The Storm We Made

I sat on the balcony of room 412, watching the palm fronds whip against the darkening sky. The breakfast I'd ordered sat untouched—a halved papaya glistening with lime, looking exactly like something alive that had been split open. Maybe that's why I couldn't eat it. Maybe that's why I couldn't stop staring at it.

The TV droned behind me—some sitcom I wasn't watching, the cable connection flickering every time wind shook the building. I'd turned the sound off hours ago.

Then it came: the first real lightning strike, illuminating the whole resort in that harsh, frozen-frame way that makes everything look like a crime scene photograph. For a second, I saw it all—the cancelled wedding, the disappointed faces, the very reasonable explanations I'd given everyone about why I'd done it. All the reasons that made sense to everyone except me.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the bottle of vitamin D supplements my mother had pressed into my hands at the airport. "For mood," she'd said, as if my unhappiness were a deficiency, something that could be fixed with the right dosage.

The storm broke. Rain fell in sheets, turning the Caribbean view into a gray blur. I finally picked up my phone and scrolled to his name. The text I'd typed a dozen times but never sent: *I don't know why I did it. I just knew I had to.*

My thumb hovered over send. Then the lights went out.

In the darkness, I heard the couple next door laughing at something, the sound sharp and bright against the rain. And I realized—some people get the storm, and some people get to wait it out together. I'd chosen the storm. I'd chosen it on purpose.

I put the phone down without sending the text. I ate the papaya in the dark. It tasted sweet and faintly metallic, like something that had been waiting a very long time to be consumed.