The Supplement

Marcus found the bottle on the bathroom counter, nestled between Elena's expensive serums. 'Biotin Complex' it read, promising thicker, stronger hair. He'd noticed her spending more time in front of the mirror lately, pulling at the thinning strands at her temples, the way she'd started wearing her hair in a loose bun to hide what she called 'the widow's peak.'

'You don't need this,' he said later, over coffee.

She looked up from her phone, where she was scrolling through padel court bookings. 'It's not about need, Marcus. It's about—' She stopped herself.

'About what?'

'About control.' She set down the phone. 'About something I can actually fix.'

They'd been trying to conceive for eighteen months. Every negative test felt like another small death, another month when her body refused to cooperate with their carefully plotted timeline. The fertility specialist had mentioned stress reduction, exercise. Hence the padel—something they could do together, something that wasn't timed around ovulation kits and temperature charts.

'The vitamin D deficiency could be affecting everything,' she'd said after the last round of bloodwork. 'My hair, my energy, the—the other thing.' She never said it aloud anymore.

He wanted to tell her he loved her thinning hair, loved the silver threads that had started appearing at thirty-five, loved that she was aging alongside him while his friends traded in wives for younger models. But he knew that wasn't the point.

'I'll take them with you,' he said.

She laughed, actually laughed. 'They're for hair growth, Marcus.'

'I know.' He kissed her forehead. 'But I'll take whatever you're taking.'

Later, on the padel court, sweat running down their backs, she served an ace and turned to him with something like her old smile. 'Maybe we're like those vitamins,' she said. 'Some things you can't fix. Some things you just have to supplement.'

He watched her wipe her hair from her face, thinning and beautiful and fiercely his. 'Maybe,' he said. 'But some things are already whole.'