What We Carried to the Water

The pool had gone green somewhere between Thursday and Saturday—a consequence of Elena's sudden departure and my complete inability to care for anything, including water chemistry. I floated on my back in the algae bloom at 2 AM, champagne glass tilted against my chest, feeling like something that should have been buried weeks ago.

That's when David found me.

"You look like a zombie," he said, not unkindly, climbing into the green water fully dressed. His white shirt turned transparent. "Has she called?"

"She sent me her spinach salad recipe," I said. "As if that's what I need. As if the problem was that I wasn't eating enough leafy greens."

David laughed, the first genuine sound I'd heard from either of us since the wedding was called off. "She always did think problems could be solved with proper nutrition. Remember when she brought that blender to the hospital?"

"She made kale smoothies for your mother," I said. "While the woman was literally dying."

"Bearing it," David said softly. "She was bearing it. In her own way."

We floated in silence. The algae smelled like childhood summers, like lake water and secrets. Above us, the moon rippled across the surface, distorted and perfect.

"I thought I'd feel something different," I said. "Like something would actually change."

"People don't change," David said. "They just get more efficient at being themselves."

"Is that what happened to Elena?"

"Is that what happened to us?"

He took my glass and drank the rest of the champagne. The water lapped against our shoulders. In the woods beyond the fence, something heavy moved through the undergrowth—a bear, probably, searching for garbage or something sweeter than what it could find in the dark.

"We should go inside," David said.

"In a minute."

"We have that meeting in the morning. The merger."

"Fuck the merger."

"Yeah," David said, and closed his eyes. "Fuck the merger."

We stayed until the sky began to gray, two things that refused to sink, floating in a pool that refused to be clear, bearing witness to each other's refusal to be anything other than exactly what we were.