What Remains in the Water

The water feels sterile, artificial, but I can't stop circling the hotel pool's edge. My phone sits on a lounge chair, screen lighting up every few minutes with messages I've stopped reading. The orange swimsuit I bought on impulse yesterday feels too bright against the muted blue tiles—a burst of color I'm not sure I feel anymore.

A cat watches me from behind a potted palm, tail twitching with what I imagine is judgment. It's probably waiting for the goldfish in the lobby fountain, though I haven't seen it catch anything in the three days I've been hiding here at this conference I'm barely attending.

"Elena." The voice behind me is familiar and unwelcome. Richard's.

I turn to find him standing poolside, his shirt already unbuttoned at the collar. The same Richard who spent last night's mixer explaining why his wife "doesn't understand him." The same Richard whose hand lingered too long on my elbow when he mentioned he's staying on the fourth floor too.

"I thought you had a session," I say, not quite meeting his eyes.

"Skipped it." He steps closer. "Thought you might want company."

The cat abandons its post, padding toward the glass doors where the lobby goldfish drifts in endless circles. I watch it go, feeling a sudden kinship with the fish—trapped, visible, waiting for something that never comes.

"You've been avoiding everyone," Richard says, voice dropping to something he probably thinks is intimate. "I understand. Sometimes you need to disappear."

"Sometimes." I edge toward my towel, toward my phone. The messages are still coming—Marcus, my husband, asking where I am, what's wrong, why I'm not answering. The last one arrived five minutes ago: *I know about Richard.*

The water ripples as Richard's shadow falls over me. "We could get dinner. Just us."

I think about the cat watching from the palms, about the goldfish circling its tiny prison, about the three days of emails from Marcus asking if I'm okay, if the conference is going well, if I need anything. I think about the room number Richard mentioned, the way his hand felt on my arm, the orange of my swimsuit that suddenly feels like a warning flare I set off myself.

"No," I say, and the word feels like breaking the surface after holding my breath too long. "No, Richard."

His face shifts—surprise, then something uglier. I grab my phone, my keycard, and don't look back at the water or the cat or whatever moment I almost let happen. The messages from Marcus continue as I walk toward the elevators, but it's the unsent ones in my own mind that suddenly feel most dangerous of all.