Supplements

The iPhone lit up his face in blue pulses, the only illumination in their bedroom as she pretended to sleep beside him. Another notification. Another woman, probably. Or just work—he was always working now, even when he wasn't.

Outside, lightning cracked the sky open, and she counted the seconds until thunder shook the windowpane. One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi. They used to make wishes on storm fronts. Now they just slept through them.

She'd started taking the vitamins six months ago—D for the depression she refused to name, B-complex for the energy she'd lost somewhere between her promotion and their tenth anniversary. Little capsules of optimism swallowed with morning coffee, washed down with the desperate hope that if she fixed her body, her heart might follow.

His phone screen dimmed. He finally set it down on the nightstand.

"You awake?" His voice sounded wrong. Choked.

She rolled over, eyes adjusting to the darkness. He was crying—silent tears tracking down his temple into the pillow. She hadn't seen him cry since his mother's funeral.

"What's wrong?"

"I didn't get the promotion." A sob escaped. "I feel like I've been—I've been lying to you. Pretending I have everything under control when I'm barely keeping it together."

Another flash of lightning illuminated his face, stripped bare. She reached for his hand, found it trembling.

"I know," she said. "I've been taking vitamins for six months trying to fix something that isn't just in my body. We're both pretending."

They lay there as the storm passed, his phone dark between them, her vitamin bottle on the bathroom counter downstairs. Sometimes the lightning doesn't destroy anything. Sometimes it just shows you what's already burning.