Supplements for a Dying Friendship

The bottle sat on the kitchen counter — orange-labeled, promising happiness in gel capsule form. Vitamin D3, the psychologist had called it, prescribing it alongside the other antidepressants. But I knew they wouldn't work. You can't supplement your way out of grief.

"He won't eat," Sarah said, her voice flat. She gestured to the corner where Barnaby, her golden retriever, lay thump-tailed but refusing the organic kibble she'd started buying after her promotion. Everything about Sarah had become calibrated and optimized since she'd started climbing corporate ladders. Even her grief.

I'd come over to check on her — or on him, really. Sarah's husband had walked out three months ago, leaving her with their dog and a mortgage she could barely afford. We'd been friends since college, but lately our conversations felt like performance art. She'd complain about her toxic workplace, and I'd nod, making the right sympathetic noises. Meanwhile, I'd been sleeping with her boss.

The dog whimpered.

"Maybe he's lonely," I said, the words tasting like ash.

Sarah laughed, sharp and humorless. "He's a dog, Jamie. He misses Mark. I think that's it." She uncapped the vitamin bottle. "The vet said animals pick up on our energy. That's why I started taking these again. Projecting calm, or whatever."

She dry-swallowed two capsules without water.

"Have you heard from Mark?" I asked, though I already knew the answer. Mark had told me everything last night in a hotel bar downtown — how he'd suspected something for months, how the fights with Sarah had become explosive, how he'd finally left because he couldn't stand pretending anymore.

He hadn't named me. But he'd described a perfume I wore.

"No," Sarah said. "But you know what's funny? I found these old vitamins Barnaby used to take. The vet prescribed them when he was a puppy, for his joints." She held up another bottle, dusty and half-finished. "I was going to throw them out, but then I thought — they're still good. Maybe I should start taking them instead."

She met my eyes then, and for the first time in months, I saw something real in her expression. Not the corporate calm she'd been performing. Something darker.

"You know," she continued, "Mark always said Barnaby was the smartest one in this family. The dog knew something was wrong with us before either of us would admit it."

Barnaby lifted his head, watching us with those amber eyes that seemed to see everything.

"Sarah," I started, but she cut me off.

"I saw the texts, Jamie. On his old iPad. He backed everything up before he left." Her voice stayed conversational, almost pleasant. "I've been waiting for you to tell me yourself."

The kitchen seemed to tilt. "How long?"

"Long enough." She picked up both vitamin bottles — hers and the dog's — and considered them. "Here's what I keep thinking. These supplements, all these things we take to feel better, to fix what's broken. Maybe some things aren't meant to be fixed."

She dropped both bottles in the trash. The plastic clattered loudly against the metal bin.

"Barnaby," she called, and the dog trotted over, tail wagging. "You want to go for a walk?"

I stood in her kitchen, surrounded by the debris of our friendship, watching them leave through the back door. The dog glanced back once — not at Sarah, but at me. Like he'd known this was coming all along.

On the counter, my phone buzzed. A message from Mark: "Did you tell her yet?"

I deleted it. Then I deleted her number. Some things, once broken, can't be supplemented back together.