All Our Exposed Wires

Mara traced the lifeline on Diego's palm, the same way she had done a thousand times before. But tonight, in the sterile silence of their rented condo in Puerto Vallarta, the gesture felt rehearsed. Empty.

"You took your vitamin?" she asked, not looking up from where she twined her fingers with his.

Diego pulled his hand away. "Every morning for three years, Mara. You know I have."

The fertility supplements sat on the nightstand between them—two neat rows of amber bottles, a silent witness to what they'd become. Not lovers anymore, certainly. Co-conspirators in a biological hostage situation, maybe.

Outside the sliding glass doors, palm fronds whipped against the wind. The storm had been building for hours, but neither of them had moved to close the drapes.

"The cable's out," Diego said, nodding toward the black TV screen. "No distraction tonight."

"Is that what we need?" Mara heard the bitterness in her voice, couldn't stop it. "Distractions?"

He stood up, pacing the small room. "We need something. Because this—" he gestured between them "—this isn't working. The treatments. The tracking. The scheduled sex. We're not living, Mara. We're waiting."

Lightning split the sky, illuminating his face—exhausted, beautiful, unreachable. In that flash, she saw the version of him she'd fallen in love with at twenty-four, before the want had curdled into obsession.

"I saw Dr. Chen's chart," Diego said quietly. "She thinks we should stop trying. Consider... other options."

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.

"Other options," Mara repeated. "That's what we're calling it now?"

"I'm tired, Mara."

She reached for his hand again, but he stepped away. Another flash of lightning revealed the tears on his cheeks. In the storm's sudden brilliance, everything was exposed—their exhaustion, their failures, the way they'd hollowed themselves out pursuing something that might never happen.

"Maybe," she whispered, "we should let it break."

The thunder came three seconds later, shaking the floor beneath them. Some things, she realized, had to shatter before they could be rebuilt. Maybe they were one of them.