Tropical Depression

The papaya sat untouched on my plate, its orange flesh glistening with morning dew. Team-building retreat, they'd called it. A week in Mexico to process the layoffs. The papaya was too ripe, too sweet—like the lies Marcus had fed me for six months.

I pushed the plate away and walked to the pool. No one was swimming yet. The water stretched blue and inviting, a mirror reflecting a sky that refused to acknowledge the gathering storm clouds. I'd spent three decades avoiding risk, choosing stability over desire, and where had it landed me? Alone at forty-two, watching my department get gutted while the man who'd promised me forever returned to his wife.

The screen door slid open behind me.

"Elena."

His voice still did things to me. I turned. Marcus stood there, his hair—once meticulously groomed—now rumpled from sleep. He looked tired. He looked married.

"We should talk," he said.

I laughed, and it sounded brittle even to myself. "About what? The project? The quarterly reports?"

"About us."

"There is no us. There never was. You're a fox who found a henhouse, Marcus. I'm just embarrassed it took me this long to see through the charm."

He flinched. Good.

"It wasn't like that—"

"It was exactly like that." I stepped closer. "You know what I'm going to do when I get back? I'm dyeing my hair. I've been this safe mousy brown since grad school. I'm thinking orange. Not subtle. Not safe. Orange, like I've been living inside someone else's life."

The first raindrop fell between us.

"You're swimming upstream, Elena. This isn't you."

"You don't know me," I said softly. "You never did."

I walked past him into the gathering storm, letting the rain soak through my blouse. Behind me, the pool's surface rippled in the wind. I'd been drowning in shallow water for half my life. It was time, finally, to learn how to swim.