Where Lightning Strikes

The papaya sat on the hotel room desk, too ripe and weeping sticky nectar onto the lacquered wood. Elena had bought it yesterday, laughing about how she'd never tried one before. Now she was gone, flown back to Seattle alone, leaving me with three days of a honeymoon we'd never take.

I wandered down to the beach, where palm fronds rustled in the humidity-thick air. The storm was moving in—you could smell it, ozone and salt.

"You look like shit," Marcus said from the cabana, setting down his drink. He was Elena's oldest friend, the one who'd introduced us at that baseball game three years ago. The one I'd asked to come down instead of her when she canceled last-minute.

"I feel like it." I sat beside him. "She says she needs time. That she can't pretend anymore."

"She's scared." Marcus stripped the paper from a tiny umbrella. "Her sister's divorce freaked her out. Marriage isn't—"

"Don't." I cut him off. "Just don't."

The first lightning struck, far out over the water. A silent white vein in the darkening sky. I thought about that baseball game where we'd met—how she'd been there with Marcus, how she'd cheered when I caught the foul ball, how her eyes had crinkled when I'd handed it to her and said, "For the lady."

All performances, it turned out. All of it.

"I know about you and her," I said quietly.

Marcus went still. The second lightning strike was closer, thunder rolling like distant furniture being moved.

"What?"

"Before the wedding. That weekend in Portland." I looked at him. "She told me last night, during the fight. She said she felt guilty because she loved us both, in different ways."

"I never meant to—"

"It's fine." I surprised myself by meaning it. "Actually, it makes sense. Why she couldn't commit. Why she kept pulling away."

The third strike hit somewhere nearby. The beach flooded with sudden brightness, as if God had flipped a switch.

"What now?" Marcus asked.

"Now we finish the papaya." I stood up. "And then you help me figure out how to be someone who doesn't need to be the one she chooses."

The rain started falling, warm and relentless, washing footprints from the sand. Neither of us moved.