The Supplement

Mara noticed the changes gradually, like water erosion carving something new from familiar stone.

First, it was the spinach. Thomas had always turned his nose up at greens, calling them "rabbit food" with that charming, stubborn grin she'd fallen for. But suddenly, he was ordering spinach salads at lunch, sautéing it with garlic for dinner. When she asked, he waved it off. "Watching my health, Mar. Getting old."

Then came the vitamin regimen. A small pharmacy on his bathroom counter - multivitamins, B-complex, fish oil capsules that made his breath taste like the ocean. He'd never taken a pill in his life except for the occasional ibuprofen after whiskey nights.

"You okay?" she'd asked one morning, watching him swallow four tablets with precision.

"Just... taking care of myself," he'd said, not meeting her eyes.

The truth arrived on a Tuesday, lightning splitting the sky outside their apartment window. Thunder rattled the glass. Mara had come home early from a migraine, walking into their kitchen to find Thomas at the table, an orange spread before him like evidence.

He was dissecting it.

Not peeling it in the casual way he always had - ripping off strips, letting the juice run down his wrists. This was surgical. Each section separated with trembling fingers. He arranged the pieces in a pattern.

"Tom?"

He jumped, knocking the orange pieces askew. "Mara. You're home."

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Something in his voice - defensive, brittle. "Just... an orange."

She crossed the room, migraine forgotten. "You hate oranges. Too acidic. You've said that a hundred times."

"People change."

"Do they?" She picked up a bottle from the counter, the one she'd assumed were vitamins. "What's in these, Tom?"

"Vitamins. Like I said."

She read the label. Not a pharmaceutical name. A research institute.Clinical trials. Cognitive enhancement protocols.

"Spy stuff," she realized aloud. "You're a test subject?"

"For science," he said quietly. "They pay well, Mar. Better than the consulting gig. We need the money for the house."

"You're letting strangers put who knows what into your brain because we want a bigger mortgage?"

"It's not like that."

"Then what IS it like? What else have you changed?" Her voice rose. "The spinach. The oranges. What else aren't you telling me?"

"Everything," he whispered. "It's changing everything. How I think. What I want. How I feel about-" He stopped.

"About us?" she finished.

The lightning flashed again, illuminating his face - the same face she'd woken up beside for seven years, now looking like a stranger's.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know who I am anymore."

Mara looked at the dissected orange on the table. At the man she'd trusted with her heart, who'd traded his mind for a down payment.

"I'll pack," she said.

He didn't argue. The new Thomas, apparently, didn't know how.