The Lightning in February

Margaret stood at the pharmacy counter at 7 PM, exhaustion pressing against her eyes like physical weight. Her phone buzzed again—another email from David. *We need to talk about the house.* As if she had energy for property negotiations when she could barely decide between two brands of vitamin D supplements.

She grabbed the orange bottle—citrus-flavored, as if that made the pill less like swallowing a tiny stone of承认 failure. Forty-six years old and her body was already betraying her, demanding payment in capsules and supplements just to maintain baseline functionality.

Outside, lightning cracked the sky in two, and the automatic doors slid open. A man in a gray fedora stepped inside, water dripping from the brim. Something in the way he adjusted his hat—self-conscious, deliberate—made Margaret's stomach tighten. She'd know that gesture anywhere.

Marcus. Her college boyfriend, the one who'd left her for someone younger, softer, less complicated. He looked older now, of course. They all did. But there was still something in his smile that made her feel twenty-two again, standing on that porch in Ohio, waiting for a life that never arrived.

"Maggie?"

She hadn't been Maggie in decades. But hearing it from him—after all these years, after David, after the miscarriage, after the promotions and failures and small quiet deaths of self—it felt like coming home to a house that had been demolished years ago.

"Marcus." Her voice didn't waver. She was proud of that. "You're back."

"Just visiting. Mom's sick." He gestured toward the prescription counter. "Cancer. The vitamin supplements, the holistic stuff—it's all placebos, but she believes in it. Makes her feel like she's fighting back."

The word hung between them. *Fighting.* As if that's what they'd been doing all these years, instead of just surviving.

"I'm sorry," Margaret said, and she meant it.

"Yeah." He adjusted his hat again. "You look good, Maggie. You really do."

So did he. And that was the tragedy, wasn't it? The way time softened edges but never quite healed anything.

Her phone lit up. *Still at the office. Can we talk tomorrow?*

Margaret looked at Marcus, at the lightning still fracturing the sky beyond the glass doors, at the orange bottle in her hand. So many years of wanting things she couldn't have, of reaching for pills and promotions and men who were always looking at someone else.

"I have to go," she said.

"Yeah. Me too."

He didn't ask for her number. She didn't offer. Some doors, once closed, stay closed.

Margaret walked out into the rain, clutching her vitamins like a promise she couldn't keep, as lightning struck somewhere far away and the whole world briefly, brilliantly burned.