Struck by Her Own Reflection

Elena ran her fingers through her hair—now a defiant, electric orange after the botched dye job—and wondered how she'd ended up here at forty-two, sitting in her car outside her ex-husband's house during a thunderstorm.

The lightning flashed again, illuminating the cardboard box on her passenger seat. Inside: his orange hunting jacket she'd been meaning to return for three years, a half-eaten orange from lunch, and her daughter's hair ribbon—bright orange, like Elena's unfortunate new hair color. The kind of orange that screamed midlife crisis, even though this was just grief manifested as bad decisions and bleach.

She'd stopped by the salon on impulse. The stylist, a twenty-something with magenta hair and tragic tattoos, had said: "You need something bold. Something that says you're alive."

Now, staring at her reflection in the rearview mirror, Elena saw a stranger. The orange hair made her look like someone who'd survived something. Someone who'd lost everything and somehow kept going.

Another flash of lightning. She reached for the orange, peeled it, the citrus scent cutting through the rain-thick air. She'd come here to return the jacket, finally close this chapter. But the house was dark. His car was gone. Probably off somewhere with his new fiancée, the woman whose hair was still whatever color it was supposed to be.

Elena took a bite of the orange, juice running down her chin. She started the engine, put the car in drive. The lightning storm was moving east, toward the coast. She'd follow it. Drive until the orange hair felt like a choice instead of a symptom. Drive until she was somewhere new.

Some storms, she realized, you don't wait out. You follow them to wherever they're going next.