Dead Man Walking

Mara moved through her days like a zombie, not the rotting-flesh kind from movies, but the worse kind—alive inside, dead to everything else. The divorce had hollowed her out completely.

Then came the night of the lightning storm.

She was walking past the community center when she saw him through the glass doors—her ex-husband, Ben, in the pool alone. He'd been the one who wanted out, claimed he'd fallen out of love, but watching him now, swimming lap after lap in the empty pool at midnight, she saw something she'd missed during their long, slow decline. He wasn't swimming for exercise. He was swimming to escape.

Their golden retriever, Buster, had been his dog originally—Ben's present to himself when he'd made partner at the firm. When he moved out, he'd left Buster behind, claiming his new apartment didn't allow pets. The dog had been waiting by the door every night since.

Mara pushed open the door to the pool area. The smell of chlorine hit her like their honeymoon in Mexico, before the promotions and the mortgage and the gradual, silent drift toward separate beds. Ben stopped mid-stroke, catching sight of her.

"You look like hell," he said, treading water.

"So do you."

Lightning illuminated the vast darkness of the room through the skylights. In that flash, she saw him clearly—really saw him—for the first time in years. He wasn't a villain who'd destroyed their marriage. He was just another broken person who'd broken her accidentally, the way you step on something precious in the dark.

"I miss Buster," he said quietly.

"He sleeps in your spot on the bed now."

Ben laughed, short and sharp. "Good. That's where he belongs."

Mara realized in that moment that she didn't want him back. What she wanted was to stop feeling like she'd died with their marriage. She wanted to stop haunting her own life.

"I'm selling the house," she said. "Starting over."

Ben nodded slowly. "You were always the strong one."

Mara walked out into the storm, lightning cracking the sky open above her. For the first time in months, she didn't feel dead. She felt something new beginning, something terrifying and electric and entirely her own.