The Storm Between Us

The vitamin bottle sat on the counter—orange-labeled, thirty-day supply, exactly half empty. We'd bought it together at that health food store you loved, the one with the bulk bins and the sanctimonious cashier who asked about our intentions. You took one every morning with water from the special glass you kept at your bedside. I watched you do it with religious devotion, as if the ritual itself could hold back the inevitable decay of our bodies, our marriage.

Now the glass is mine, and I still take the damn vitamins.

Outside, lightning fractures the sky again—strobe-flash illumination that makes our apartment look like a crime scene photograph. The cat, Oscar, bolts from the bedroom to curl against my leg, his orange fur static-charged and standing on end. He knows. Animals always know before we do. He stopped sleeping on your side of the bed three weeks ago, even before you packed your suitcase.

"We're just growing apart," you'd said, your hair wet from the shower, dark strands clinging to your neck like secrets. That phrase—growing apart—as if it were some organic process, inevitable as cellular division, instead of the thousand tiny choices we made every day. The choice to work late instead of cooking dinner. The choice to scroll through phones instead of touching. The choice to let silence become its own kind of language.

I run water from the tap, watching it spiral down the drain. Thunder cracks so close the windows rattle in their frames. Oscar yowls, a wounded sound, and I wonder if you're watching this same storm from wherever you are now. If you're thinking about the half-full vitamin bottle on a stranger's counter, or if you've already replaced all our rituals with new ones.

The water keeps running, and I can't make myself turn it off.