The Last Weekend

Rain chewed at the windows as if the night wanted to be a fly on the wall.

Lena stood by the sink, watching the glass shiver with every gust. The bulbs over the counter flickered, turning her reflection in the window into a jumpy ghost. Somewhere beneath the howl of the wind, a song crackled from the radio, soft at first, then louder as the storm shifted.

“I want you, I need you…” the singer crooned in a voice dragged out of the seventies.

Lena’s jaw tightened. Her fingers, damp from washing dishes, slipped on the dial as she twisted it. The music punched off. The kitchen dropped back into storm and fridge-hum and the faint drip of the leak by the back door.

“Why do you always turn it off there?” Mark’s voice floated from the living room.

“Same reason you always turn it up,” she replied.

He appeared in the doorway, one shoulder leaning on the frame, a beer bottle hanging from his hand. The television light behind him painted the edges of his dark hair in electric blue. His shirt clung to his chest, still damp from his dash from the car.

He lifted the bottle in a half salute toward the silent radio. “That song is a classic.”

“That song is a cop-out in four minutes.”

“Someone didn't get a nap today.”

Lena said, drying her hands on the tea towel, "That song is about a man declaring what he can't be bothered to give." People keep swooning over the honesty.”

She tossed the towel onto the counter. The storm growled overhead, a long, rolling sound that seemed to sit on the roof and listen.

Mark smirked. “At least he is clear about it.”

“Oh, he is very clear.” Her voice sharpened. “He wants, he needs, he loves… what does he actually offer? Two things. Not three. Everyone pretends that’s romantic instead of lazy.”

Mark’s gaze shifted from her to the dark smudge of the window and back. “You are not really angry at a dead guy’s lyrics.”

“You brought him into my kitchen.”

“Pretty sure the radio did that.”

The bulbs flickered again. Lena pushed past him into the living room, every step a little harder than the last. The cottage was small, all mismatched furniture and the faint musty smell of the sea. Outside, waves crashed against the cliff, like the world kept throwing itself against stone in frustration.

Mark followed, bottle dangling, socked feet whispering on the wooden floor. “We were having a nice weekend,” he said. “You said you needed this. Your words.”

“I did.” Lena picked up the remote, stabbing it to silence the TV too. “I still do.”

“Could have fooled me.”

She turned to face him. His eyes were brown, the colour of wet bark. When she first met him, she had thought they looked kind. Tonight they looked tired.

“You know what I need?” she asked. “I need to stop feeling like some consolation prize.”

“Here we go,” he muttered.

“The way you talk, Mark. The jokes about never being a husband. The way you say you are not ‘built’ for that. Like commitment is some genetic condition you missed out on.”

“It isn't a joke that I am bad husband material. You saw how my parents turned out.”

“So your parents failed, therefore you never have to try?” She laughed, a brittle sound. “Convenient.”

“That isn't what I said.”

“That is exactly the way you live.”

Lightning tore the sky behind him. For a moment the cottage glared white, and every angle of his face sharpened, shadows carving deeper lines.

He set the bottle down on the coffee table a little too hard. Beer fizz surged up the neck. “What are you really mad about?”

“Four years.” The word dropped between them. “Four years of weekends and holidays and you closing your laptop and driving down here like you are doing me some favour. Four years of you saying you are not ready whenever I ask what this is.”

His jaw flexed. “I never lied to you.”

Lena stepped closer. Storm light brushed across her cheekbones, turning them pale and sharp. Her hoodie hung off one shoulder, strings damp from the earlier rain.

“You never honested at me either.”

“That isn't a word.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I told you from the beginning,” he said, slanting his head. “I am not a marriage person. I am not a kids person. I like my place in the city, I like my job, I like you, and I want you, sure. I need you some days, more than I admit. That is two pretty big things.”

“Two out of three,” Lena said quietly.

“Exactly. You knew the deal.”

She shook her head, a small, helpless motion. “I thought you would change.”

“Thought magic coastal air would make me sprout a ring box?”

“Thought time would show you that I am worth more than almost.” Her throat tightened on the last word.

Rain started to slap the glass in thick, heavy sheets. The wind pitched higher. In the distance, a siren wailed down in the village, then vanished.

Mark raked fingers through his hair. “You know I care about you.”

“Caring isn't the issue.”

“I show up. I fix things. Who put that extra lock on your door? Who climbed into your attic to deal with the squirrels? Who drove you to the hospital when you thought you were having a heart attack and turned out it was just anxiety?”

Her mouth tucked up on one side. “You say ‘just’ like my chest was not trying to implode.”

He sighed. “You know what I mean.”

“I know you are a good emergency contact. I need someone who shows up when it is quiet too.”

He flinched as if she had thrown something solid.

Lightning flashed again, closer. The house shuddered with the following thunder. A picture frame rattled on the wall. She looked up at it out of habit, at the photograph inside. Sunlight. Two shadows on the sand, their faces half hidden by wind-tossed hair. His smile turned soft by the way he had been looking at her.

“You love me,” she said, softer now. “You have never used the word.”

“I do not throw that word around.”

“You do not throw it around at all.”

His lips pressed together. “Does saying it change anything? Does it fix your roof or pay your gas bill? Does it make me suddenly want a white dress and a disco?”

Her hands curled at her sides. “You reduce everything to chores and jokes so you do not have to risk anything that matters.”

“I am here, in the middle of a storm, because you said you wanted to talk,” he shot back. “I drove through flooded lanes in a car that hates puddles. This isn't nothing.”

“This is crumbs.” Her voice cracked. “I keep swallowing them and calling it a meal.”

For a heartbeat, neither spoke. Wind whistled under the door. The old clock in the hallway ticked a stubborn rhythm.

Rain lashed harder, as if the sky had decided to empty itself in one go.

Mark looked away first. His gaze landed on her suitcase by the stairs. Blue, scuffed, half-open. A jumper poked out of the top, sleeve draped like a limp arm.

“What is that for?” His tone flattened, dangerously quiet.

“Figured it might be easier after this talk,” she said. “If you do not want what I want, I should stop waiting for you to want it.”

“I packed before the weather trapped us,” she said. “In case the talk went how it is going.”

“You were ready to run the moment you dragged me out here.”

“I was ready to stop pretending.”

The storm shuddered against the cottage, a full-body shake that rattled the windows. A fork of lightning split the sky behind him and slammed the shadows around the room into new shapes.

Mark stepped toward the stairs. The bottle on the table toppled, beer fizzing down the side. “You should have waited.”

“I have been waiting for years.”

“This is a holiday,” he said. “We were supposed to drink wine, walk the cliffs, pretend we are nineteen again. You made it into an exit interview.”

Her pulse hammered in her throat. “I made it honest.”

His shoulders lifted once and stayed there, tensed as if he had been bracing for a blow all night. “So that is it. This is where you throw everything back in my face.”

“I am trying to save my future,” she said. “It stopped including you the second you decided it was something you feared.”

He stared at her. He stared at the suitcase. His voice slipped into something low and dangerous. “You are not taking that bag to the car. The roads are flooded anyway.”

“I will figure it out.”

“You do not leave me here alone like some villain in your story.”

“No one needs to make you the villain,” she said. “You are doing a good job all by yourself.”

Colour rose beneath his skin. “You think you deserve better.”

“I know I do.”

The wind howled under the door and sent a sheet of rain across the floor near the stairs. Lena backed up a step and squared her stance.

“I am leaving when the storm clears,” she said. “You can stay, or you can come back with me. Those are your choices.”

“You think I am going to beg,” he said.

“No,” she answered. “You do not beg for what you want. You avoid it.”

His breath came fast and shallow. His eyes flickered to the suitcase again, then to her hands, then back to her face. Behind his expression, something broke. Something quiet. Something sharp.

“You packed that bag before I even walked in the door.” The words shook. “You had already decided.”

“I decided I will not live on crumbs anymore.”

“You practiced that line,” he growled.

She didn't answer.

He reached for the suitcase.

Her hand got there first.

The wheels squeaked across the floor as they both clutched the handle. Her knuckles whitened. His fingers dug in.

“Let go,” she whispered.

“You are not walking away,” he hissed.

“You are hurting me.”

“That is what leaving feels like.”

Rain battered the cottage like a scream of stones. The lights flickered, dimmed, then struggled back to life in a sickly glow.

“Mark,” she said. “Look at me.”

He didn't.

He wrenched the suitcase toward him. The slick floor robbed her footing. She stumbled forward into him. Her shoulder hit his chest.

He shoved her away to regain his balance.

The motion was too quick. Too strong. Too angry.

Her heel slipped on the wet floor. She fell backward onto the bottom step. Her head struck wood with a blunt crack that split the world.

The light went out altogether.

Darkness swallowed her shape.

The storm roared on.

For a long moment, Mark could not move. His breath came in short bursts, like he was drowning on dry land.

“Lena.”

No reply.

He fumbled through the dark, hands shaking violently. His palm found her shoulder. Her body lay at an awful angle, limbs wrong. He crawled closer, fingers searching along her neck for something alive.

Nothing pulsed beneath his touch.

Lightning flared through the window and showed him her face for a heartbeat. Eyes half open. Mouth slack. Hair pooled like spilled ink.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”

His hands hovered above her as if he were afraid to touch her again. Afraid touch itself had become poison.

The storm hurled itself harder against the cottage. A gutter ripped free and clanged against the siding.

He pressed his palm to her chest with shaking desperation.

Still nothing.

The truth crept in slowly and mercilessly. He sagged back until he hit the wall. His hand, the one that shoved her, twitched into a fist as though it could deny what it had done.

Rainwater on the floor reflected the flicker of blue lightning. It glimmered under the overturned suitcase, which lay gaping open like a mouth.

Another flash of lightning carved his silhouette against the wall. His heart pounded a jagged rhythm that didn't feel like fear anymore. It felt like something worse.

He wiped his hand across his face, smearing tears he had not realised were falling.

The wind screamed.

The cottage rattled.

He stayed very still and listened to the storm decide their alibi.

The wind roared, the rain hammered the roof in frantic applause, and the sea hurled itself against the cliffs as if trying to erase the world.

He stood slowly and carefully, like a man testing unfamiliar legs. His eyes flicked to the overturned suitcase, to the clothes that spilled bright and accusing across the floor.

One by one, he gathered them up.

Her phone lay near the bottom stair. He slipped it into his pocket.

Mark stared at the woman he loved. The woman he never said he loved. The woman who needed just one more thing than he could give.

He wiped the wet patch beneath her head with the sleeve of his shirt. He brushed her hair gently back from her face, arranging it as if she had fallen softly. His hand lingered a moment too long on her cheek.

Lightning stuttered across the window. His shadow sharpened on the wall behind him, tall and sure.

He whispered to no one. “It was the storm.”

Then he closed the curtains tight, shutting out the night, and turned the radio back on.

The song resumed right where she had cut it off.

“I want you, I need you…”

He stood in the dark and let the chorus finish for him.