The Weight of Water

The hotel pool was empty at 2 AM, which was exactly what Marcus needed. He'd left the room because Elena was sleeping in that curled way she had—knees to chest, like a dog protecting something tender—and he couldn't bear watching her anymore without touching her.

He slipped into the water fully clothed. The pool lights were off, but lightning kept fracturing the sky beyond the glass walls, turning everything strobe-lit and strange. He floated on his back, shirt plastered to his chest, and watched the storm through the ceiling-high windows.

Three months ago, in this same city, at a conference where neither of them wanted to be, they'd ended up in the pool at midnight too. Then, she'd laughed as she pulled him in by his tie. Then, they were both married to other people. Then, everything had seemed reversible.

Now she was divorced. He wasn't.

"You're living in the aftermath," she'd told him that evening, her finger tracing something on his back. He'd thought she was being playful until she said it: the bear. The constellation she'd drawn on his skin earlier, inked during some drunken weekend in Tahoe. The Great Bear, heavy in the sky above them even when they couldn't see it.

Some things you carry whether you want to or not.

The lightning flashed again, closer now, and the water seemed to hum with it. Marcus sank beneath the surface, held his breath until his lungs burned. It would be so easy to just stay under. Not to die, but to let the silence make the decision for him.

He broke the surface gasping. Elena was standing at the pool's edge, barefoot in her white dress, watching him through the rain-streaked glass.

The water had never felt heavier.