The Water is Fine

Warning: This story contains strong language, and themes and mentions of childhood trauma, mental health, physical and sexual abuse, and self-harm and suicide.

Georgia stared at the river. The water was high now, swollen from weeks of rain. She remembered it dry last summer, cracked and lifeless, when she first moved here.

It was calm, unmoving, impossibly still. Rivers flow. They cannot be still. Yet here it was: a dream caught before it wakes.

Everything changed that summer. Ending a relationship, relocating, a new career. She told everyone she needed the job, but did the way she avoided eye contact suggest she was hiding something? What was she escaping, and why was she running?

She had no one in the city. Her parents had passed, her stepfather was isolated in the suburbs with his new wife, and the man she once called hers had abandoned her. The future she dreamed of with the guy she loved vanished when she realized he was not dreaming with her.

Picnic tables lined the opposite river bank, and women chatted while spreading out their pies and the delightful smell of homemade sandwiches. Children ran, kites held high, casting them into the air as they yelled, their screams of joy turning to complaints when their kites hit the ground.

Always the watcher, Georgia thought, never the participant. She questioned if she had lived her life as though it was a play, watching rather than participating. Always deciding on paths that seemed predetermined. Was she a puppet, dancing on strings in this grand, absurd play she called life? Assuming she was, who was orchestrating her every move?

Surely it wasn’t her stepfather, not in this scenario. And it certainly wasn’t her ex-boyfriend who ended the relationship because he didn’t love her. It wasn’t a matter of anymore. His love hadn’t faded; it just didn’t exist. She would have understood, even if it meant her world would crumble, if he had said he didn’t love her anymore. But this—this shattered her into a million pieces, leaving a hollow ache in her chest.

“If I were him, I wouldn’t love me either,” Georgia had whispered, the words escaping her lips like a fragile breath before she wept herself to sleep.

She still blamed herself, months after the breakup, for not recognizing her lack of capacity to be loved. She should have known. Despite being perpetually surrounded by friends and ensuring they felt valued, she experienced a lifelong sense of isolation. That might have been a sign of how little love she deserved. She failed to see it then. Then her boyfriend, whom she had been with for seventeen years, confessed that he didn’t love her. Casually. Nonchalantly.

“I do not love you. I feel things, but it’s not love, as I see it. Where is this even coming from?”

She couldn’t pinpoint the origin of her profound unspoken loneliness. Though her therapist suggested she delve into her past, she refused. That was the last thing she wanted to do. With a broken heart, an empty chest, and a new job to start, she had a lot to deal with.

The air was thin, and she felt as if she was drowning in it.

She accepted her manager’s suggestion to lead the new village offices, though regret washed over her instantly.

While packing, she paused, the refusal of the position suddenly clear in her mind. Quitting perhaps was also an option. But how would that be helpful? It would only prove to all that she could not decide anything herself. It is worse to change your mind after agreeing than to simply refuse.

Sometimes, when she woke in the middle of the night, she reached for her phone. No messages. Of course not.

The day she left, she’d texted her ex about the new position. His reply: Cool. I hope you find something beautiful in the village. Good luck.

She’d reread that stupid message a hundred times, trying to decode it. Cool—his filler word, meaningless. Beautiful—as in what? A view? A person? Herself? And good luck—the same words he used when he broke up with her. Good luck in your life. Translation: You’re on your own now.

He’d never been responsible for her, yet he’d always taken care of her—quietly, automatically. Turning on the thermostat before she got home. Hanging her keys by the door after she had tossed them somewhere. Replacing bulbs before they went dark. Tiny acts that made her life softer, easier.

But apparently, they were not acts of love.

The thought pulled at her like water.

He once told her, almost gently, “I don’t really do love. I think we’re on the same page. We never say I love you like some silly couple. Saying it isn’t the point, right?”

And she believed him. Believed that love could live unspoken, that comfort was enough. But comfort was never love—it was only the absence of pain.

Her legs trembled as she struggled to understand his words, her mind a blank canvas. For seventeen years, they were a couple, until he ended things just before her forty-second birthday. He didn’t love her, and the realization brought a chill. Everything was a blur, devoid of any logic.

The river lay silent, yet it seemed to whisper her name. She stepped on the rough rocks, carefully maneuvering to avoid the slick mud, a testament to the endless rain of the previous days. The water level was unexpectedly high. The villagers claimed that the water level hadn’t reached this height since 1956. That year, poor twelve-year-old Victoria fell into the river with a splash, and no one ever saw her alive again.

As Georgia stood near the water, she thought, “Good luck,” and the words seemed to hang in the air. One more step, and she’d feel the river’s current against her legs. A few more steps, and she’d be swept away by the cold water. But the river here was stagnant and did not move. Her name was the only sound coming from it, reverberating in the stillness. A faint, echoing voice that seemed to originate from beneath the water and from a long time ago.

She used to love to swim, the feeling of the water against her skin. As a child, she and her mom would visit the sea every weekend, splashing and playing together, rain or shine. Like a precious heirloom, her mother’s love for the sea was given to her daughter. However, life changed when her stepfather became part of the family.

Across the water, a kite was struggling, and the children’s shouts filled the air as they desperately tried to save it from the river.

“Hey! Don’t step into the river,” a mother yelled from her picnic table, her voice filled with concern.

Georgia turned her gaze to the still water. It was incredibly high. Yet everything was tranquil, the quiet broken only by the occasional laughter of the children. Still as a picture, like a river that’s been frozen in time. Georgia thought that, in the unlikely event of a child falling into the river, it would be easy to save it. It seemed as dangerous as a swimming pool. Deep but still. The paradox of the still river water didn’t enter her thoughts. Her breathing was rapid, yet it didn’t seem out of the ordinary either. Ordinary, like the voice that echoed from the river and within her thoughts. Perhaps ordinary people don’t spend seventeen years with a person who suddenly claims the relationship is loveless.

They never uttered the words “I love you,” their silence speaking volumes.

Georgia had never expressed those words to anyone, but their meaning resonated strongly within her when she was with him.

When she came home to his smile, when his arm lay across her in the dark, and when she read his silly texts at work, she found temporary refuge. She had confused that with love. And then she falsely thought he felt it, too. How could she be so clueless?

The river’s calmness brought back memories of her mother and winter swims in the sea. Oh, how she longed for a winter swim. The thought, which she had long abandoned after she stopped swimming with her mom, now crept back, settling deep within her mind.

Swimming ended when her stepfather became part of the family. Meanwhile, unexplained bruises began to appear on her mother, in areas that were not visible. Yet, Georgia noticed the marks at home. Under her arm if she wore a spaghetti strap, and on her inner thigh when she wore shorts. Sometimes bruises appeared in places no eyes reached, but even as a little girl, she knew they existed by the way her mother flinched every time someone accidentally touched her there. Her ribs, the small of her back… hidden places. By the time Georgia was nine years old, her mother had covered all her bruises beneath long sleeves and pants, hiding secrets along with them. A month before her sixteenth birthday, her mother took her own life. After that, Georgia’s skin started displaying mysterious bruises in places that were hidden from view.

Georgia’s first romance involved a man who was thirteen years her senior. She was almost seventeen. He was married with a daughter he cherished; a daughter who was the sole reason he remained with his wife. Or so he said.

Unlike the man she had been with for what seemed like a lifetime, who never married her, this married man claimed to love her deeply. He’d wake up from a wet dream and then he’d fuck his wife in her sleep, imagining it was Georgia.

Could any of that be love? A thoughtful expression crossed Georgia’s face as she wondered. Could that have been the only love she’d ever experience? The kind where love manifested as bruises in places unseen. Or as someone who wouldn’t commit but would think of you while fucking other people. Was he thinking about his wife as he fucked a teenaged Georgia? Is it now more disturbing to consider, or was it always strange, but she failed to notice it?

Perhaps love had always been this way. Bizarre. Irrational. Devoid of meaning.

Her ex was not in love with her, yet he still chose to live with her. Could she have genuinely confused simple acts of kindness for something deeper, like love? How could she not see their relationship for what it was? Fleeting. Ephemeral. Temporarily beautiful. A concept, perhaps. A thing that stretched out over almost two decades. How could she have been so incredibly foolish?

What exactly is love? Is it what men have taught her all her life? Or was it the absence of men? Being with the married man, who professed love, made her feel less loved than when she was with her ex, who didn’t love her at all. Now that she was isolated in the village with no companions and nobody to embrace, she felt even more unloved than living with her stepfather.

She started therapy, but it wasn’t the warmth and affection of love that she desired. Since she doesn’t know what love is anymore (if she ever did) she must learn to love herself, a concept shrouded in uncertainty.

Didn’t she already have self-love? The therapist’s words hung in the air, and Georgia asked herself painfully, the weight of the realization settling upon her. She dwelled on that single idea for countless days and sleepless nights, eventually coming to the nasty conclusion that she hated herself. The bitter truth dawned: if she couldn’t love herself, her heart knew that no one else could.

She supposed it was no surprise that her ex didn’t love her, considering everything. She bet he’d already found someone new, someone who radiated the warmth and charm that Georgia never could. Compared to Georgia, everyone in the world seemed more endearing. Even the inept kids struggling with their kites were more lovable than Georgia.

She couldn’t blame her ex now, could she?

The colors of the sky were reflected in the water as she watched it; the water was motionless. The children’s yelling had ceased. Had they left? Her gaze swept the area, and she found them; their kite was on the ground, and they stood still, frozen in a pose that implied recent activity. They were transformed into colorful sculptures depicting children in motion. The air was still, heavy with the weight of silence. For a fleeting moment, the world seemed to hold its breath. Or maybe her sanity was slipping away into the void. To her, both scenarios sounded like they were ripped straight from a nightmare. An eternity in a place devoid of love, or a slow descent into madness. If she could choose, which ruin would she prefer?

The river whispered again. She stepped forward. Water rose past her knees, tugging at her legs, but it seemed frozen, suspended, a mirror of her own life. Breath rushed into her chest. Across the river, time seemed to pause. The children hung mid-run, kites frozen in the air. Silence sculpted in space.

Her thoughts swirled. How could she have been so blind? So desperate for love that she accepted comfort for truth? She thought of the bruises she saw on her mother, the hidden marks on herself, the pattern of abuse in her relationships passed down like a shadow. How could she mistake kindness for devotion, absence for affection?

The river called again. She moved, foot by foot. Liquid hands tugged at her. They enveloped her body like a hug she longed for. Cold, like an inevitable goodbye kiss. She closed her eyes and let go.

Suddenly, the water moved. No longer still. Fast, urgent, pulling her downstream. She hit a rock; blood stained the foam red, and she reckoned it didn’t hurt like love did. She inhaled water and coughed, gasped for air that wasn’t there. The children screamed from the bank. Mothers shouted. The world stopped spinning, and the seconds turned into hours.

The water pulled at her like thoughts.

What are they fussing about? She thought. The water is fine.