The Riddle We Married

Elena watched him from the doorway again — Marcus at his desk at 2 AM, the blue light of his monitor painting his face in ghostly strokes. Three years of marriage and she'd stopped asking when he'd come to bed. She'd become something else entirely: a creature of routine, moving through domestic life with hollow eyes and mechanical grace. A zombie of the heart, still walking, still making coffee, still saying 'I love you' at the appropriate intervals, but the hunger had flatlined into something resembling obligation.

The vitamin bottles sat on the counter like a tiny city of orange plastic. D3 for his seasonal depression. B-complex for her energy. Magnesium for sleep. They were optimizing the biology of a relationship that had already died, dosing themselves with the desperate arithmetic of wellness, as if the right combination of supplements could resuscitate what they'd lost.

'You're staring,' Marcus said without turning around.

'I'm remembering.' She leaned against the doorframe. 'Remember when we couldn't keep our hands off each other? When we'd stay up talking about nothing until dawn?'

He swiveled his chair. The circles under his eyes were deep enough to drown in. 'Work has been—'

'Work is always hell, Marcus. That's not why we're dying.' She stepped into the room and the sphinx of it settled between them, ancient and patient — the unasked question that had been devouring them for months: What happens when you outgrow the person you promised to love forever?

He rubbed his face with both hands. 'I started taking those vitamins you bought. The ones for focus and mood.' His voice cracked. 'I want to want us again, El. I'm trying.'

She saw it then: they were both zombies, neither dead nor alive, trapped in the amber of a vow made to people they no longer were. The vitamins on the counter weren't for health. They were hope in capsule form.

'Stop taking them,' she said softly.

'What?'

' the vitamins. The supplements. The pretending.' She crossed the room and sank into his lap, pressing her forehead to his. 'Let's just be broken together. Maybe that's the only way to find out if there's anything left worth fixing.'

Outside their window, the city kept burning, and somewhere in the dark, the sphinx waited for an answer they weren't ready to give.