What Lightning Revealed

The pool reflected the storm-darkened sky like a bruised mirror. Elena stood at the edge, her orange swimsuit a vivid wound against the graying world. Behind her, the concrete sphinx—some wealthy eccentric's idea of garden art—stared with blank stone eyes.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" Marcus said from the lounge chair. He'd been nursing the same gin and tonic for an hour.

"You make it sound like a decision I just made."

"Isn't it?"

She turned to face him. Lightning cracked the sky open, and for a second, everything was white-hot and undeniable. Like their wedding photograph flashed on a screen, too bright to hold.

"I've been leaving for three years, Marcus. You just haven't noticed."

He stood up, joints protesting. "What do you want from me? I work. I come home. I'm here."

"Being here isn't the same as being present. You're like that fucking sphinx—" she gestured at the statue "—all riddle and no answer."

The storm broke. Rain hammered the pool's surface, thousands of tiny impacts drowning the silence between them.

"Ask me something real," she said over the rain. "Just once."

Marcus's mouth opened, closed. What could he ask? Why her mother's suicide still hollowed her out some nights? Why she'd started hiding her wine bottles? Why they hadn't touched each other in six months?

Another lightning strike, closer this time. The garden sphinx seemed to flicker with impossible life, its stone features momentarily softening into something like pity.

"What did I do wrong?" he finally whispered.

Elena laughed, sharp and broken. "That's not even close to the right question."

She dove into the pool. The water swallowed her orange silhouette like sunset disappearing into night.

Marcus stood alone in the rain, watching the place she'd been, while the storm washed over the both of them.