Corporate Therapy

Maria found the bottle on her desk at 3 AM during another sleepless night at the office. B-complex vitamins with a note in Julian's handwriting: "For the stress headaches." Her husband knew her better than she knew herself these days.

She downed two pills dry, staring at her reflection in the darkened window. Her hair had started thinning six months ago—stress, according to her doctor, though Maria suspected it was the slow erosion of her soul from fifteen years of corporate litigation. The fluorescent lights of the forty-second floor didn't help.

"You're still here?"

She jumped. David, the senior partner, stood in her doorway, his expensive suit impeccable despite the hour. He held a leash in his hand—his golden retriever, Buster, occasionally graced the office on weekends. "Working late again?"

"Just finishing the merger documents," she said, closing her laptop. "What are you doing here?"

"Buster had a vet appointment," David said, which was clearly a lie at 3 AM. "Thought you might want to walk him. You look like you could use the air."

It was the kind of presumptuous comment that would normally irritate her, but Maria found herself taking the leash. They walked through the empty streets of the financial district in companionable silence, the dog's golden fur gleaming under streetlights.

"I saw the vitamins on your desk," David said suddenly. "Julian's idea?"

"He worries about me."

"Good. Someone should." David stopped, watching Buster investigate a lamppost. "We're not friends, Maria. We're colleagues. But I've noticed something lately—you're disappearing. Not showing up late, but physically fading away."

Maria's throat tightened. "I'm fine."

"Your hair is falling out." It wasn't unkind, just factual. "And you haven't taken a vacation in three years. Julian called me last week. Asked if I could assign you to a case that wouldn't require all-nighters."

The betrayal should have angered her. Instead, Maria felt something crack open in her chest. "He didn't tell me."

"He's your husband, Maria. He's watching you die by degrees." David's voice softened. "My wife died two years ago. I kept working through it, just like you're doing now. I thought if I stayed busy enough, the grief wouldn't catch me." His hand tightened on the leash. "I was wrong."

The dog nudged Maria's hand, and she found herself kneeling on the sidewalk, burying her face in Buster's soft fur. Something broke—years of controlled silence, professional detachment, the carefully constructed armor that had kept her functioning while her life hollowed out.

David stood silently as she wept into his dog's coat, the vitamins sitting heavy on her desk forty floors above, Julian's sleeping pill on the nightstand at home.

"Take the week off," David said when she finally stood, wiping her face. "Julian's already approved it. I'll cover your cases."

"I can't—"

"You can. You will." He held out the leash. "Take Buster. He's better company than I am."

She took the leash, the golden fur warm against her palm. "You're a better friend than you pretend to be."

David's smile was faint. "Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain."

The vitamin bottle sat on her desk for weeks after she returned—Julian's silent reminder that some people still believed she was worth saving.