The Weight of Empty Pockets

The chlorine stung my nose as I leaned against the pool railing, nursing a drink that was mostly melted ice. Below me, the corporate retreat's favorite employees splashed and laughed, their synchronised enthusiasm repelling even the desert heat. I'd been excluded from the volleyball game — again — and found myself wondering if anyone would notice if I just walked into the scrub and let the coyotes have me.

That's when Elena found me. She pressed a cold bottle of beer into my palm, her fingers lingering. "You look like you're plotting something catastrophic," she said, and I realised with a jolt that she knew me better than my wife did.

"Just thinking about the baseball tournament," I lied. "Back in '08. State championship. I dropped the catch that cost us everything."

Elena's laugh was dry and intimate. "We've all got those. Mine involved a polar bear, a vodka bottle, and a very poor decision in Svalbard."

I turned to look at her really. Elena from accounting, who I'd exchanged maybe twenty words with before tonight. Her mascara had smudged beneath one eye, making her look simultaneously fragile and dangerous. The corporate banner overhead billowed, bearing the company slogan about LIMITLESS HORIZONS, and something in my chest cracked.

"What if we just left?" I said, surprised by my own voice. "Right now. Just walked out and bore whatever comes next."

Elena's gaze held mine for a long moment. In the background, someone screamed as they were thrown into the pool. The corporate VP was doing body shots off the diving board. The rented palm trees swayed in the wind, fake as everything else here.

"I've got a car," she said quietly. "And a cabin in Tahoe. No cell service. Just — whatever this is."

I looked at the beer in my hand, then at the artificial paradise below, and finally at the woman who'd just offered me an exit hatch from a life I'd stopped living years ago. The choice wasn't hard at all. Some dropped catches are the ones that save you.