alone. David still kissed her forehead each morning, but his eyes were elsewhere, already at the office, already anywhere but here with her.

"You're not happy," her sister had said over drinks last week. "Nobody in that betting pool thinks you'll make it to Christmas."

The pool. Her colleagues had started a dead pool on her marriage, wagering on the inevitable collapse. She'd laughed when she found out—dark humor, the kind you learn to cultivate in corporate America—but it had lodged in her throat like a fish bone.

Now she stood at the edge of the community pool at 11 PM, the water black and still, reflecting the moon like a bruised eye. The lifeguard chair was empty. The sign said CLOSED, but the gate had been left unlatched.

Elena slipped off her shoes. The concrete was cold against her bare feet.

She wasn't going to jump. She wasn't that far gone. But she needed to be near something that could swallow her whole, if only for a moment. Something that could wash away the zombie-like existence she'd been living, the running toward nothing.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. David.

"Where are you?" he asked when she answered. "The betting pool says you're at your sister's."

Elena stared at the dark water. "You knew about the pool?"

"Everyone knows. I put fifty on next month." His voice was tired, not cruel. "I figured you needed the push."

She laughed, a sharp sound that startled the night air. "So we're both just running out the clock."

"I never stopped loving you, El. I just stopped knowing how to be married to you."

The zombie of their marriage had finally spoken the truth.

"I'm at the pool," she said. "The one where we almost drowned that summer, remember?"

Silence. Then, softly: "I'll bring the divorce papers. We can sign them by the water."

Elena sat on the edge and let her feet dangle in the cool dark. The betting pool would pay out sooner than anyone expected, and for the first time in years, she didn't feel like running anywhere at all.