Running Toward Lightning

Martha had been running for forty-five minutes when the storm broke. The sky cracked open with lightning that turned the park's pathways into strobe-lit photographs—brief, violent illuminations of her own exhausted face reflected in puddles.

She adjusted her running hat, pulling the brim lower against rain that felt less like water and more like accusations. This hat had been David's—the navy one he'd worn during their first (and only) marathon together, back when they still believed joint suffering could fix a marriage that had been curdling for years. He'd left it behind when he moved out last Tuesday, along with half the furniture and any pretense that they'd "try again in six months."

Another flash of lightning. In that split second, Martha saw the truth she'd been running from for months: the vitamins on her bathroom counter weren't about health. They were control. Vitamin D for the depression she wouldn't admit to. Magnesium for sleep that never came because she spent every night scrolling through his Instagram. B-complex for energy she poured entirely into avoiding stillness.

She'd been running in circles—literally, around this park, and metaphorically, around the hollow ache in her chest.

The lightning struck closer now, and Martha stopped. Her chest heaved, not from exertion but from something breaking open. Rain soaked through her shirt, plastering it to skin that hadn't been touched with tenderness in eight months. She pulled off David's hat and let the rain finally reach her hair, really reach her, like she hadn't let anything or anyone reach her since he'd said those words about how she was "impossible to love when you're like this."

"Like this."

Martha laughed—a sound that the thunder swallowed. She'd been taking vitamins, running miles, perfecting a version of herself that was easier to love, easier to be with. But the lightning, in its indiscriminating brilliance, showed her what she'd known all along: you cannot supplement your way out of grief. You cannot outrun what lives inside your own ribcage.

She started walking home, hat in hand, no longer running from the storm but moving through it, finally willing to feel everything she'd been dodging.

The lightning kept flashing, but Martha no longer needed its illumination to see where she was going.