The weight of water

The first time Mara learned how heavy water could be, she was seven years old, standing barefoot at the edge of a swimming pool while her father counted softly behind her.

“Trust it,” he said. “It’ll hold you.”

She didn’t trust anything back then—not the water, not the sky when it darkened without warning, not the way her mother’s laughter sometimes disappeared mid-sentence like it had slipped through a crack in the floor. Still, she jumped, and the water swallowed her whole, pressed against her chest, her limbs, her thoughts. It wasn’t cruel. It was firm. Demanding. It reminded her that gravity existed everywhere, even beneath the surface.

Years later, Mara would think of that moment whenever it rained.

The letter arrived on a Thursday, the kind of day that didn’t feel important enough to change a life. It had been wedged into her mailbox between a grocery store flyer and a past-due notice she’d already memorized. The envelope was thin, unassuming, her name typed neatly across the front like it didn’t already know her.

She opened it in her kitchen, standing up, because sitting felt too vulnerable.

We regret to inform you…

She didn’t need to read the rest. Her eyes skimmed the words like stones skipping across water, never sinking deep enough to bruise. Another rejection. Another polite dismissal dressed up as encouragement. Another reminder that the life she wanted—the one where her words mattered—was apparently reserved for other people.

Mara folded the letter with surgical precision and slid it into the junk drawer, right next to expired batteries and a key she no longer remembered the lock for.

Outside, the sky growled.

Rain had always been honest with her. It never pretended to be anything else. It arrived when it wanted, took up space, made a mess, and left behind proof that it had been there. Mara respected that.

She grabbed her coat and keys and left the apartment before the rain could fully start, as if she could outrun it if she tried hard enough. The air was thick with that metallic smell—ozone and anticipation. The city felt suspended, like it was holding its breath.

She walked without direction, letting her feet decide. Past the café where she used to meet Jonah on Tuesdays. Past the bookstore that had once stocked her chapbook on a single, crooked shelf. Past the bus stop where she’d cried so hard one winter night that a stranger had offered her a scarf and no questions.

By the time the rain began, it didn’t feel sudden. It felt earned.

The drops were tentative at first, tapping her shoulders, her hair, her cheeks—testing. Then they came faster, heavier, until the sidewalk shimmered and the world blurred at the edges.

Mara didn’t run.

She tilted her face upward and let the rain soak her, like some small act of defiance against disappointment.

Jonah used to say she romanticized sadness.

“Not sadness,” she’d corrected. “Stillness.”

They’d argued about it once, sprawled on her living room floor, surrounded by notebooks and half-finished poems. Jonah believed in motion, in doing something about the ache. Mara believed in listening to it.

“You can’t just sit in it forever,” he’d said.

“I know,” she’d replied softly. “But sometimes it tells you things.”

He’d left three months later, citing reasons that sounded reasonable until she tried to live with them. He needed clarity. Momentum. A future that didn’t feel like it was waiting on a sentence to end.

She needed time.

The rain plastered her hair to her face now, and she laughed—once, sharp and surprised—at the memory of how carefully they’d loved each other, like the wrong word might shatter everything.

Maybe it had anyway.

She ended up at the river without realizing she was headed there. It curved through the city like a scar that never healed, reflecting the storm in fractured pieces. The water churned darkly, swollen with rain, carrying leaves, trash, secrets.

Mara leaned against the railing and watched it rush past.

She thought of all the versions of herself she’d been: the girl who jumped into pools without trusting the water, the teenager who wrote poems in the margins of textbooks, the woman who believed that if she just kept trying, something would eventually open.

The rain fell harder, drumming against metal and concrete, loud enough to drown out her thoughts. For a moment, she felt suspended between breaths, between choices.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She almost ignored it.

Almost.

The message was from an unfamiliar number.

Is this Mara Ellis? This is Lila from North Shore Literary. I know this is unexpected, but are you available to talk?

Her heart stuttered.

She read the message again. And again. The rain soaked through her coat, cold seeping into her bones, but she barely noticed.

Her fingers trembled as she typed back.

Yes.

The call came immediately.

Lila’s voice was warm, apologetic—so sorry for the delay, these things take time, your piece stayed with us. Mara clutched the railing with one hand, phone pressed to her ear, the city dissolving into sound and water.

“We’d like to offer publication,” Lila said. “If you’re still interested.”

Mara closed her eyes.

The rain roared.

She wanted to scream. To cry. To laugh until her ribs hurt. Instead, she whispered, “Yes,” like the word was fragile, like it might float away if she said it too loudly.

They talked logistics. Dates. Edits. The future, suddenly tangible. When the call ended, Mara stood there, drenched and shaking, staring at the river as if it had just spoken back.

The storm began to soften, the rain easing into a steadier rhythm. The city exhaled. Reflections bloomed on the pavement—neon signs, streetlights, fragments of lives continuing on.

Mara walked home slowly this time.

Inside her apartment, she peeled off her wet coat and set it over a chair. She made tea she forgot to drink. She opened her notebook, then closed it again. Some moments didn’t need to be captured. They needed to be felt.

She moved to the window instead.

Outside, the rain traced paths down the glass, intersecting and separating, merging and vanishing. Each drop followed gravity without hesitation, without apology.

Mara rested her forehead against the cool pane and watched the rain fall, really watched it—not as a metaphor, not as a burden, but as a reminder.

Water could be heavy.

But it could also carry you.

And for the first time in a long while, she let herself believe she would float.