The Art of Losing
The vitamin D supplement sat on his nightstand, a daily reminder of how badly he'd failed at taking care of himself. Mark stared at the amber pill bottle while Sarah's side of the bed remained cold for the third consecutive night.
"Just need space," she'd said, but he knew the truth. The new padel club downtown, where she'd been spending every evening. The coach with the西çŹç‰™ accent and the permanent tan. His iPhone buzzed with another ignored text from her: "Staying late for drinks after the match. Don't wait up."
Mark threw the phone across the room. It bounced off the wall, the screen spiderwebbing—fitting, really. Their marriage had been cracking for years, and he'd just been too blind to see the fractures.
He walked to the window and watched his neighbor's kid in the backyard, throwing a baseball against the garage door. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Rhythmic, dependable. The same sound he'd heard growing up, before life got complicated. Before ambition and promotions and the slow erosion of everything that used to matter.
His reflection in the glass showed a stranger. Gray hair at the temples that had appeared overnight, or maybe he'd just stopped noticing. Eyes hollowed by sleepless nights and the crushing realization that he'd become the kind of man who checked his wife's location app at 2 AM.
The baseball stopped. A woman called the boy inside for dinner. Mark's throat tightened.
"Dammit," he whispered.
He should fight. He should drive to that club, demand answers, make a scene. But he was tired. So bone-deep exhausted that the thought of confrontation felt like climbing Everest without oxygen.
Instead, he swallowed the vitamin D. Maybe it was hopelessly inadequate, but it was something. A small act of self-preservation in the wreckage.
Tomorrow he'd call a lawyer. Tonight, he'd pour a drink and listen to the silence where his life used to be.