Tropical Depression

The infinity pool stretched toward the horizon, a mirror of the blue sky they'd both stopped noticing three days ago. Elena sat on the edge, legs submerged in the chlorinated water, watching a small papaya float abandoned near the drain—someone's breakfast, now bloated and softening in the sun.

"You're going to miss your flight," Mark said, not looking up from his phone. His orange polo shirt had faded from too many washes, like everything between them.

Elena watched a golden retriever bound across the resort courtyard, chasing a ball thrown by a laughing family. The dog's joy was almost violent in its purity. Six months ago, they would've made predictions about what kind of dog they'd get. Now, the sight of it just made her chest ache.

"The clinic called," she said, her voice flat. "They want us to come in for another follow-up."

Mark finally looked at her, his expression unreadable behind sunglasses. "We promised ourselves we wouldn't do this anymore. Not here."

"Not here?" She laughed bitterly. "You're the one who booked this non-refundable trip to paradise. What did you think would happen? That we'd suddenly become those people?" She gestured toward the family with the dog, now packing up their beach things. "That we'd forget everything in a blur of piña coladas and infertility treatments?"

The papaya had split open in the water, its seeds spilling out like something alive.

"I wanted us to have something good," Mark said quietly. "Just once."

Elena stood up, water dripping from her legs. "We had something good. Then we spent three years and forty thousand dollars trying to turn it into something else, and now we're here, watching other people live the life we were supposed to have."

She started walking back to their bungalow, leaving him sitting by the pool with his orange shirt and his phone and their careful, controlled grief.