Tidal Pools

Elena sat on the balcony of the AirBnb, staring at the black **water** of the Mediterranean. The **iphone** in her hand glowed with another notification from David: 'Just landed. See you tomorrow.' She'd left her husband three days ago, but somehow they were still meeting for dinner.

She swallowed a **vitamin** D pill with warm champagne — supplements for a soul that had forgotten how to absorb light naturally. At 42, she'd discovered she wasn't just a corporate lawyer who enjoyed spin classes. She was also a woman whose husband had been **spy**ing on her for years.

Not the sexy kind. The pathetic kind.

It had started with a few too many coincidences. David knowing things she'd only told her therapist. Quoting emails she'd never forwarded. Then she'd found the app on his tablet — the same app parents used to track teenagers, now turned on her. Location, calls, texts. All laid out in neat graphs.

He'd called it 'safety.' She'd called it a prison sentence she hadn't known she was serving.

The Ethernet **cable** from the router dangled through the balcony door, swaying in the salt breeze. The only reason she had any signal at all.

'Toxic relationship checklist,' her therapist had said during their last session. 'Does he monitor your whereabouts? Make you feel like you can't be trusted?'

Elena had laughed. 'He's an analyst. Monitoring is what he does.'

'You're not a dataset, El.'

Now she sat alone in Croatia, watching the moonlight break across the dark surface below. Tomorrow she'd see David for the first time since she'd walked out. He'd probably bring her favorite chocolates. Apologize again. Promise therapy.

She finished her champagne, imagining David watching her location pin on some map back home. Wondering if he knew she was thinking about never returning.

The water whispered against the shore, indifferent to the tiny dramas of humans with their tracking apps and their carefully constructed betrayals. Elena stood up, turned off her phone, and went inside. Some things, she decided, deserved to remain unmonitored.