Deficiency

The wilted spinach lay in the vegetable drawer, exactly where she'd left it three days ago. Its darkening leaves mirrored what their marriage had become—something once vibrant now slowly rotting from neglect. Elena stood in the kitchen, phone in hand, the blue light illuminating her face in the otherwise dark house.

His iPhone had been sitting on the counter when she got home from work, screen unlocked and notifications pouring in like secrets he'd forgotten to hide. That's when she saw it: a dinner reservation for two. Tomorrow night. Her name wasn't on it.

The vitamin bottle sat on the windowsill, the morning sun glinting through its amber plastic. He'd started taking them six months ago, talking about getting healthy, about wanting to be better. For them, he'd said. She'd believed him. She'd bought the spinach, the kale, the organic eggs. She'd measured their portions and counted their macros like prayer, hoping that if they could just get healthy enough, something would shift between them.

But the vitamins had been a performance. The spinach had rotted while he'd been elsewhere, nourishing himself with someone else.

The front door opened. His key in the lock, his familiar footsteps. "Elena?"

She turned, phone still in hand, screen glowing with the evidence that had finally broken her. The spinach drawer was open behind her, the smell of decay already rising into the room.

"What's wrong?" he asked, though she could see he already knew.

She set the iPhone on the counter between them, the reservation glowing on its face. Then she slid the vitamin bottle toward him, the pills rattling like accusations inside their plastic cage.

"Take these," she said, voice surprisingly steady. "You'll need your strength."

He looked from the phone to the spinach, then to her—the woman he'd starved while pretending to feed them both. The realization washed over his face like dawn breaking over a battlefield: there would be no recovering from this deficiency.