The Lightning Between Us
The first crack of lightning split the sky just as Mara's iPhone buzzed on the nightstand. She knew it was him before looking—some instinct, some pathetic reflex developed over three years of waiting. Outside, a fox darted across her lawn, its rust-colored coat bright against the darkness. She watched it through rain-smeared glass, this wild thing that knew exactly where it was going.
The goldfish drifted in its bowl on the kitchen counter, orange and oblivious, its three-second memory somehow preferable to hers. She'd won it at a carnival with David two summers ago—the summer they'd stood before the Great Sphinx and he'd said, "Riddle me this," before kissing her neck. That night in Egypt, she'd thought love was something you could hold like stone, ancient and permanent.
Another flash of lightning illuminated the room. Her iPhone lit up too: *I'm getting married.*
She'd known this was coming. Hadn't she? The way he'd pulled away month by month, phone calls shorter, texts less frequent. The sphinx's riddle echoed in her mind: *What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?* The answer was *man*—but David had become something else entirely, a stranger wearing familiar skin.
The fox returned, pausing beneath her window. Their eyes met through glass. There was something knowing in that amber gaze, something brutally honest. Then it turned and vanished into the storm, wild and unowned and free.
Mara picked up her iPhone and typed: *I know.* Then deleted it. Typed: *Congratulations.* Deleted that too.
The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent repetition. She touched the glass of its bowl, her finger making a small ripple. Tomorrow, she'd buy it a companion. Or maybe she'd set it free in the pond behind her building, let it learn what it meant to swim somewhere larger than a bowl.
Lightning struck again, closer this time, and the room went bright as day. In that brief illumination, Mara saw everything she'd been refusing to see: some loves aren't sphinxes to be solved. Some are just weather—you endure them, and when they pass, you're still standing, wet but whole.
She set the iPhone on the nightstand, screen down, and watched the storm instead.