The supplement

Margot stared at her palm, the crease deepening as she clenched her fist around the vitamin supplement. The orange gel capsule promised renewed energy, better focus, something to fix the hollow ache that had been growing inside her since the layoff announcements.

Her iPhone buzzed on the nightstand—David again. Three missed calls, two texts about the mortgage, one about how he'd forgotten to pick up dry cleaning. She'd stopped reading them somewhere around the second week of her consulting gig, the one that paid half her salary for twice the hours.

The fox appeared at dusk every evening now—a sleek russet shape moving through the overgrown garden behind their rented townhouse. Margot watched it from the kitchen window, sipping lukewarm coffee while waiting for David to fall asleep. Sometimes she imagined the fox was watching back, amber eyes judging her silence, her retreat into herself.

"You're taking those again?" David had asked yesterday morning, gesturing to the vitamin bottle on the counter. His tone wasn't unkind, just tired. They were both so tired.

"They help," she'd said, which wasn't exactly a lie.

What helped more was standing in the garden at dusk, breathing in the smell of damp earth and decay, watching the fox parse through the weeds. In those moments, Margot felt something shift inside her—not energy exactly, but permission. Permission to want something different, to acknowledge that the life they'd built together—comfortable, predictable, slowly suffocating—might not be the only option.

Her iPhone lit up again. This time she picked it up.

The fox paused at the garden's edge, head tilted. Margot swallowed the vitamin dry, then typed back: I need to tell you something.

Outside, the fox slipped away into darkness, leaving only the rustle of leaves and the certainty that tomorrow, something would finally change.