Water Damage

The iPhone sat on the edge of the marble vanity, its screen cycling through photos of Sarah that Marco had forgotten to delete. Three years of relationship reduced to a digital slideshow he couldn't bring himself to end.

Outside, the Barcelona heat baked the resort's padel court where he'd left her playing with that man from the conference—what was his name? Adrian. The way Sarah had laughed at Adrian's jokes had struck something primal in Marco, something wounded and territorial that he'd thought he'd outgrown. Some bullish instinct he thought therapy had tamed.

He turned on the faucet, letting the water run cold over his hands. The mirror showed him a man he didn't quite recognize—thinning hair, expensive suit that suddenly felt like a costume, eyes that had seen too many hotel rooms like this one.

His phone buzzed. Sarah. "Coming back to the room? Adrian wants to grab drinks."

The invitation hung there like a weapon. He'd say yes, of course. He'd go, he'd smile, he'd watch her pretend not to notice how his hand lingered on her back, how he drank too much, how the evening would end with them in this same room, her asleep before her head hit the pillow, him staring at the ceiling until dawn.

Marco unplugged the iPhone from the charger. He remembered the moment he bought it—the day she moved in, they'd celebrated by upgrading their phones together, matching models in rose gold. A symbol of something new, something built to last.

He dropped it in the sink.

The water swallowed it instantly. The screen flickered once, displaying a final image—Sarah on a beach in Mallorca, hair windblown, smiling at him through the camera lens—then went dark.

Marco watched it sink beneath the running water. Some part of him expected to feel regret. Instead, he felt something like relief, clean and terrible as the water swirling around the device that held his entire marriage.

He turned off the faucet. The bathroom was silent now. He could hear them down at the padel court, the rhythmic thwack of racquets, Sarah's laughter carrying on the evening breeze.

Marco walked out of the room, leaving his phone behind him like a drowning thing, and went downstairs to order himself a drink.