Absorption

The glass of water sat on her nightstand, condensation pooling on the coaster, a small translucent lake expanding its borders. Elena watched it breathe—evaporating, collecting, sliding down the curved surface. Three days ago, this would have been Richard's job. He'd have brought it upstairs with her vitamin D supplement and her evening meditation app, his performance of care so rehearsed it felt like theater.

Now she swallowed the vitamin dry, the chalky oval catching in her throat like a secret she couldn't voice.

"Your hair looks different," he'd said that morning, not looking up from his phone.

"Different how?"

"Thinner. Or something."

It was the first honest thing he'd said in months. Her hair was thinner—stress shedding, her dermatologist called it. Each strand a tiny flag of surrender. In the shower, she collected them from the drain, wound them around her finger like a rosary of failures.

The bathroom mirror showed her everything: the vitamin regimen that wasn't working, the expensive serums, the way her hair fell flat against her skull like rain on pavement. Richard had stopped noticing her months ago. He'd moved through their apartment like a ghost, leaving wet towels on the bed, unloading the dishwasher with aggressive efficiency, his back always turned.

She'd become obsessed with water intake—eight glasses, ten, twelve—as if somehow flooding her body from the inside could reverse something fundamental. As if hydration could fix what was broken between them.

Downstairs, the refrigerator hummed. Richard was probably there now, staring into its fluorescent interior, organizing condiments by height, avoiding the room where she slept.

Elena touched her hair, brittle and dry despite everything. The glass on the nightstand had stopped sweating. The water was still, motionless, reflecting nothing at all.

She swallowed another vitamin without water. Let it choke her. Let it be something she could feel.