The Lightning Between Us

The dinner party had wilted hours ago, but Maya still sat at Richard's table, pushing spinach around her plate. She'd stopped eating when Richard mentioned Elena's name—casual, careless, like dropping a match onto gasoline.

"She's doing great," Richard had said, pouring more wine. "Opened that bakery in Portland. You should see her Instagram."

Maya had seen it. She'd been seeing it for three years, since Elena moved out of their shared apartment and into a life that didn't include her. The spinach suddenly tasted like betrayal.

"Do you remember," Maya said, setting down her fork, "when we bought those goldfish?"

Richard frowned. "You and Elena?"

"We named them Existence and Coexistence." Maya laughed, but the sound scraped her throat. "We were twenty-three and drunk on metaphor. We thought if we fed them enough, if we changed their water often enough, they'd never realize they were swimming in circles."

Outside, lightning fractured the sky. The room blanched, throwing Maya's sudden tears into sharp relief.

"What happened to them?" Richard asked softly.

"One ate the other." Maya wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Then it died too. We buried them in a park downtown. Elena said it was a lesson about codependency, but I think she just forgot to feed them that week."

She thought of Elena now, halfway across the country, kneading dough in a sunlit kitchen. Probably had a cat. Maybe a partner who remembered to feed things.

"I should call her," Maya said.

"Then call."

But she didn't. She finished her wine, left the spinach untouched on her plate, and walked home under a sky that kept threatening to break open, like something—everything—finally ready to say what it meant.