Watermarks

The pool at the resort was empty at dawn, its surface a blue sheet catching the first light. Elena sat on the edge, legs in the water, watching her husband Marcus across the courtyard. He was already at the padel court, hitting serves against the backboard with that relentless precision she used to find reassuring. Now it just felt like another thing he'd calculated to perfection.

She'd been the sphinx in their marriage for twenty years—enigmatic, withholding, asking riddles she already knew the answers to. Marcus had stopped trying to solve her years ago. That was the problem with sphinxes: eventually, people just walked around them.

Her phone buzzed. Another text from David: *Still thinking about you.* Her chest tightened with that familiar mix of exhilaration and self-loathing. David was the bull in this particular china shop—crude, obvious, shattering everything she'd built without even trying. She'd met him at a conference. He'd told her she seemed lonely. The truth of it had knocked the wind out of her.

Marcus's padel ball went astray, bouncing toward her. He jogged over, shirt already damp with sweat.

"You're up early," he said, not looking at her eyes. "Everything okay?"

The question hung between them like smoke. She could tell him. She should tell him. Instead she said: "Just thinking."

He nodded, already turning away. "Join me for breakfast?"

"In a bit."

She watched him walk back to the court, his movements efficient and controlled. The water around her legs rippled in the gentle breeze. Tomorrow she would have to choose. Tomorrow she would have to stop being a riddle and start being an answer. But for now, she lowered herself into the pool, letting the water close over her head, holding her breath in the silence between who she was and who she was about to become.