The Weight of Drying Off

She stood by the ocean's edge at 2 AM, fully dressed in her work blazer and slacks, the salt spray already beginning to stiffen the fabric. The **water** lapped at her ankles, shockingly cold against her skin—a sensation she'd been numb to for months, since before David moved out, since before the promotion that required her soul as collateral.

Her **iPhone** buzzed in her pocket again. Probably him, or maybe her boss with another "emergency" that could wait until daylight. She pulled it out, screen glowing ghostlike against the darkness, and watched as a text from David materialized: "I left the dog. Can't take him to the new place."

She dropped the phone in the sand. Not dramatically—she just let it slip from her fingers, as if her hand had simply forgotten its purpose.

**Buster** sat on the dry sand beyond the tide line, their aging golden retriever, watching her with that patient look dogs develop when they've absorbed enough human grief to become ancient souls. He'd been David's idea, a consolation prize when she lost the baby, then the shared responsibility when they both worked too much, then finally hers alone when the marriage dissolved under the weight of unsaid things.

She waded deeper, fully clothed, until the **water** reached her waist. The ocean didn't care about her quarterly projections or her empty matching closet or the way her mother asked about grandchildren at every Sunday dinner. It just moved, indifferent and eternal.

Her palm pressed against her chest, feeling the frantic rhythm of her heart against wet fabric. When was the last time she'd truly felt anything? The promotion ceremony? The argument where David finally stopped pretending they could fix it? Or sometime before that, when possibility still felt like something that happened to people like her?

**Buster** whined from the shore, a sound that cracked something open inside her chest.

She waded back toward him, salt-heavy and shivering, and sank into the sand beside his warm weight. His head found her lap, and she buried her fingers in his fur, feeling the steady rhythm of his breathing against her thigh.

"Just us now," she whispered to the dark ocean. "Just us."

The **iPhone** lay abandoned in the sand, its screen dark. For the first time in years, she didn't check it. She just sat with her dog as the tide came in, feeling the salt dry on her skin, feeling something like hope begin to flicker in the hollow spaces where grief had lived.