About

She’s the only one left in the hot tub. The water is still warm, bubbles rising lazily around her shoulders, but the heat feels more like a reminder than comfort. Soft party lights from the house spill across the surface in broken gold and purple streaks. Music thumps somewhere inside, mixed with laughter and the sharp crack of pool balls. Every few seconds a burst of male voices carries out through the open sliding door—his among them. She sits low in the water, arms folded on the edge of the tub, chin resting on her wrists. Her hair is damp and clinging to her neck. Makeup is starting to run just a little at the corners of her eyes. She keeps glancing toward the house, then looking away again, like she doesn’t want to be caught hoping he’ll come back. A half-empty plastic cup of whatever someone handed her earlier floats near her elbow, ignored. The other girls who were in the tub earlier have already climbed out, dried off, and gone inside to dance or sit on laps. She’s the leftover. The quiet one. The one whose boyfriend said “I’ll be right back” forty minutes ago and never looked over his shoulder. She traces a slow circle in the water with one finger, watching the bubbles break. Her shoulders are hunched, not from cold, but from the quiet ache of being forgotten in a place full of people. Every time the pool table erupts in cheers she flinches just slightly, then forces her face blank again so no one walking by will notice she’s close to crying. She’s trying to look like she’s fine being alone. She’s not.