The Pool at Midnight

The pool was dead calm, that eerie perfect stillness that only comes at 3 AM. Elena sat on the edge, legs dangling in the water, remembering how Julian's hair used to float around him like dark seaweed when they swam here last summer. Before everything changed.

"You're going to catch cold," a voice said from behind her.

She didn't turn. "Go away, Marcus."

Marcus sat anyway, keeping a careful distance. His silver hair caught the moonlight—strange how age had made him more beautiful, not less. He was Julian's father, the one complication she'd never anticipated, the one she couldn't seem to untangle herself from even now.

"He's leaving tomorrow," Marcus said quietly.

"I know."

"For Geneva. Three years."

"I know, Marcus."

The water lapped against her calves, tiny waves that rippled outward and died. A fox appeared at the edge of the garden, russet coat gleaming, watching them with eyes that seemed to know everything. It had been coming every night since Julian ended things.

"You're like that fox," Marcus said, following her gaze. "Waiting for something you can't name."

"I'm not waiting."

"Aren't you?" His voice dropped, intimate and dangerous. "Because I've been waiting, Elena. Since that first dinner when you laughed at my terrible jokes and Julian was too busy checking his phone to notice."

The admission hung between them, heavy and impossible. She turned finally and saw it in his face—what she'd been pretending not to see for months. The pool's reflection distorted them both into something other than human, something that could want things it shouldn't.

"The water's cold," she said, standing up.

"Elena—"

"Goodbye, Marcus."

She walked away without looking back. The fox was gone when she reached the gate. Some things, she decided, were better left uncaught.