The Last Vitamin

The padel court echoed with the sharp *thwack* of rubber against glass, a rhythm I'd followed for six months without understanding. Every Thursday at 7 PM, Julian would cancel our plans. Every Friday, he'd show up to work with that smug post-exercise glow, claiming he'd been at the gym.

I stood in the doorway of the club's viewing area, watching him play. He moved with an easy grace I'd never witnessed in all the years I'd known him. Beside him—laughing at his missed shots, touching his arm after each point—was Elena from accounting. His "gym buddy."

The irony burned like acid. Julian was my oldest friend, the person who'd stood by me through divorce and dead-end jobs and that summer I couldn't get out of bed. Yet here he was, living an entire life I knew nothing about.

I considered confronting him. Instead, I walked to the pharmacy around the corner and stood in the supplement aisle, staring at rows of promises in amber bottles. Vitamin D for the darkness I couldn't shake. Vitamin B12 for the energy I'd misplaced somewhere in my thirties. Vitamin C for immunity against the things that might kill me—loneliness, betrayal, time.

I settled on a multivitamin. The cheapest one. Because even in the face of a friendship's quiet death, some part of me still believed I could buy my way to wholeness.

Julian found me there, still holding the bottle. He'd seen me leave the court. His shirt was soaked through, and for the first time, he couldn't meet my eyes.

"I was going to tell you," he said. "About Elena. About the lessons."

"Why?" The question came out smaller than I intended.

He hesitated. "Because you're the person who has everything together. You didn't need one more thing to worry about."

I nearly laughed. We'd spent decades lying to each other, performing competence while secretly drowning. This was just another performance—him playing the carefree friend, me playing the stable one. Neither of us willing to admit that maybe we were both just

trying to survive.

"I bought this," I said, holding up the vitamins. "It claims to support heart health."

Julian looked at the bottle, then at me, and something broke behind his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "For thinking you were too strong to need... whatever this is."

We stood there in the supplement aisle, two men pushing forty, surrounded by products promising to fix what time and circumstance had broken. Behind us, the pharmacist announced a prescription was ready. Someone's daily reminder of mortality, delivered in a plastic orange container.

"Teach me," I said. "Padel."

Julian's eyebrows rose. "Really?"

"Really. But next time, maybe I'll play with Elena. You can watch."

He smiled—an actual smile, not the practiced one I'd seen a thousand times. "Deal."

The vitamin bottle sat on my counter for months. I never opened it. But Thursday evenings, I learned to hit a ball against a glass wall, and somewhere in the sound of it—impact, rebound, return—I started to remember that some things break only so they can break open.