Electric Fruit

The lightning struck somewhere beyond the pool deck, illuminating Marcus's face in that familiar way—the way I'd fallen in love with twelve years ago, the way that now made my stomach hollow itself out.

"You're not listening," he said, pushing his half-eaten papaya around the plate with his fork. The fruit's orange flesh glistened under the restaurant's string lights, looking for all the world like a small, murdered sun.

"I am listening. I just disagree."

"We can't keep doing this. The kids, the mortgage, the—" His phone buzzed. A baseball score notification. Of course. "—the pretending like we're not both miserable."

I thought about last night, how I'd picked spinach from between his teeth after dinner, my fingers lingering on his lip like they used to when we were twenty-three and broke and staying awake until 4 AM talking about everything and nothing. That tenderness, that intimacy—it felt like archaeology now. Digging up something buried.

"You want a divorce," I said. Not a question.

Another flash of lightning. Closer this time. The couple at the next table flinched.

"I want to want you again," Marcus said quietly. "I don't know how to get there from here."

The waiter appeared, refilling our wine glasses with practiced cheerfulness, asking about dessert recommendations, completely unaware that our entire life was being dismantled two feet from his tray of chocolate lava cakes.

"Do you remember," I said, swirling my cabernet, "that time in college when we drove to the coast and the car broke down? We sat on the hood watching a storm come in over the ocean, and you said everything happens for a reason?"

Marcus smiled, just slightly. "I was an idiot."

"You were sweet."

"I was trying to get in your pants."

"It worked."

He looked at me then, really looked at me, and for a second the restaurant noise faded. The baseball game on the bar TV, the clinking silverware, the rain starting to patter against the canvas canopy.

"What if we stopped pretending?" I asked. "What if we started over? Not from the beginning. From here."

Marcus picked up his fork, took a bite of the papaya he'd been neglecting. Chewed slowly. Swallowed.

"From here," he repeated.

"From here."

The rain came harder then, warm and sudden, sending diners scrambling from the pool deck. But we stayed, watching the lightning arc across the dark sky, neither of us moving to leave.