The Poolside Exorcism

Mara sat at the edge of the apartment complex pool, legs dangling in the chlorinated water. Her iPhone lay face-down beside her towel, vibrating every three minutes with another message she couldn't bring herself to read.

"You're becoming a zombie," her therapist had said that morning. "Going through the motions, but nothing reaches you anymore."

She'd laughed it off—paid someone two hundred dollars to tell her she was numb. But here she was, thirty-five and hollowed out, watching the sun dip below the skyline in that particular shade of burnt orange that always made her think of endings.

The water lapped against her calves. She thought about last night—David in their bed, his back to her, the cold distance between them measurable in inches but infinite in feeling. They'd been together four years. Somewhere around year three, they'd both stopped pretending. They ate dinner together, watched Netflix, said I love you. But underneath, they were both just performing the gestures of living.

Her phone vibrated again. She picked it up. David's name on the screen.

"Are you coming home? I made dinner."

She stared at the message, then at her reflection in the pool's dark surface. The zombie thing wasn't quite right—zombies at least had drive. They wanted something, even if it was just brains. She wanted nothing.

The orange light was fading now, the sky going bruise-purple. She typed back: "I think I'm staying here a while longer."

Delete. Retype.

"I don't know if I'm coming home."

Send.

The phone slipped from her hand, hit the concrete with a crack, and slid straight into the pool. For a second she watched it sink, then pulled her legs from the water and stood up. The evening air was cooling against her skin. For the first time in months, something in her chest stirred.

Not hunger. Not hope. Just the faint, distant sensation that there might still be a difference between being alive and not.

She walked toward the parking lot without looking back.