The Pool Where We Drowned

The pool had been drained for winter, its bottom a cracked mosaic of blue tiles that had once gleamed like hope. Sarah stood at the edge, clutching her orange until her knuckles turned white—the fruit was the only bright thing in this gray landscape of suburban decay.

"You should wear the hat," Marcus had said, pressing the fedora into her hands three hours before the funeral. "It covers everything you don't want them to see."

She'd taken it. She always took whatever Marcus offered. That was the problem with loving your best friend—the kind of friend who touched your shoulder like a question mark, who made lightning flash behind your eyelids with every casual brush of fingers.

Now Marcus was gone, and Sarah stood at the edge of his empty pool, wearing his hat and holding an orange that was beginning to rot in her palm. The memorial service had ended hours ago. His wife had wept beautifully, appropriately. Sarah had sat in the back row, not crying at all, just feeling hollowed out by the realization that she'd spent fifteen years drowning in shallow water.

The storm was coming. Lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the pool's depths where shadows swam like old regrets. She remembered Marcus joking that they'd been friends too long to ruin it with anything else. The way he'd said "anything else" like it was a curse word.

Sarah peeled the orange, its juice sticky on her fingers, sharp and real. The hat slid back as she looked up at the dark sky, finally letting herself wonder: had Marcus been afraid of the lightning, or just of what it might reveal? She dropped the orange into the empty pool. It landed with a soft thud that echoed like the question she'd never asked.

The first raindrop hit her face. She didn't move. Some drownings happen in inches of water, and some storms are worth standing in.