Running in Circles

The morning sun was barely bleeding through the skyline when Elias's phone vibrated against the nightstand. Another notification from the **spy**ware he'd secretly installed on Maya's phone six months ago.

He stared at the ceiling fan's rhythmic rotation, shame burning like acid in his throat. The GPS coordinates showed her at 24-hour fitness—not at work, as she'd claimed when she'd slipped out at 4 AM. He'd become exactly what he'd always despised: someone who didn't trust, someone who needed to monitor instead of communicate.

He got up and started **running**.

The pavement unfurled beneath him like a gray ribbon, his breath syncing with the rhythm of his doubts. Three years of marriage, and somehow they'd become strangers who shared a bed. He remembered when **running** together had been their ritual—two bodies moving in perfect synchronicity, sweat and endorphins masking the conversations they weren't having.

He stopped at the corner bodega, breath ragged in the crisp morning air. The clerk barely looked up from his magazine. Elias bought a bottle of orange juice and stood in the supplement aisle, staring at rows of **vitamin** bottles—B12, D3, zinc, magnesium. All these little pills they swallowed to fix themselves from the outside in, as if something chemical could repair the rot growing between them.

That's when he saw it: the sheer **bull**shit of it all. The way they'd both been performing health, performing wellness, performing marriage while everything underneath was hollowing out.

He walked home, slow now, the orange juice warm in his hand. Maya was in the kitchen when he entered, looking guilty and beautiful in the soft dawn light.

"I went for a run," she said, defensive before he could speak. "I couldn't sleep."

Elias set the juice on the counter. He could tell her about the app. He could demand to know where she'd really been. Or he could finally be honest about what he'd become.

"I know," he said instead. "Maya, I need to tell you something."

The truth hung between them, terrifying and necessary, and for the first time in months, they weren't running anywhere at all.