Storm Windows

The funeral had ended hours ago, but Maya remained at the cemetery, running her thumb over the smooth granite of her mother's headstone. Rain threatened, but she couldn't make herself leave. Not yet.

"I thought you might still be here."

Maya turned to find Elena standing beneath a black umbrella, her old friend's face softened by years Maya hadn't witnessed. They hadn't spoken since the wedding—that disastrous weekend when Elena had slept with Maya's fiancé and then announced she'd been in love with him for years. Some wounds didn't heal. They just scarred over.

"I should go," Maya said, moving toward the exit path.

"Maya, wait."

She kept running, past the rows of stone markers, toward the parking lot where her rental waited. Elena followed, abandoning her umbrella, calling her name. The sky broke open—not rain, but a deluge that soaked them both in seconds.

Maya stopped. "What do you want, Elena?"

"He died last week. Overdose."

The words hit Maya like lightning—sudden, blinding, leaving her frozen in place. "What?"

"I came to tell you. I thought you deserved to know. We'd been separated two years. He was never sober for long."

Maya's throat tightened. She'd spent five years imagining them together, happy, building the life she'd lost. All that time, she'd been running from a ghost.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Maya asked quietly.

"Because I was ashamed. Because I stole him and then I couldn't even keep him. Because you were the better friend and I knew it the whole time." Elena's voice cracked. "I'm sorry, Maya. I've been sorry every day since."

Lightning flashed again, illuminating Elena's tear-streaked face, the genuine ruin of her. Maya felt something shift inside her—years of bitterness dissolving like salt in rain. Some wounds didn't heal, but maybe forgiveness wasn't about healing. Maybe it was about no longer letting the wound define you.

"I missed you," Maya said finally.

Elena stepped closer. "I missed you too."

They stood there as the storm raged around them, neither running anymore, both finally ready to face what had broken them and what might, impossibly, begin to mend.