What Lightning Takes

Elena stood at the edge of the hotel pool at 2 AM, nursing a gin and tonic that had gone watery twenty minutes ago. Above her, the sky kept threatening something it wouldn't deliver—just a ceaseless flicker of heat lightning, silent and voyeuristic, like God's faulty camera flash.

On the pool deck, a television mounted beneath a plastic canopy blared a baseball game from three seasons ago. The cable connection had been degrading all night, the players' faces pixelating into abstraction whenever they swung at the ball. It was the playoffs, she thought, or maybe just spring training. Time had gone strange like that lately—everything felt like a repeat.

"You're going to fall in," a voice said behind her.

Elena didn't turn. "I'm not drunk enough for that yet."

"Then let's fix it."

Mark appeared beside her with two bottles of whiskey pilfered from the minibar. His hair was wet from the shower, darkened to the color of coffee, and for a moment Elena saw him as he'd been seven years ago—thirty-two and reckless, pressing her against the wall of this same hotel while their spouses slept in adjacent rooms.

"The cable's out in my room," he said, cracking the seal. "Figured I'd find you here. You always did love your baseball."

"I love the noise," she corrected. "Reminds me of being a kid. My dad watched every game. Said it was the only thing that made sense."

Mark nodded, understanding something he didn't say. That's how they'd always been—two people speaking in shorthand, filling in the blanks with assumptions and desire.

The pool water rippled in the wind, catching the television's blue light. Elena watched a player slide into home, the image dissolving into static as lightning finally cracked overhead—close enough that the air tasted like ozone.

"Remember that night we almost?" Mark started, then stopped.

She remembered everything. The taste of his mouth. The way his hand had hovered at her waist, not quite touching. The wife and husband they'd gone home to instead. The four years of emails and meetings and near-misses, until his promotion transferred him across the country and her marriage dissolved under its own slow weight.

"We were cowards," she said quietly.

"We were married."

"We're still married."

Mark laughed bitterly. "Not to each other. That's the problem, isn't it?"

The baseball game cut to commercial, some insurance ad where everyone smiled too broadly. Elena set down her glass and toe off one sandal, then the other. The pool water looked black as ink, impossible and inviting.

"What are you doing?" Mark asked, but he was already setting down his whiskey.

"I'm thirty-nine years old and I've never done anything impulsive. Not really. Every risk I've taken was calculated. Every mistake, approved in advance."

Lightning struck somewhere nearby, illuminating the pool deck in stark clarity—the chaise lounges, the flickering television, Mark's startled expression, the wet slick of her hair against her neck as she pulled the tie loose and let it fall.

"Elena—"

"Don't." She stepped closer to the edge. "We're at a conference for a company that doesn't care if we live or die. Our spouses are hundreds of miles away, probably sleeping or cheating or watching the same baseball game on better televisions. And we've been standing at this edge for seven years, Mark. I'm tired of waiting."

"For what?"

She didn't answer. Just stepped forward, let herself fall into the water fully clothed, the shock of it taking her breath in a way nothing had in years. When she surfaced, gasping, Mark was standing at the edge, laughter spilling out of him like he hadn't laughed in ages.

"You're insane," he said, and jumped in after her.

They treaded water in the dark, the cable TV flickering above them, baseball players dancing in and out of existence, while lightning sketched the outline of everything they'd almost become. Somewhere in the distance, thunder finally rolled in—a delayed yes to a question asked hours ago.