The Morning After Everything

The vitamin bottle rattled against the granite countertop — a daily ritual that felt more like penance than self-care. David swallowed three capsules without water, the bitter aftertaste matching the hollow ache in his chest.

She'd left two days ago. The silence in their apartment was heavier than any confrontation they'd ever had.

He poured himself a glass of orange juice, the artificial brightness mocking the gray dawn pressing against the kitchen window. His baseball glove still sat on the top shelf of the pantry, gathering dust since that summer they'd played catch in the park before everything started unraveling. He'd thrown the ball too hard that day. She'd flinched.

"That's the bullshit," she'd told him later that night. "Not the throwing. The pretending you don't know your own strength."

The water in the kettle began to whistle, shrill and demanding. He moved it off the burner but didn't pour. The steam rose like ghosts between them.

He remembered the vitamin deficiency diagnosis three months ago — iron, B12, Vitamin D. The doctor had called it "stress depletion" with professional detachment, as if naming it could fix anything. She'd bought him the supplements. She'd made him promise to take them.

Now the bottle was half empty and she was gone.

His phone lit up on the counter. Her name flashed like a warning. He didn't pick up.

The orange juice sat untouched. The water in his mug cooled to room temperature. He could hear traffic below, the city waking up indifferent to the small apocalypse occurring on the fourth floor.

David took another vitamin from the bottle. This time he swallowed it with water, letting the cold liquid wash down the bitterness, knowing this was the kind of small, meaningless choice that people made when everything else had already been decided.