The Drowning Season

Rain streaked the window like tears Emma couldn't cry anymore. The glass of water sat untouched on the coaster, condensation pooling at its base—a tiny lake expanding on the mahogany. She hadn't heard from Sarah in three weeks, not since the night at O'Malley's when the bullshitting finally stopped.

"You knew," Emma had said, her voice steady despite the hammering of her heart. "About Mark and Olivia. You knew the whole time."

Sarah's face had crumbled then, the confident veneer of their twenty-year friendship dissolving like sugar in hot water. "I didn't want to hurt you, Em. You were so happy."

"I was a fool. And you let me be one."

Now Emma sat alone in her apartment, the rain drumming against the glass. She remembered summers at the lake, how Sarah had pulled her from the undertow when she was twelve—Sarah's hands gripping her wrists, hauling her gasping to the surface. That was what friends did: they saved you from drowning, even when you were the one who'd jumped.

But this time, Sarah had watched her sink.

The bull—that's what her mother would've called it. All of it. The late nights at work, the sudden business trips, the hushed phone calls Mark took in the garage. Emma had swallowed it all, fed it to herself like medicine, believing that love meant trusting blindly. Sarah had fed her the same pills, smiling through the lie.

Her phone buzzed. Sarah's name lit the screen.

Emma stared until it faded to black. The water glass sat before her, clear and still. Outside, the rain intensified, blurring the city lights into streaks of gold and red. Some things, she realized, needed to drown before they could breathe again.

Some friendships were like that too—worth saving, maybe, but first you had to stop fighting the current and let yourself go under.

She picked up her phone and typed: Come over. Bring wine.

Some drowning seasons ended in resurrection. Others just ended.