The Last Vitamin at Sunset

Marcus stood on the balcony of his forty-third floor apartment, staring at the city below. The corporate pyramid—that's what he called the hierarchy at McKinley & Banks—had finally spit him out after seventeen years. His severance package included six months of insurance and a bottle of multivitamins.

He swallowed one vitamin dry, watching the sunset paint the sky in bruised purples. Inside, Elena was packing. She'd left her straw hat on the kitchen counter—a gift from their trip to Barcelona last year, back when they still pretended things were fixable. The hat's brim was curled upward, frozen in perpetual optimism.

"Are you coming to say goodbye?" she called from the bedroom.

Marcus couldn't move. He thought about the goldfish they'd bought on their fifth anniversary, how it had swum in endless circles until one morning they found it floating, belly-up, against the glass. Elena had cried. Marcus had flushed it without ceremony. That was when everything between them had started to curdle.

"We're still playing padel on Thursday," he said finally. "Liam and Sarah."

"Cancel it, Marcus."

She appeared in the doorway, suitcase in hand. The goldfish had been named Pablo, after the tennis player. They'd watched it together every morning, feeding it flakes, waiting for some sign of recognition that never came.

"I don't want to play padel with a couple who hates us," she said. "I don't want to pretend anymore."

The vitamin dissolved slowly in his stomach, its promises of health and vitality feeling like a cruel joke. The corporate pyramid had demanded everything—his youth, his marriage, his ability to feel anything beyond exhaustion. And for what? A condo with a view and a lifetime supply of supplements.

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it.

Elena set down her suitcase. "Sorry doesn't fix anything. But you could start by getting help."

She walked to the balcony, standing beside him. Together they watched the city darken, two people who had once built something together now reduced to survivors in the wreckage of their own making.