The Storm We Didn't See Coming

The pool below my balcony was still as glass, reflecting nothing but the coming darkness. I sat on the edge of the hotel bed, room service untouched — just a solitary orange that had somehow rolled onto the nightstand, its bright skin too cheerful for this moment.

Outside, lightning cracked the desert sky, illuminating everything for a blinding second before plunging the world back into gray uncertainty. On the television, cable news played on mute, anchors with perfect teeth delivering catastrophes I couldn't bring myself to hear.

"We should talk about the dog," Sarah had said two hours ago, her voice cracking on the word. Not us. Not the marriage. The dog.

Barnaby had been hers before we met, a golden retriever who'd slept between us for seven years, who'd dragged me from bed when I couldn't breathe through the panic attacks. When she packed her things last week, she'd taken him too. "He's elderly," she'd said, "and he knows my routine."

The justice of it didn't make it hurt less.

Another flash of lightning, closer now. The pool's surface trembled with the first raindrops. I remembered our honeymoon in Santa Fe, how we'd skinny-dipped at midnight while lightning danced over the mountains, feeling immortal and terrified and completely known by another human being.

I peeled the orange. The spray of citrus hit me like a memory I couldn't quite place — something about my mother's kitchen, about being eight and whole, about a time before love meant the possibility of this particular kind of erasure.

The phone lit up. Sarah's name. I let it ring, watching the rain transform the pool into a canvas of silver threads. Maybe she was calling about Barnaby. Maybe she wasn't. Some questions are easier never answered.

The orange slice was impossibly sweet. The lightning flashed again, and for a moment, I could almost believe the storm was beautiful instead of just inevitable.