The Weight of Waiting

The lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating the hotel room in brief, violent flashes. Elena sat on the edge of the bed, her iPhone face up on the nightstand, screen dark and silent. Three hours since she'd texted him. Three hours of thunder building in the distance, of palm fronds thrashing against the window, of her rehearsing speeches she might never deliver.

She shouldn't have come to this wedding alone. That was the first mistake.

Her phone buzzed once, a single tremor against the wood. Elena's heart hammered against her ribs as she reached for it, fingers trembling. Not him. A news alert: some scandal about a tech CEO and his "fox" of an assistant, the whole thing sordid and predictable. She tossed the phone back down.

Outside, the storm broke. Rain lashed against the glass like it was trying to break in, like it had something to prove. Elena pressed her palm against the cool windowpane, tracing the lifeline she'd once paid a carnival fortune-teller to read. "Long life, complicated love," the woman had said, smiling with too many teeth. "You'll have to choose eventually."

Choose what? Between loneliness and this?

The bed felt too big, too empty. At home, Buster would be sprawled across it, her elderly golden retriever who'd outlasted three relationships and counted each one as a personal victory. She missed him suddenly, fiercely. Missed the way he'd rest his heavy head on her knee during bad dates, judging her choices with soulful brown eyes.

Her phone buzzed again. This time, a text.

*Can we talk?*

Elena stared at the words until they blurred. Lightning flashed again, closer now, the thunder following almost immediately. She typed and deleted three responses before settling on the truth:

*I don't think there's anything left to say.*

The message showed as read immediately. Then three dots appeared, dancing, taunting. Disappeared. Reappeared. Finally: *You're right.*

And then, as the storm raged outside, as the palm trees bent beneath the wind, Elena did something she hadn't done in years of carefully measured responses, of playing it safe, of waiting for men who couldn't bother to show up. She turned off her phone, set it on the nightstand, and lay back against the pillows. The dog would be waiting when she got home. Tomorrow, she'd book the earliest flight back to him. Tonight, she'd finally let herself sleep.