The Weight of Water

Elena stood at the edge of the infinity pool, her silhouette cutting against the Los Angeles skyline. The water stretched toward nothing—just like her career, just like the three years she'd spent climbing a ladder that only seemed to descend into deeper loneliness.

She pulled the wide-brimmed hat lower, creating a portable twilight. Her iPhone burned against her palm, another notification lighting up the screen: another email from David. *I think we need to talk.* The subject line alone was enough to make her stomach churn, but it was the spinach stuck between her front teeth from lunch that truly undid her. She'd spent twenty minutes in the bathroom mirror trying to dislodge it, her reflection staring back with accusation.

"You look like you're plotting murder,"

Elena jumped. Marcus from accounting stood beside her, two drinks in hand. He was wearing the same forced smile she'd been perfecting since noon.

"Just thinking about jumping in," she said.

"The pool's heated."

"That's the problem."

Marcus's smile faltered. He set one drink on the edge of the pool—the glass sweated against the concrete. "You know what my ex-wife said when she left? She said I was like this pool. Beautiful to look at, but you couldn't dive deep. There was nothing underneath."

Elena turned to him really looked at him for the first time. Behind his eyes, something cracked open.

"My partner just sent me an email with that subject line," she said. "'We need to talk.' I've been staring at it for three hours, unable to open it, unable to delete it. I'm frozen, Marcus. I'm thirty-five years old and I've spent a decade becoming someone I don't recognize, and now I'm standing at my boss's house party with spinach in my teeth and a breakup notification in my pocket, and I can't remember the last time I felt anything real."

Marcus set down his drink. Without speaking, he removed his shoes, rolled up his trousers, and sat at the pool's edge, feet submerged.

"Come here," he said.

Elena hesitated, then joined him. The water was shockingly warm, almost uncomfortably so—like bathwater that had been sitting too long. They sat there, two strangers at the edge of everything, not speaking, while the party continued behind them in artificial bursts of laughter. For the first time all day, Elena didn't reach for her phone. She let her feet dangle in the heated water and breathed, surprised to discover that she still knew how.