Electric Pool at the Motel 6

The pool at the Motel 6 was supposed to be heated, but Elena dipped her foot in and found it cold as the December rain sheeting down outside. She'd been running for three days now — first from the disastrous Thanksgiving dinner where David had finally said those words he'd been holding back for seven years, then from the empty house they'd shared, and now, apparently, from herself.

"Should've turned back," she muttered, watching lightning fracture the sky beyond the pool cage. Each flash turned the water electric blue, casting weird shadows that danced like memories she couldn't quite shake.

David had always loved storms. He'd drag her to the porch to watch the lightning strike, arm around her shoulders, talking about how the whole world could change in a second. That was before he'd decided their whole world needed changing. Before he'd dropped I think we need to take a break between slices of pumpkin pie and her mother's stunned silence.

Her phone buzzed again on the plastic table. David, for the thirtieth time. She'd stopped reading the messages after 'please just tell me where you are.' What was there to say? That she'd driven five hours in the wrong direction just to sit at a motel pool in the pouring rain?

A heavy crash of thunder made her jump, and she laughed — a dry, broken sound. The running had stopped eventually. You always had to stop running. The question was what waited when you did.

The pool lights flickered, then died. In the sudden darkness, another lightning bolt illuminated everything: the water's glassy surface, the rusted chair where she sat, her own terrified expression reflected in the glass door of room 117.

She pulled the phone from her pocket, thumbed it awake, and finally typed the words that had been clawing at her throat since Thursday.

I'm at the Motel 6 off Exit 42. Come get me.

Three seconds later: On my way.

Elena watched the rain hammer the pool's surface, creating concentric circles that kept colliding and merging and disappearing, over and over, until the next lightning strike turned the world briefly, beautifully blue.