Supplements & Storms

Elena stared at the amber bottle in her hand—Vitamin D3, 5000 IU. The recommended daily allowance, the label claimed. As if any amount could compensate for three years of a marriage that had been slowly leaching the light from her bones.

"You're taking those again?" Marcus's voice drifted from the bathroom, casual as a weather report. "I read a study that said most of that stuff is placebo."

She didn't answer. She wasn't taking them for the supposed bone health or immune support. She took them because he'd bought them for her once, early on, when he still noticed things like how she complained about feeling tired all the time. Now they were just another ritual—a tiny, daily acknowledgment of who they used to be.

Outside, lightning cracked the sky open, and for a second the whole apartment flooded with that terrible, beautiful illumination that shows you exactly what's there: dust on the bookshelves, water rings on the coffee table, the way Marcus left his socks bunched like dead things near the couch.

"Storm's getting worse," he called out.

"It is."

She'd started measuring time in storms lately. The big one last October, when he'd forgotten their anniversary and she'd pretended it didn't matter. The surprise snowstorm in March, when they'd sat through an entire dinner without saying anything real. This one tonight—it felt different. Something final.

Elena walked to the sliding glass door and pressed her palm against the cold glass. The rain came down in sheets, washing the city clean, or at least making it harder to see the cracks. She thought about vitamins and what they promised—this idea that something small and discrete could fix what was broken. As if loneliness or distance or the quiet erosion of love could be solved with a supplement.

Behind her, the bathroom door opened. Marcus came out, towel around his neck, catching her reflection in the glass. She saw him pause, saw the moment where he could have asked what was wrong, could have crossed the room and touched her shoulder.

Instead: "Did you pay the electric bill?"

Elena closed her eyes. The lightning flashed again, and for that brief, stark second, she understood that some deficiencies can't be corrected. Some things, once depleted, don't come back.

"Yes," she said. "I paid it."

She placed the vitamin bottle on the counter—empty, she realized. She'd taken the last one and hadn't even noticed. Tomorrow she'd buy more. Tomorrow she'd keep showing up for a marriage that had stopped showing up for her. Tomorrow, like always.

But not tonight. Tonight she watched the storm and let herself feel it: the hollow ache where something used to be.