The pool glows in the dark like a secret held too long.
It’s just after midnight. The storm’s long gone, leaving the air heavy with summer and want. Crickets hum in the hedges, a low symphony under the stillness. The stone patio is warm beneath Grace’s bare feet as she steps outside, the glass door sliding shut behind her with a soft click.
She doesn’t bring a towel.
Doesn’t bring a swimsuit either.
Her nightgown is gone, left draped across the bed like a flag of surrender. She wears only her skin now, bare and flushed, her pulse steady but loud in her ears. The moonlight silver-plates her collarbones, pools in her navel, paints her thighs in long blue shadows.
The pool calls to her—still, deep, bottomless—and she steps to the edge like an offering.
She dives.
The water swallows her
