Electric Fruit at Midnight

The hotel pool lay still as glass, reflecting none of the tension between them. Elena sat at the edge, legs submerged to the calves, while Marcus paced the deck with his iPhone glowing like a cigarette that wouldn't die.

"She's calling again," he said, not really asking.

"Let her call."

They'd come to this Mexican resort to fix what fifteen years of marriage had quietly dismantled. Instead, they'd spent three days in separate beds, watching lightning split the sky beyond the balcony, each flash illuminating what they refused to say aloud.

The server appeared with their dessert—papaya sprinkled with lime, glistening wetly in the humidity. Elena picked up her fork, the metal cool against her fingers.

"Remember our honeymoon?" she asked quietly. "How we said we'd never become those people who stared at screens instead of each other?"

Marcus glanced at his phone, then shoved it in his pocket. "I'm closing the deal, El. This is our future."

"What if I don't want that future anymore?"

The words hung between them, heavier than the humid air. A storm had been brewing offshore for days, and now the first raindrops began to fall, sizzling where they hit the pool's surface.

"What are you saying?" Marcus asked, his voice cracking.

Lightning cracked closer, and in its stark white flash, Elena saw him clearly—exhausted, frightened, the same man she'd fallen for at twenty-two, before ambition carved hollows in his eyes. She took a bite of papaya, sweet and strange on her tongue.

"I'm saying that maybe we're already divorced," she said. "We just haven't filed the papers yet."

The sky opened. Rain sheeted down, drenching them both, and Marcus didn't move toward her. He just reached for his iPhone, already vibrating with another call, and that's when Elena knew—the lightning hadn't struck them; it had only shown her what was already burned to the ground.