The Last Good Vitamin

Mara stood outside the hospital room, her hand hovering over the door handle. Inside, Thomas would be lying there—her oldest friend, the one person who'd witnessed every iteration of her becoming. They'd made a pact decades ago: no deathbed scenes. But here she was, clutching a bottle of vitamin D supplements like they were ammunition.

She couldn't bear the thought of him disappearing into that sterile white room without someone bearing witness to who he'd been.

"You came," he said when she entered, his voice thin as paper. "I told you not to."

"I brought you these." She placed the vitamins on his nightstand, their orange plastic rattling against the glass. "For your bones."

Thomas laughed, then coughed. "I'm dying, Mara, not growing. Those won't save me."

"No," she said, pulling a chair to his bedside. "But they're something. Something normal."

He stared at the ceiling, his breathing shallow. "Remember my goldfish? The one that lived seven years?"

"Winston. You fed him better than you fed yourself."

"I used to wonder if he knew he was swimming in circles," Thomas murmured. "If the castle was a palace or a prison. Now I'm the one in the bowl."

Mara took his hand, his skin papery and cool. "You're not alone in it."

"Aren't we all?" His eyes found hers, suddenly sharp. "That's the joke. We spend our lives thinking someone else will make it real. A lover, a friend, a child. But in the end, we're all just... " He gestured vaguely at the room, at the monitors, at the vitamins.

She squeezed his hand. "I brought whiskey," she whispered. "Hidden in my purse. We could have a drink. For old times."

A faint smile touched his lips. "You always were the bad influence."

"I prefer 'the one who remembers what matters.'"

They sat there as the sun set through the window, two friends in a room that smelled of antiseptic and rebellion, passing a flask back and forth while the machines beeped their soft mechanical rhythm, bearing witness to something no vitamin could fix and no goldfish could comprehend—the particular, terrifying beauty of having someone to say goodbye to.