The Lightning in Our Veins

The bottle of vitamin D pills sat on Maya's nightstand, a daily reminder of the life she was trying to rebuild after the divorce. Her doctor had prescribed them, said her levels were critically low, but Maya suspected it was just her spirit that needed supplementing.

She'd taken up running three months ago—something about the rhythm of feet on pavement, the controlled breathing, the way her body could move forward even when her mind felt stuck. Tonight, though, the summer air was thick with impending rain.

The lightning struck when she was three miles from home—a brilliant fork that cracked the sky open, illuminating the whole neighborhood in a flash of white-blue clarity. In that split second, she saw him: David, standing on a corner she didn't know he lived near, illuminated like he'd been placed there by some cosmic joke.

Maya kept running, her heart hammering for reasons that had nothing to do with exercise. They hadn't spoken since the day she walked out, since she told him some loves decay faster than they can be preserved.

But as the first drops fell, as the lightning spider-webbed across the darkening sky, Maya found herself slowing, then stopping. David hadn't moved. He was watching her, unreadable in the intermittent flashes.

"Your vitamins," he said when she was close enough, his voice carrying over the thunder. "You left them."

"I don't need them anymore," she replied, and realized it was true. Whatever deficiency she'd been running from, whatever she'd been trying to supplement, had somehow healed in the broken space between them.

The rain came down then, washing away the last year like it had never happened, leaving only the electric feeling that sometimes the things we think are good for us are exactly what we need to leave behind.