Let's Swim Until We Get Struck By Lightning

 

It was Sunday afternoon. The weather was unsettled. Sunny one minute, cloudy the next. Rex and I sat on the dock, waiting for the right sunny moment to jump in the water. He played the guitar while I watched the clouds roll by. Our time at the lake is limited by an unusual home sharing arrangement with my estranged husband who moved into the vacation home three years ago. We usually take turns staying there on weekends.

Under cover of clouds, we heard a low rumble of thunder. I looked at Rex and said, “Uh oh, I just heard thunder. Does that mean we’re not supposed to swim at all, or do we just swim until we get struck by lightning?” He shot me a smoldering grin with his deep blue eyes and chiseled face. “We should just swim until we get struck by lightning.”

It was as if in this one quick moment we had finally defined our relationship which for the past year has been mostly just having fun in the moment without much thought to where we might be headed. I thought I heard him imply something like “I don’t care if I die swimming with you” in that one look. We connected on OKCupid in May, 2017, met IRL in August, and have been seeing each other continuously ever since. I’m legally and physically separated from my husband. He is divorced twice. We don’t talk about the future. We just keep swimming and enjoying the water.

We jumped in the lake. The lightning held off. I know it is very unwise to swim during an active thunderstorm. Don’t try this at home. If our conversation about the weather was a metaphor for our relationship, we will keep swimming until we get struck by lightning or some other similar shit fucks it up.