Hair Like Lightning

Margot stared at her reflection in the office restroom mirror. Another gray hair, coiling like a silver snake among the chestnut strands. She plucked it without thinking, the sharp pinch familiar as breathing. At forty-three, she was becoming expert at the small deceptions—the **vitamin** supplements that promised eternal youth, the expensive creams that claimed to turn back time, the smile she pasted on during meetings while something inside her withered.

"You okay?" Carlos asked later, finding her in the breakroom. He was twenty-six, with dark curls and eyes that still believed in things.

"Fine," she said. "Just tired."

"You look like a **zombie**, Margot. No offense."

She laughed, but it sounded brittle. "None taken. I feel like one."

Outside, **lightning** split the sky—three jagged fingers reaching toward the earth. The storm had been building all day, the air heavy and electric, like the moment before something breaks.

"My grandmother used to say lightning was the universe trying to communicate," Carlos said, joining her at the window. "That it carried messages from somewhere else."

"What kind of messages?"

"The important kind. The kind you can't ignore."

Margot thought about her life—the mortgage, the promotion she'd been working toward for five years, the marriage that had become two people sharing a bed and little else. She thought about the way she moved through her days on automatic pilot, like something undead, nourished by coffee and resentment.

Then she thought about Richard, her boss. The way he took credit for her work during meetings. The way his voice boomed like a **bull** in the boardroom while she shrank. The way he'd looked at her yesterday when she'd presented the quarterly projections—really looked at her—for the first time in three years. And she'd realized he didn't actually know her at all.

"Carlos," she said, suddenly. "Do you ever feel like you're waiting for your life to start?"

He was quiet for a moment. "Every day."

Lightning struck closer this time, illuminating his face—still young, still believing there was time.

"I think," she said, "I think I'm done waiting."

She walked back to her desk, sat down, and typed out her resignation letter. It was three sentences long. Then she messaged her husband: We need to talk. Not later. Tonight.

The storm broke just as she hit send—rain lashing against the glass like applause.