Dead Things That Once Bloomed

The vitamin D sat on her desk like an accusation, a small orange gelatin promise of something she'd forgotten how to feel. Sarah swallowed it without water, the way she'd swallowed everything else for the past three years—her ambition, her voice, that jagged Saturday when Marcus said he needed space and never came back for his things.

She adjusted her hat, a vintage beret she'd found at a thrift store on a Tuesday lunch break when the fluorescent lights of the office made her feel like something crawling toward the light. The hat was her armor, her signal to the world that she was still the kind of person who wore vintage berets, even if she wasn't sure what that meant anymore.

The office was full of them—zombies in pressed shirts, shuffling between meetings with dead eyes and venti coffees, processing spreadsheets and swallowing supplements that promised to fix what capitalism had broken. Sarah was their queen now, leading the wellness initiative, organizing vitamin injection parties and mindfulness sessions while her own mind was anything but mindful. It had been months since she'd felt anything that wasn't exhaustion or the sharp prick of something lost.

Then she saw him by the elevators—Marcus, wearing a hat too, something silly and bright. Their eyes caught, and Sarah felt something crack open in her chest, something raw and terrible and alive. The vitamins on her desk seemed suddenly pathetic, small orange lies she told herself.

She walked toward him, her heels clicking on the polished floor, and for the first time in three years, she thought she might finally be ready to feel something real again, even if it hurt. Even if she had to become a zombie first to remember what living was supposed to look like.