The Pool Where We Drowned

The iPhone lay on the poolside table, its screen lighting up every few minutes with messages I couldn't bring myself to answer. Mark's name kept appearing, each notification like a small stone dropped into still water.

I'd been swimming laps for hours, my body moving through the chlorine-scented water with the rhythmic precision I'd mastered since childhood. Back and forth, turning at the walls, the underwater silence a welcome reprieve from the chaos of my inbox, from the presentation I'd failed to deliver yesterday, from the way Mark had looked at me across the dinner table last night.

The cat—a ragged calico that belonged to the apartment complex—sat on one of the lounge chairs, watching me with an assessing gaze. She'd been showing up every evening for weeks, as if she sensed something was unraveling in my life.

"You're better at this than I am," I told her, pulling myself from the water. Water streamed from my hair as I reached for my towel. "At least you don't pretend to have it all figured out."

My phone buzzed again. Not Mark this time—my brother. "Did you hear? They're tearing down the old baseball field next week."

The words hit me harder than they should have. That field where Dad had taught me to swing, where Mark and I had shared our first kiss during a summer game in our twenties, where I'd sat just last month watching kids play and wondering when exactly I'd stopped knowing who I was.

The cat meowed, jumped down, and wound around my legs. Her fur was warm against my wet skin.

"Yeah," I said, picking up my phone. "I heard."

I called Mark back. The phone rang three times before he answered.

"I was thinking about the baseball field," I said without greeting. "They're tearing it down."

"I know," he said. "I was thinking about it too. That night we—"

"I know," I interrupted. "I was thinking maybe we should go see it. One last time. Before it's gone."

"Tonight?"

"Tonight."

The cat watched as I gathered my things. Something in the air had shifted—the water, the messages, the field, the years between who we were and who we'd become. Sometimes the only way forward is back to where you started, even if everything has changed.

I didn't know if Mark and I would make it. But I knew we had to try.