The Nutritional Truth

Elena stood at the stove, watching the spinach collapse in the pan—emerald leaves turning dark, surrendering to heat the way she'd surrendered to years of compromise. The water in the pot hissed and spat, a small rebellion she couldn't quite muster herself.

"How was your meeting?" she asked when Mark walked in, not turning around. She already knew. She always knew.

"Same old bullshit." He kissed her cheek absentmendedly. "Johnson's on another tear. Thinks he's some kind of bull in a china shop, smashing through everything we've built. Man's got no finesse."

Elena nodded, her back to him. Johnson this, Johnson that. Mark's frustrations were always someone else's fault. He'd been telling her for three years that he'd leave the firm, start his own practice. But the bull never left the china shop, and Mark never left the building.

"You're taking your vitamins?" he asked, already moving to the fridge. The question was automatic, a tic.

"Every day."

She was, she realized suddenly. She'd been taking his emotional scraps the same way—dutifully, believing they were somehow essential to her well-being. His rare compliments. His occasional thoughtful gestures. The way he sometimes looked at her like she was the only woman in the room, between the times he forgot to look at her at all.

"What's wrong?" He noticed her stillness at the stove. Women's intuition, he always said, like it was some kind of vitamin supplement they came with.

"Nothing." She turned off the burner. The spinach lay limp, reduced. "Just thinking how we boil ourselves down for people. We think it's love, but really we're just... wilting."

Mark laughed, uncomfortable. "That's dark, El. You okay?"

She looked at him—at his kind eyes that somehow never saw her clearly, his strong hands that never held her tight enough. "I'm taking a vitamin, Mark. For the first time in years. One I actually need."

"What vitamin is that?"

"Self-respect."

The spinach steamed between them. He didn't understand. Not yet. But he would.