Storm Warning at Sunset

Elena pressed her palm against the cool glass of the balcony doors, watching the lightning fork across the darkening sky over the Caribbean. She could still smell the coconut oil from her morning massage, still feel the ghost of another man's fingers in her hair.

"You coming to bed?" Marcus called from inside, his voice thick with the expensive rum they'd been drinking all evening at the resort bar.

"In a minute," she said, not turning around.

Tomorrow, she would tell him. Tomorrow, she would confess that the weekend getaway was really an exit strategy, that the papaya they'd shared at breakfast—him talking about restructuring the department, her thinking about restructuring their entire life—had been her breaking point. His casual revelation that he'd promoted the woman he'd been "mentoring" for months had landed like a stone in her stomach.

They'd played padel that afternoon, both aggressive and sweaty under the midday sun, each shot carrying accusations he couldn't hear and apologies she wouldn't voice. The game had ended when he'd collapsed on the bench, grinning, saying they should do this more often. She'd nodded, her heart a small, exhausted thing in her chest.

Behind her, the bed springs creaked as he settled in. She pictured his hand reaching for the empty space where she should have been.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the ocean below, brief and violent as a confession.

Elena turned from the window, from the storm that matched what was brewing inside her, and finally walked toward the bed where her husband lay waiting. She would not say it tonight—tonight, they would both pretend, they would both pretend everything was fine. But tomorrow, when the sun rose over the palms, there would be no more pretending.