They were at the beach together, a day away from work and chores and expectations, a day he thought was just for them, when she told him the truth.

They were sitting right where the waves rolled in, touching their feet. She told him that she was leaving him. That it was over. That she needed to move on.

The breath went out of him. His bones melted and he found himself staring at a blue sky briefly, sporadically, punctured with white clouds. He heard her get up and walk away. He didn't look.

She came back to tell him he was leaving. She came back to tell him he would have to get a cab home if he didn't go with her now. She came back to tell him he was being ridiculous and that he knew this was coming.

The sky darkened. The kids who had been running around him, jumping over him, the kids whose parents had been yelling at them and slathering sun lotion on them, had left for showers and an early bed.

The waves had been slowly crawling up the beach. They had moved pass his feet, to his knees, to his waist. Each time they came in he felt his body lift. He felt his body slide further out. As the moon slid into the edge of his vision the waves came in, ran around the crown of his head, carried him out to sea.

He didn't fight the water. The waves would wash over him, push him down, and he was happy. He did not drown. His body would always, somehow, fight back to the surface and he would float on. He caught a current and was pulled further in.

The stars moved and the ocean calmed. The moon rose above him to look down upon him until, in apathy or disdain or a humorless sympathy, the moon moved on, too.

He did not open his mouth. He did not close his eyes. He drifted. The sun rose again. As the day went on he felt himself burning. His eyes watered and he did not know if he was crying. The sun fell and the chill from the heat stroke set in. He shivered until his muscles clenched into stones.

A shark came. He felt the water move beneath him. He felt the presence next to him. The shark bit his ankle. He did not cry out. Not liking the taste of this hard, burnt meat, the shark left, leaving his foot to move away from him. The salt from the sea stung him. Somehow he managed to float on.

Nights and days passed like this. The stars slowly changed position in the sky. He did not sleep. He fell further into himself, felt himself move away from his eyes, felt his entire being shrink into what had been his heart. His hours were spent inside that muscle. His minutes were spent being the pumping, the thudding, the pressure that would not allow him to die.

He drifted, not drinking or eating. Rains would fall and though his mouth was dry, cracked, and not open the water would heal them. The drops would slide through his lips to collect into his throat.