Electric Weather

The fedora lay on the passenger seat like a dead animal, its felt crushed where Marcus had gripped it during the argument. Elena hadn't meant to throw it at him. She hadn't meant a lot of things lately.

She parked outside their—his—building and watched the third-floor windows. That's when she saw it: a flash of movement behind the curtains, someone pulling back before they could be seen. A spy in the ruins of her marriage.

The lightning chose that moment to split the sky, illuminating everything: the windshield wet with rain, her mascara-streaked face in the rearview mirror, the hat still accusing her from the passenger seat. Three years of relationship reduced to weather and accessories.

Your hair was different then, he'd said during the fight, like it mattered. Like the honey-brown cascade she'd worn at their wedding was somehow more real than the shoulder-length bob she sported now. Like changing her hair meant she'd become someone else entirely.

Elena stepped out into the storm. The doorman, bless his predictable heart, pretended not to see her. She took the stairs instead of the elevator, each step a small rebellion against the weight in her chest.

Their apartment door stood open. Inside, boxes everywhere. Marcus was there, and so was Sarah from accounting, looking guilty as hell and holding Elena's favorite coffee mug.

"The hat," Elena said from the doorway. They both jumped. "You can have everything else. But I want the hat."

Marcus laughed, a broken sound. "Really? That's what matters?"

"It's what's left."

She retrieved it from the car, walked back up, handed it to Sarah. The younger woman's hair fell in perfect waves, the kind that required twenty minutes and expensive products. The kind Marcus had always said he preferred.

"You can have him," Elena said. "He doesn't like hair that's too convenient anyway."

She walked out into lightning that struck somewhere close, the thunder following like an afterthought. Some things, she realized, were natural disasters you couldn't prepare for. Some things were just weather you had to walk through until the sky cleared.

Her hand went to her shortened hair, the new cut sharp against her neck. She'd change it again tomorrow. Something different. Something hers.