What the Lightning Revealed

The cat—Elena's cat, really—had been watching me from the top of the bookshelf for three hours. Those yellow eyes narrowed every time I moved, as if my very existence in this apartment was an affront to natural order. Meanwhile, the dog, a neurotic Golden Retriever named Barnaby, had taken to sleeping pressed against the bedroom door, guarding it like a sentent awaiting orders that would never come.

I'd been house-sitting for two weeks while Elena figured things out with her mother in hospice. She'd left me her keys, her plants, her animals, and half her closet—as if I might need her clothes to become her. As if I could.

Lightning struck somewhere close. The whole apartment lit up, sudden and brutal as a camera flash in a dark room. In that split second of white blindness, I saw everything: the stacks of unopened mail on the counter, the wine stain on the rug from the night before, the way my hands shook when I reached for my glass. The things we pretend not to see until something forces us to look.

"You're so much like her," Elena had told me once, early on, when that was still a compliment. But we weren't alike. She was the dog—loyal, uncomplicated, eager to please. I was the cat—aloof, self-contained, watching from above. And somewhere along the way, she'd decided she preferred the version of herself that could simply be. Without complications. Without me.

Barnaby whimpered as thunder rattled the windows. I moved to comfort him, reflexively, then stopped. The dog wasn't mine. The apartment wasn't mine. The life I'd been pretending to have for the past eight months—dinner parties and Sunday morning crossword puzzles and matching throw pillows—had never really been mine either.

Another flash of lightning. This time, I didn't close my eyes.

The cat leapt from the bookshelf and wound through my legs, purring now, finally. Maybe she'd sensed the shift. Maybe animals could smell resignation.

I packed my things that night while the storm raged outside. I left the key on the counter, weighted down with a rock from Elena's succulent collection. The dog watched me go, tail thumping once, twice—a goodbye, or perhaps an acknowledgement. The cat turned away, already asleep on the pillow I'd warmed.

I walked into the lightning-streaked night alone, which was how I'd been all along.