The Storm Between Us

The storm outside mirrored the one in our kitchen. Marcus stood by the counter, meticulously arranging his vitamin supplements—A, D3, B-complex, that expensive fish oil he swore changed his life. The sight of those neat little rows used to comfort me. Now it just felt like evidence of how much he'd already retreated into a world I couldn't follow him into.

'Cable's out,' he said, not looking up from his pills. 'Again.' Rain slashed against the windows like it was trying to break in, and somewhere beyond the glass, lightning fractured the sky white.

'Thunder in five seconds,' I said automatically. We used to count together. Now I counted alone.

He moved to the stove, where water boiled furiously for pasta. 'You want your spinach wilted or raw?'

'Raw.' I watched his hands—the way his thumb still rubbed against his ring finger where his wedding band used to be, even though he'd taken it off three months ago. The divorce papers sat on the table between us, real and unreal at once.

Lightning struck closer. The kitchen went stark bright, throwing his face into sudden relief. For a second, I saw him as he was twelve years ago: the man who'd held me while I cried over a lost job, who'd made terrible spinach soup when I was sick, who'd promised forever before he understood what forever actually cost.

'You should take your vitamins,' he said, his voice thick. 'You stopped taking them months ago.'

'Stop trying to fix me, Marcus.' The words came out harder than I intended. 'You can't supplement this away.'

He turned off the stove. The water stopped boiling. The silence between us filled with everything we weren't saying.

'I'm not trying to fix you,' he said quietly. 'I'm trying to remember how to be something you don't need fixing from.'

Another flash of lightning illuminated the resignation in his eyes, and I realized with sudden clarity that some gaps can't be bridged. Some storms just have to break you.