Storm Season

The storm front moved in around dusk, carrying the kind of heat that makes skin feel too tight. Elena pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the kitchen window, watching the sky bruise purple at the edges. Lightning fractured the horizon—silent and distant, like the cracks that had been forming in her marriage for months.

"He's not going to make it through the night," Marcus said from behind her. His voice sounded hollow, stripped of the architect's confidence he wore like armor.

She turned to look at Buster, their aging dog, now thirteen and barely able to lift his head. Buster had been there through everything—her miscarriage, Marcus's affair, the rebuilding that had felt more like renovation than restoration. Now he lay on his bed between them, his breathing shallow and irregular.

"I called the vet," Elena said, though they both knew what that meant. "They can come at dawn."

Marcus didn't respond. He just stared at the dog, his expression unreadable in the flickering light from the storm outside.

The first clap of thunder made them both jump. Buster didn't move.

"I remember when we got him," Elena continued, her voice thick with unshed tears. "You said his fur was the color of orange rinds in sunlight. You were so poetic then."

Marcus finally looked at her, and she saw the same exhaustion she felt reflected in his eyes. "We were different people then, Elena."

Lightning flashed again, illuminating the kitchen in stark white. For a moment, she could see the gray in his temples, the lines around his mouth that hadn't been there when Buster was a puppy.

"We still loved each other then," she said softly.

Outside, the sky finally opened. Rain lashed against the windows, drowning the silence between them.

Marcus moved to the dog's bed, settling on the floor beside Buster. He rested his hand on the dog's flank, feeling the slow rise and fall. After a moment, Elena joined him, sitting close enough that their shoulders touched.

They stayed like that for hours, watching the lightning stitch across the sky, listening as the storm gradually moved inland. Around three in the morning, Buster's breathing changed. Marcus wrapped his arm around Elena, and she buried her face in his shoulder as the old dog slipped away quietly, as if he'd just decided it was time.

In the morning, the storm had passed. Sunlight streamed through the windows, making everything glow with that impossible orange light that only comes after rain. They buried Buster under the oak tree where he'd spent countless afternoons chasing shadows.

Elena stood beside Marcus at the fresh grave, dirt still under her fingernails, and realized she couldn't remember the last time they'd touched before last night—before the lightning and the dog and the storm forced them back together.

"I don't want to be strangers anymore," she whispered.

Marcus took her hand, his palm warm against hers. "Let's start over then. From here."

The orange light was already fading, but something else was taking its place—something fragile but real, like the first green shoots after a forest fire.