The Last Pill

I found the bottle of vitamins in the medicine cabinet, exactly where she'd left them three months ago. 'For your heart,' she'd said, pressing the bottle into my palm during our final conversation. I hadn't opened them since.

Our cat, Bento, wound around my legs as I stared at the orange plastic container. He'd been hers, really—she'd rescued him from behind a dumpster during our first year together. Now he was mine, his constant presence a reminder of everything I couldn't hold onto.

The apartment felt hollow without her laughter bouncing off the walls. I'd grown accustomed to the solitude, or so I told myself each morning while watching sunlight crawl across the floorboards where she used to do yoga.

'Come here,' I whispered to Bento, lifting him onto the counter. He purred against my chest, his warmth the only genuine thing in this curated life we'd built together. The cable box blinked below the television—another monthly bill for services I barely used, but couldn't bring myself to cancel. Some connections, even the ones we pay for, feel impossible to sever.

That night, I opened the vitamin bottle for the first time. The pills smelled of artificial citrus and false promises. I swallowed one anyway, thinking about how she'd always believed in prevention, in maintenance, in the small acts that keep people from falling apart. She'd left me, hadn't she? Maybe she'd seen the cracks forming before I did.

Bento slept at the foot of the bed, his breathing rhythmic and steady. I lay awake until dawn, counting the ways I'd failed her, failed us, failed myself. The vitamin dissolved in my stomach, useless and necessary all at once.