The Drowning Room

The ceiling had been weeping for three days. A thin, persistent ribbon of water traced the plaster like a vein, swelling whenever the neighbors upstairs flushed their toilet. Elena sat on her couch watching it spread, the stain blooming like a bruise across the white surface.

Her salad had gone warm. The spinach leaves, once crisp and promising, now lay limp against the container's edge, reduced to something resembling cooked seaweed. She ate anyway, chewing mechanically, phone propped against a stack of unpaid bills.

"You need to call the super," Sarah had said the last time they spoke. "Before the whole ceiling comes down."

Sarah. The word lodged in Elena's throat like a fish bone. Three months of radio silence since the incident at the Christmas party, since Elena had drunkenly told everyone about Sarah's affair with the managing director. She'd thought she was joking. She'd thought they were sharing a moment.

The television flickered — HDMI cable loose again. She got up to wiggle it, something she'd done at least a dozen times this week alone. The connection held, then sputtered. Blue screen. Her own face reflected back: hollow-cheeked, eyes rimmed with red, hair matting against her skull.

She'd tried calling Sarah after. Texted. Even stopped by her desk with coffee — lukewarm olive branch, extra milk, no sugar. Sarah had looked through her as if she were made of glass.

The ceiling stain grew another inch. Elena watched, mesmerized. Water damage was deceptively slow. It accumulated in darkness, ate through structure, left you thinking everything was fine until the night the whole thing came down on your head while you slept.

She threw the salad container in the trash. On her way to the kitchen, she knocked over her water glass. The puddle spread across the floor, seeping into the cheap laminate, joining the slow disaster overhead. Elena stepped around it, sat back down, and picked up her phone.

The super's number sat open in her contacts. Her thumb hovered over Sarah's name instead. She could call. Could say she was wrong, that she missed her, that the apartment was literally falling apart around her and she didn't want to be alone when it finally did.

Instead, she dialed the super.

"Yeah, I've got a leak," she said when he answered. "It's been a while. I should have called sooner."