The Night Swim

The pool at the Motel 6 was empty at 2 AM, which was exactly why David chose it. Fifty years old and suddenly single again, he found himself tethered to a corporate **cable** that stretched between cities, between hotels, between the person he used to be and whoever he was becoming.

The water was cold—chlorine-stinging cold—as he lowered himself in. **Swimming** had always been his thinking exercise, back when he had thoughts worth thinking. Now it was just movement through resistance.

In the corner of the pool, a small plastic **goldfish** bobbed in the filtration current, some child's abandoned toy. It watched him with its painted eye, that same artificial optimism he'd worn through twenty years of marriage, through the mortgage refinancing, through the dinner parties where everyone pretended to be happy.

David reached the wall and hung there, breathing hard. The fluorescent hum of the pool lights gave everything a sickly tint. He thought about texting Elena—*I'm sorry* or *I miss you* or *the apartment is so quiet without your books everywhere*. But he'd already sent those messages. Already been **bear**-hugged by the silence that followed.

He pushed off the wall and did another lap. The water pushed against him, then yielded. Something about resistance, about surrender, about how sometimes the only way forward was through what hurt. The goldfish kept watching. The cable kept humming. And David kept swimming, if only to prove he still could.