Supplements & Storms

The orange light of the sodium streetlamp flickered through Mara's blinds, casting everything in her apartment in a sickly amber glow. She stared at the bottle of prenatal vitamins on her counter—her sister's suggestion, her doctor's recommendation, another item on the endless checklist of things she was supposed to want.

She'd been taking them for three months. Three months since Julian left. Three months since her promotion to a role that demanded sixty-hour weeks and sacrificed her social life at the altar of quarterly projections. The vitamins sat there like a judgment.

Her phone buzzed. Results from the fertility specialist she'd finally broken down and seen. Not that it mattered anymore. Not since she'd decided, two nights ago at 3 AM while watching infomercials, that maybe she wasn't mother material. Maybe she was just exhausted.

Then lightning struck—literally. The sky outside her window fractured open, a brilliant white scar across the darkness, and the power died. Her apartment plunged into shadow.

In that sudden darkness, Mara felt something shift. Some vast weight lifting. No emails. No expectations. No timeline. Just her, in the dark, while rain began to hammer against her windows like applause.

She walked to the window, watching the storm transform the city skyline into something primal and untamed. Another flash of lightning illuminated her face in the glass—tired, yes, but also something else. Peaceful.

The vitamin bottle sat on her counter in the gloom. She picked it up, turned it over in her hands. Maybe she'd keep taking them. Maybe she'd stop. The choice was hers.

Outside, the world was breaking open in thunder and light. Inside, for the first time in months, Mara wasn't waiting for anything to begin.