The Lightning Gate

Marissa stood at the edge of the pool, her wine glass sweating against her palm. The water was perfectly still, a black mirror reflecting the purple bruise of twilight. Behind her, the kitchen screen door clicked shut.

"You going to swim or just stare at it?" asked Caleb, her oldest friend, the one who knew every version of herself she'd ever been.

She turned. He stood with his own wine, that familiar crooked smile, the one that had gotten them through college and two divorces and countless mornings after. He'd made spinach lasagna — her favorite, the one with too much garlic and love in equal measure.

"The storm's coming," she said.

"Lightning's still miles off." He checked his phone. "Ten minutes, maybe."

They stood in the charged silence between them, the air thick with everything they'd never said. Seven years of friendship, three of those years with her secretly wondering what it would feel like to wake up beside him instead of just across from him at brunch.

His cat, Binx, wound through her legs, purring like a small engine. She bent to stroke his calico fur, grateful for the distraction.

"Marissa." Caleb's voice dropped to that register that made her chest tight. "There's something I need to tell you."

The first real rumble of thunder rolled across the sky. She straightened, her heart suddenly racing with the storm.

"I'm leaving for Chicago," he said. "The job. I took it."

Lightning split the sky, a brilliant scar across the darkness, and in that flash she saw everything: his face stricken with regret, the lasagna cooling on the counter, the pool water rippling with the first drops of rain, and all the words she'd never spoken now forever between them.

"When?" she heard herself ask.

"Two weeks."

The cat rubbed against her ankle again, innocent of all the ways hearts could break. She nodded, once, tight and controlled, because that's what friends did for each other.

"I'll help you pack," she said.

And that was the thing about lightning — it illuminated everything, but only for a second. Then you were back in the dark, figuring out how to move forward.