The Flood Between Us

Julia stood on the roof of her apartment complex, watching the **water** rise in the streets below. Hurricane season had come early this year, or maybe late—time had blurred into an endless gray smear since Mark left.

She'd spent the past three months moving through her life like a **zombie**, hollowed out by the quiet erosion of a twelve-year marriage. No dramatic fights. No screaming matches. Just the slow death of two people who'd forgotten how to see each other.

The **cable** guy was supposed to come yesterday. She'd waited six hours, then called and rescheduled for next week. Another delay in a life full of them. Meanwhile, she watched the storm through the window instead of her usual Netflix escape route.

Her phone buzzed. David.

"Are you watching the game?" he'd asked yesterday, his voice warm with that casual enthusiasm she used to find charming.

"I don't care about **baseball**, David."

"But your dad's team is playing. Thought you might—"

"My dad's been dead for seven years. The team was sold. Nothing is the same."

She'd hung up, angry at herself for being cruel, angry at him for not understanding that some wounds didn't heal just because you found someone new to hold you at night.

Now, as the floodwaters inched toward her building's foundation, she thought about how she'd always assumed disaster would announce itself with sirens and warnings. Instead, it had come in the small moments: the dinners spent in silence, the touches that perfunctory, the growing recognition that the person sleeping beside her was becoming a stranger.

The rain felt like absolution. Maybe her marriage hadn't failed because they were bad people. Maybe it had simply drowned, gradually, in the accumulation of unsaid words and unmet needs.

She pulled out her phone and texted David. "I'm sorry about yesterday."

Then she called Mark.

"The hurricane," she said when he answered. "I wanted to make sure you got out."

"I'm at Mom's. You?"

"On the roof. Watching."

"Julia..." His voice softened. "You should come here."

She almost said yes. Almost reached for that familiar comfort, that safe harbor they'd built together over twelve years.

"No," she said, and for the first time in months, she felt something other than numb. "I think I need to learn how to swim."