Storm Front

The **lightning** flashed across the sky, illuminating Martin's face in stark relief as he stood at the edge of the pool. His dark **hair**, usually perfectly coiffed, plastered against his forehead from the sudden downpour. Sarah watched him from the pool house doorway, clutching her **iPhone** like a lifeline—though the screen had remained dark for twenty minutes now.

"You're not actually going **swimming** in this," she called out, her voice barely audible over the thunder.

Martin turned slowly, rain streaming down his cheeks. "Why not? Everything's already ruined."

The words hung between them, heavier than the humidity. They'd been married seven years, and somehow they'd become strangers who shared a bed and a mortgage. Tonight's argument had started over something trivial—a forgotten anniversary dinner—but it had unearthed everything they'd been avoiding: her loneliness, his emotional absence, the way they both used their phones as shields.

Sarah stepped onto the wet concrete, her bare **palm** pressing against the rain-slicked doorframe. "Martin, please."

He stripped off his shirt, his pale skin glowing in another flash of lightning. "Remember when we used to swim together? In college? You said you felt weightless with me."

"That was fifteen years ago."

"I still feel weightless when I'm with you," he said, his voice cracking. "I just don't know how to reach you anymore. You're always somewhere else, even when you're right here."

Another lightning strike revealed the tears mingling with rain on her face. She looked down at the dark phone in her hand, then dropped it on a lounge chair. Martin watched her walk toward him through the downpour, her white dress becoming transparent, her movements hesitant.

"I'm scared," she said when she reached him. "Of drowning in this—in us."

Martin took her hand, his palm warm despite the cold rain. "Then we learn to swim together."

They stood there as the storm raged around them, two people choosing, finally, to feel everything at once.