Expiration Date

The morning light hit her kitchen table in that particular shade of orange that only comes at 6:47 AM—that precarious moment between night and day when anything still feels possible. Sarah sat across from Mark, watching him line up his supplements with surgical precision: vitamin D, omega-3, something for joint health he'd started taking at thirty-two.

'You're doing that thing again,' she said.

Mark didn't look up. 'What thing?'

'That thing where you act like you can optimize yourself out of feeling like shit.' Sarah's voice was tired, not unkind. Just worn thin from two years of watching him treat life like a problem to be solved rather than experienced.

He finally met her eyes, then glanced at his iphone buzzing on the table—work email, probably, or maybe her again, wondering where he was last night when he'd said he was working late. The cable from his charger snaked across the table like a lifeline he couldn't quite commit to unplugging.

'I'm just trying to be healthy, Sarah.' But they both knew it wasn't about health anymore. It was about control. About finding something—anything—he could count on when their marriage had become a series of cancelled plans and conversations that always seemed to happen tomorrow.

She picked at the peel of the orange she'd sectioned earlier, the citrus scent sharp in the small kitchen. 'Remember when we used to talk about dreams? Not goals. Not five-year plans. Just—what if?'

Mark's phone buzzed again. This time he didn't check it.

'We still talk,' he said, but it sounded like a question.

'Do we?' Sarah stood up, her chair scraping against the floor. 'Because I feel like I'm living with a really efficient roommate who's somehow always leaving.'

The orange sat forgotten between them, its bright sections beginning to dry at the edges. Outside, the light shifted, that perfect orange moment gone, replaced by the gray certainty of another ordinary day. Mark looked at his vitamins, at his phone, at the woman he loved but somehow couldn't seem to reach anymore.

'I can skip work today,' he said, and for the first time in months, he didn't check his calendar before speaking.

Sarah looked at him, really looked at him, and something in her face softened. 'Start with breakfast,' she said. 'Just breakfast. No optimizing. No multitasking. Just sit here with me.'

Mark pushed his phone away. The cable still connected it to the wall, but for now, that could be enough.