The Last Vitamin

The divorce papers sat on the kitchen counter beside a bowl of oranges, their bright skins mocking the gray heaviness in Nathan's chest. Forty-two years old and starting over, all because Sarah had decided she needed to find herself — apparently, herself didn't include a husband who worked in insurance.

Nathan stared at the oranges. Sarah had always insisted on buying organic, as if the premium price tag purchased moral superiority along with pesticide-free fruit. He picked one up, peeled it aggressively, the citrus spray hitting his face like tiny tears. The scent was violently itself — uncompromising, unlike everything else in his life right now.

At work, his supervisor called him into her office. Theresa, with her calculated smiles and predatory eye contact — everyone called her The Fox behind her back, though never to her face. She'd gotten three promotions in four years by knowing exactly where the weak spots were.

"Nathan, you seem distracted," she said, not really a question. "There's a restructuring coming."

He thought about the spinach he'd forced himself to eat that morning, bitter and raw, because the doctor said his blood pressure was creeping up. One more thing failing. His marriage. His health. Probably his job next.

"I'm fine," he lied.

Theresa's phone buzzed. She glanced at it, her mask slipping for just a second — something hungry and satisfied flickered across her face. Nathan recognized that expression. He'd seen it in the mirror sometimes, when he closed a big account or undercut a colleague. We were all foxes when we needed to survive.

"Take care of yourself," she said, dismissive already.

That evening, Nathan found himself in the supplement aisle, staring at rows of promises in bottles. Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin B-Complex — entire alphabets of things his body supposedly lacked. He grabbed a bottle of multivitamins, not because he believed they'd fix anything, but because doing something felt better than doing nothing.

The cashier, a woman with tired eyes and a name tag that said 'LINDA,' scanned his items. "Rough day?" she asked, noticing his lack of other groceries — just the vitamins and a frozen pizza.

"You could say that."

"My ex-husband used to take these," she said, dropping the bottle into a bag. "Said they made him feel like he was taking action, even when he was just waiting for his life to happen."

Nathan laughed, startled. "That's exactly it."

"He died last year," she said, scanning the pizza. "Heart attack. But at least he had good blood pressure."

Nathan walked home under orange streetlights, the vitamin bottle heavy in his pocket. The city smelled like exhaust and possibility. Somewhere, Sarah was probably drinking green juice with someone named Chad or Brendan, feeling righteous and alive. Somewhere, Theresa was sharpening her claws for tomorrow's kill.

And Nathan was just here, walking, heart beating, blood pressure whatever it was. Alive despite everything. He thought about Linda's dead husband, about all the vitamins in the world, about foxes and oranges and spinach and how you could do everything right and still end up alone in a grocery store buying frozen pizza.

He unlocked his apartment door and ate the orange he'd brought home from work, sticky juices running down his chin. It was bitter, tart, and insistently itself. For the first time all day, he tasted something real.