The Storm Between Us

The spinach had been stuck in Maya's front tooth for twenty minutes. David had noticed it the moment she'd laughed at his joke about the waitress — not that it was funny — but he hadn't said anything. Now it was a choice: speak and watch her face crumble with embarrassment, or stay silent and let her discover it later in the bathroom mirror, realizing he'd let her walk through the entire restaurant like that. Either way, he'd be the asshole.

Outside, lightning cracked the sky in two, the flash illuminating their stale bread basket and Maya's hair — still perfect from the salon visit she'd charged to their joint account despite their agreement to save for the house they were no longer buying. She was talking about her sister's wedding now, something about flowers, her lips moving around that emerald betrayal in her teeth.

'You look beautiful,' David said, and meant it, which made it worse.

The thing about secrets, he'd learned, was that they grew. You could swallow them whole at first, but they expanded in your gut until you were carrying around something heavy and alive. His secret was named Elena, worked in accounting, and tasted like vanilla and desperation. Maya's secret was that she knew.

Another flash of lightning. This time the restaurant dimmed, then surged back to brightness. The couple at the next table went quiet. Maya's hair caught the light, auburn turning copper-gold, the color she'd been when they met eight years ago in a coffee shop that had since become a bank.

'David?' she said, her finger hovering near her lip. 'How long?'

He weighed his options. 'Since the appetizers.'

She nodded once, wiped the spinach away with her napkin. 'And the other thing?'

The table seemed to shrink. The restaurant noise faded to a hum. 'Three months,' he said, the confession falling like something final and irrevocable.

'The office Christmas party,' she said, not asking. 'I knew. I just needed you to say it.' She signaled for the check. 'I didn't want to be the kind of person who couldn't even trust you to tell me about spinach.'