The Storm in Her Stomach

Elena stood outside the pharmacy, her trembling fingers fumbling with the childproof cap on her vitamin D bottle. The doctor had called it a supplement. She called it a reminder that she was forty-two and everything was drying up from the inside.

She pulled her beret lower, not that anyone was looking. The hat had been a mistake—a desperate purchase after the chemo, before they told her the lump was benign. Now it was just armor. Something to hide behind when she couldn't hide from herself.

"You forgot your umbrella."

She turned. David from Accounting. He was holding an umbrella over both of them, his shoulder already soaked through. They'd been dancing around each other for months—glances in the breakroom, emails that went on too long, the way his hand lingered when he handed her reports.

"I didn't check the forecast," she said.

"No one does anymore." His smile was gentle, terrible. "We all just pretend we know what's coming."

A jagged crack of lightning split the sky, white and instantaneous. For a moment, everything was illuminated—the rain between them, the disappointment in his eyes, the wedding band on her finger that suddenly felt like shrapnel.

"My wife takes those," David said, nodding at the vitamin bottle still clutched in her hand. "Says they help with the fatigue."

"Does she?"

"No." He stepped closer, and she could smell rain and expensive cologne and something like surrender. "But she believes in the ritual of trying."

Elena laughed, and it sounded like breaking glass. "I don't even know if I'm tired anymore. I think I'm just... done pretending."

Another flash of lightning, closer this time. The air between them was electric, dangerous. She could kiss him right now. She could ruin everything or finally make something real.

"David—"

"I know," he said. "I took a vitamin this morning too. Still woke up tired. Still ended up here."

"Where is here?"

"Standing in the rain," he said, "wishing I was brave enough to get wet."

She thought about her husband at home, their silence that had grown comfortable as a grave. She thought about the vitamins she swallowed every morning, small yellow promises of a vitality that never came. She thought about all the things she hid under her hat.

The thunder finally caught up with the lightning—a low, steady rumble that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her chest.

"Fuck it," Elena said, and dropped the vitamin bottle into her purse. She took off her hat. Her hair was flat, her eyes were tired, and she was crying, though she couldn't remember when it started. "Let's get wet."