The Goldfish at the Bottom of the Pool

Maya sat at the edge of the apartment complex pool, legs dangling in the cool water. It was 2 AM and the iPhone beside her glowed with another text from him. She ignored it, just as she'd ignored the last twelve.

A stray cat — orange, mangy, missing half an ear — slunk from the bushes and settled beside her, watching the ripples she made with her toes.

"You're not him," Maya told the cat. It blinked, unimpressed.

Three weeks ago, Julian had moved out. Taken his clothes, his coffee maker, the goldfish they'd won at a carnival two years ago. The fish had died within days. Julian always said she had a black thumb, said she couldn't keep anything alive. Not plants. Not pets. Not them.

The water reflected distant city lights, fracturing them into gold fragments that reminded her of the fish's scales in the aquarium glow. She'd spent hours watching that fish swim in tight circles, mesmerized by its simple existence. Eat, swim, forget. Eat, swim, forget.

She wished she could forget that easily.

Her iPhone buzzed again. A photo this time: him at some bar, smiling, already someone else's story. The caption read: "Moving on. You should too."

The cat dipped a tentative paw into the pool, then shook it off with disdain.

"Pickier than you look," Maya said, and something cracked open in her chest — not fresh pain, but something older and more complicated. The realization that Julian had been right about one thing: she was still treading water in the deep end of something that had ended long before he'd packed his bags.

She stood up, dripping, and grabbed the iPhone. Blocked him. Not out of anger, but out of the recognition that some stories don't deserve sequels.

The cat wound around her ankles, purring like a small engine.

"Come on," she said. "I've got a can of tuna upstairs. And tomorrow, we're both going to learn how to swim."