The Goldfish at the Bottom of the Pool

The water in the rooftop pool was exactly the temperature of regret—lukewarm, slightly chlorinated, impossible to escape. Maya floated on her back, her expensive blonde hair fanning out like mermaid seawater around her head, and thought about how she'd ended up here at the company retreat, surrounded by colleagues who would kill her job tomorrow if they knew.

Her iPhone vibrated on the poolside chair, a tiny heart attack against the chaise lounge. James. Again. The eighth time this morning.

She let it ring.

Last night, pressed against the wall of his office, his hands tangled in her hair, he'd whispered that he was leaving his wife. A goldfish promise—beautiful in its bowl, limited in scope, destined to forget itself every seven seconds. Maya had believed him for exactly three hours and twelve minutes, until she'd seen the way he looked at his wife across the banquet table, the way his hand found hers beneath the tablecloth like muscle memory, like habit, like home.

Now she floated in corporate-sponsored water while her phone buzzed with increasingly desperate texts. *We need to talk. You don't understand. It's complicated.*

Everything was complicated. Marriage was complicated. Affairs were complicated. The fact that she was thirty-two and still making choices like this, still learning the same lessons in different beds—that was complicated.

A goldfish in a bowl doesn't know it's swimming in circles. It just swims. Maybe that was the problem with all of them.

Maya opened her eyes. Above her, the sky was that particular shade of Los Angeles blue that made you believe anything was possible, even as you drowned.

Her phone buzzed once more, then went silent.

She let herself sink beneath the surface, held her breath, and listened to the muffled world where nothing could hurt her. Where there was only water, and weightlessness, and the terrible knowledge that she would eventually have to surface.