Electrolyte Balance

The storm broke at 3 AM, waking Mara with a jolt. Lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the empty side of the bed where David's pillow still held the faint indent of his head. She reached for her iPhone on the nightstand, reflex checking his last message—still nothing since Thursday's curt 'we need to talk.'

She padded to the kitchen, bare feet cold on the hardwood. The refrigerator hummed in the darkness. She grabbed an orange from the crisper, tearing into the peel. Citrus scent sharp in the heavy air. She ate it standing at the window, watching rain sheet against the glass, water blurring the city lights below.

They'd been together three years. Three years of Sunday brunches, of arguments about thermostat settings, of David's endless supply cabinet—vitamin D for winter, B12 for energy, magnesium for sleep. He was always trying to optimize things that couldn't be fixed with supplements.

Her phone lit up. David.

'Can I come over?'

Mara stared at the message until the screen went dark. Outside, another flash of lightning turned the rain silver.

'Yes,' she typed.

He arrived twenty minutes later, soaked through, holding a plastic bag from the bodega on the corner.

"I bought you that vitamin C you like," he said, water dripping from his coat onto the entryway floor. "The chewable kind."

Mara laughed. She couldn't help it. The absurdity of it. The way he thought everything could be solved with the right product, the right purchase, the right gesture.

"David," she said softly. "I'm not sick."

"I know." He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time in months. "I don't know how to fix this. But I don't want to lose you."

Mara crossed the small space between them. She took the bag from his hand, set it on the floor. She reached up and touched his wet face.

"You don't have to fix it," she said. "You just have to stay."

Outside, the storm raged on. Inside, something shifted.

"Okay," David said. "Okay."

They stood there as the rain fell, as lightning struck again somewhere downtown, as the hum of the refrigerator filled the silence between their bodies. Not fixed. Not perfect. But present. For now, that was enough.