The Last Tuesday in October

The lightning struck three blocks from Eleanor's apartment, and Marcus jumped anyway. He'd been jumping at everything lately.

"You don't have to go," she said, not looking up from her wine glass. The condensation was making rings on the coaster he'd bought her in Paris, back when they were the kind of couple who bought things in Paris.

"I do." Marcus adjusted his hat—a ridiculous fedora he'd bought on impulse, as if accessories could fix a marriage that had been leaking warmth for years. "El, we've been walking through this like zombies for months. You said it yourself last Tuesday."

She finally looked at him. "I said we'd become roommates who share a bed. I didn't say I wanted you to leave."

"What's the difference anymore?"

The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating. Outside, thunder rolled like a warning.

"Remember the goldfish?" she asked suddenly.

Marcus blinked. "What?"

"The goldfish we won at that carnival. The one that lived for seven years against all odds. You cried when it died."

"El—"

"You cried over a fish that cost seventy-five cents, but you can't cry about us."

Her words hit like a physical blow. She was right. He'd been bearing this weight silently, stoically, as if emotional restraint were some kind of virtue. As if not feeling were the same as being strong.

"I'm scared," he admitted, the words tearing his throat.

"Good," she said softly. "Fear is better than nothing."

The storm broke then—rain lashing against the windows, the sky fracturing open. And Marcus realized something terrible and hopeful: they weren't dead yet. The zombies were the ones who'd already given up, who'd stopped trying, who'd settled for comfortable numbness.

He took off the hat and set it on the table.

"Stay," she said. "Let's try not to be ghosts."

Outside, lightning struck again. This time, neither of them moved.