Storm Front

The coaxial cable lay severed across the hotel room carpet like a dead snake, its copper wire guts exposed. Outside, the Atlantic roared against the glass, each wave a punctuation mark in the argument they'd been having for three days.

"You're going out there?" Elena asked, not looking up from her laptop. The presentation was due in the morning. The internet was down. The storm was rolling in like a judgment.

Marcus was already at the door, shirt unbuttoned. "The pool's heated. It's indoor. I need to think."

"You need to think." Elena laughed, sharp and tired. "That's rich."

She heard his footsteps recede down the hallway, then the heavy thud of the pool door. Good. Let him swim laps until his arms fell off. Let him count tiles instead of facing what was happening between them.

The first flash of lightning turned the room strobe-bright, casting shadows that stretched and twisted across the walls. Elena counted the seconds—one, two, three—before thunder rattled the windowpane. The storm was moving closer, hugging the coastline like a lover who wouldn't take no for an answer.

Her phone buzzed with an email from their boss. "Reorg announcement coming Monday. Key players will be retained."

Elena's stomach hollowed out. She knew what that meant. One of them. Not both.

She found herself walking to the pool before she realized she'd moved. Through the glass, she saw Marcus cutting through the water, his strokes rhythmic and merciless. He looked like he was fighting something, not swimming.

The power flickered, then died.

In the sudden dark, illuminated only by the storm's intermittent lightning, she pressed her hand against the glass. Marcus surfaced, gasping, and saw her standing there. For a moment, they just looked at each other—two people who had built something together that was now being dismantled by forces beyond their control.

He swam to the edge. "The power's out," he said, water streaming from his hair.

"I know."

"The cable's dead. The presentation—we can't finish it."

Elena opened the door and the smell of chlorine rushed out to meet her. "Maybe that's the point," she said, and the lightning flashed again, turning the pool's water momentarily silver, like a mirror they could finally see themselves in.