Cable and Lightning

The hotel pool was empty at 2 AM, the water still as glass beneath the flickering neon lights. Elena sat at the edge, her legs submerged, the water cool against skin that felt too hot, too tight, like she'd outgrown herself somehow.

Her phone lay on the deck chair, screen cracked from where she'd thrown it across the room three hours ago. No signal. The storm outside had seen to that, and something else — something she couldn't quite name.

Lightning split the sky, a jagged white scar against the darkness. In its flash, she caught her reflection in the pool's surface: wild hair plastered to her forehead, mascara running down her cheeks like black tears. She looked like a stranger. She felt like one.

The television had died hours ago when the cable went out, taking with it the noise she'd been using to drown out the silence in her head. Now there was only the storm and the water and the terrible, perfect clarity that comes at 3 AM when you can no longer lie to yourself.

Her husband had stopped loving her months ago, maybe years. She'd known, of course. You always know. You just pretend not to because the alternative is waking up at 2 AM at a hotel pool in Charleston, South Carolina, wondering who you are without the life you built.

She pulled her legs from the water and stood, dripping. The pool lights flickered again. Lightning struck closer now, and for a second, everything was illuminated: the chaise lounges, the closed cabana bar, the "No Diving" sign she'd been ignoring for thirty-five years.

She reached for her hair, gathered it at the nape of her neck. Long enough to sit on, thick and dark and utterly familiar. It was the one thing about herself she'd never changed, not even in college when everyone else was chopping theirs off or bleaching it blonde. Her mother had loved her hair. Her husband had loved it.

She twisted it around her fingers once, twice. Then let it go.

The cable would come back in the morning. The storm would pass. She'd check out of this hotel and drive back to Atlanta and either have the conversation or continue not having it. But not tonight.

Lightning flashed again, and this time she didn't look away. She watched it strike, bright as truth, and for the first time in years, she saw everything clearly.