Lightning Over the Pool

The hotel pool reflected the orange sunset like a bruised peach, its surface disturbed only by the occasional leaf that drifted down from the palms. Sarah sat on the edge, legs submerged to the knees, while Marcus stood nearby with two glasses of champagne.

"The doctor said it could be the vitamins," Marcus said, handing her a glass. "Or stress. They never really know."

Sarah didn't take it. "You think I don't know what "could be" means? I've lived with those words for six months. Every specialist, every test, every "it's probably just" — they're all guessing, and we're just paying them to do it."

A single drop of rain hit the pool's surface, expanding into a perfect circle that vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. Then another. Then suddenly, the sky opened up, water sheeting down around them like a curtain being drawn.

They should have gone inside. Instead, they stayed — Marcus with his back to the pool, Sarah facing him, rain plastering her hair to her skull, makeup running in dark tracks down her cheeks. She looked like a different woman than the one he'd married eight years ago. Harder. Or maybe just finally visible.

"What happens now?" he asked.

She laughed, bitter and short. "Now? Now I stop swallowing a handful of vitamin D supplements every morning hoping they're magic. Now I stop pretending this is just a rough patch. Now I figure out if you're still here because you love me or because you're waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Lightning cracked the sky open, a white bolt that struck somewhere behind the hotel, leaving a smell like ozone and burned hair. For a moment, everything was illuminated — the empty lounge chairs, the rain bouncing off the deck, the fear on Marcus's face.

"I'm here," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."

Sarah looked at him for a long moment. Then she slid into the pool, clothes and all, surfacing with wet hair slicked back from her forehead. She treaded water, looking up at him.

"Get in, then."

Marcus hesitated. Then he stepped out of his shoes and joined her. They treaded water together in the rain as the storm moved closer, lightning illuminating the dark pool at intervals like flash photography, freezing them in moments they couldn't take back.

Back at their rented house, their dog Buster would be sleeping on the bed they'd bought together, oblivious to how everything had changed. But here, in this moment, they were just two people in a pool during a storm, deciding whether to swim toward each other or let the current take them apart.