Underwater Messages

The pool was empty at 2 AM — that's why Mara chose it. The water swallowed sound, leaving only the rhythmic slice of her arms through chlorinated stillness. She'd been swimming nightly for weeks, ever since she found the messages on David's iPhone.

She hadn't meant to look. But the device had buzzed during dinner, some cable news notification, and she'd seen it: a message from someone named Elena. *Can't wait to see you Friday.* Then another, weeks older: *Your wife suspects nothing. *

Now Mara pushed through another lap, the burn in her muscles a welcome distraction. Twenty years of marriage, reduced to glowing text on a screen she'd paid for.

Her phone sat on the pool deck, dark and silent. She'd stopped checking. What was the point? David was asleep in their bed, three floors up. He probably thought she was insomnia-swimming again. He'd bring her coffee in the morning, acting like the devoted husband, while she'd be calculating the cost of divorce lawyers.

She surfaced, gasping. The pool lights rippled below like trapped stars.

Mara thought about Elena — young, surely. The cable producer David had "mentored" last spring. The one who'd made them both laugh at that company party. Mara had even complimented her dress.

She tread water, floating in the liminal space betweenaction and inaction. The iPhone on deck was her tether to a life that no longer existed. The cable channels still droned in their living room, broadcasting a world that kept turning while hers dissolved.

Tomorrow she'd call a lawyer. Tonight, she let herself sink beneath the surface, holding her breath until the silence pressed against her eardrums, heavy and absolute. For a moment, drowning didn't seem like the worst thing that could happen.