Electric Currents

Maya watched the lightning fork across the Seattle skyline, each flash briefly illuminating her apartment's emptiness. Her iPhone glowed on the nightstand—three unread messages from David, all from last week. She hadn't opened them. Some things required more than text on a screen.

She felt like a zombie moving through her life lately—present but not quite alive, going through the motions of her job as a corporate attorney, swimming through endless documents and deposition transcripts while her marriage quietly dissolved around her. The divorce papers would arrive any day now.

Maya swallowed her daily vitamin with a glass of lukewarm water, ritual and medication both. Her doctor had recommended them, said she looked "drawn" during her annual physical. She'd laughed hollowly. Of course she looked drawn—her husband of seven years had moved out two months ago, citing irreconcilable differences, which was lawyer-speak for "I found someone who makes me feel something."

Another flash of lightning, closer this time. The storm was moving in. Maya's phone buzzed again—a call this time, David's name lighting up the screen. For the first time in weeks, she reached for it.

"I didn't think you'd answer," he said when she connected.

"Neither did I."

Silence stretched between them, charged and heavy. Outside, thunder rattled the windows.

"I'm not coming back, Maya. But I wanted you to know—I still think about you. Every day."

"That's not enough," she said, and realized with sudden clarity that it wasn't. Maybe it never had been.

"I know. I just... I wanted you to know."

She disconnected without responding, setting the phone on the nightstand. The vitamins had left a metallic taste in her mouth. But as lightning illuminated her room once more, Maya finally saw something beyond the ghost of her marriage—a future she hadn't yet imagined, but perhaps was ready to begin swimming toward.