The Last Dive

Miller's hands shook as he popped the vitamin D supplement into his mouth, washing it down with the last of his lukewarm office coffee. Three months since the diagnosis, and still the pills felt like an admission of defeat. At forty-two, he wasn't supposed to be concerned about bone density or cortisol levels or any of the other metrics his doctor recited with that mild, professional concern that made everything sound simultaneously manageable and catastrophic.

The hat—his grandfather's fedora, really, though he'd never admit to wearing it for sentimental reasons—sat on his desk like a judgment. Eleanor had hated it. "You look ridiculous," she'd said the night she left, her bags already packed by the door. "Like a kid playing dress-up in his daddy's clothes." She hadn't been wrong. That was the problem, mostly.

"You coming to the retreat?" Janet stood in his doorway, already in her swimsuit and cover-up, holding a margarita like she'd invented leisure. "Marcus rented this insane place with a pool. Staff's already getting wasted."

The company retreat. Miller had forgotten. Or maybe he'd deliberately suppressed the memory. "In a bit. Just finishing up some—"

"You're always finishing up something." Janet's tone wasn't unkind, which somehow made it worse. "Marcus says if you're not there in an hour, he's docking your bonus."

The bonus. Right. The extra ten thousand that was supposed to compensate for the fact that his stock options were worth less than the vitamin supplements he now took religiously.

The pool was exactly as advertised: infinity-edged, overlooking the city skyline, populated by people Miller worked with every day but suddenly seemed not to know at all. They were swimming, or standing in clusters with drinks, or—this was Marcus—sitting on the edge in expensive Italian swim trunks, holding court like he'd invented water itself.

"There he is!" Marcus waved him over, and Miller felt himself moving,autopilot engaged, the hat jammed onto his head despite the heat. "The man who saved our Q3 numbers. Come have a drink."

The water looked inviting. Too inviting. Miller found himself stripping off his shirt—maybe they'd all see how thin he'd gotten, notice the careful regimen of vitamins and doctors' visits—and diving in before he could think better of it. The shock of cold hit him like revelation.

Underwater, everything simplified. No metrics. No Eleanor's voice in his head. No Marcus's performative camaraderie. Just the elemental truth: he was swimming, he was alive, and for a moment, that was enough.

When he surfaced, gasping, Marcus was laughing. "You okay there? You look like you saw a ghost."

Miller treaded water, watching his colleagues' faces distort above him. "Fine," he said, and realized it wasn't quite a lie. "Just needed a dive."

The hat floated on the pool's surface behind him, slowly filling with water, sinking like a small, inevitable ship. Miller watched it go under and didn't reach for it. Some things, he decided, you let drown.