The Supplement of Regrets

The vitamin D supplement sat on her desk like a judgment—a gentle pharmaceutical reminder that she hadn't seen sunlight in three weeks. Elena rubbed her palm across her forehead, smearing whatever remained of her makeup. At forty-two, she'd stopped pretending the corporate ladder was worth the climb, but the mortgage didn't care about her existential crisis.

"You're being a complete bull about this," Marcus said, leaning against her doorframe. His hair was starting to thin at the temples—just like hers was doing, though she spent four hundred dollars a month hiding that particular betrayal.

"I'm not being anything. I'm stating facts."

"The acquisition is dead, Elena. It's been dead for months. You're the only one still performing CPR on a corpse."

She wanted to hate him. Marcus was everything she pretended not to be—thirty years old, devastatingly handsome, utterly incapable of reading a room. But he was also the only person in the office who noticed when she stopped wearing her wedding ring.

"My hair started falling out six months ago," she said, the words tumbling out before she could catch them. "Stress, probably. Or maybe my body just decided to synchronize with my life choices."

Marcus's expression shifted. The smug corporate façade cracked, revealing something unexpectedly tender beneath. He stepped into her office and closed the door.

"My mother had the same thing happen," he said quietly. "When she left my father. Took a year to grow back."

The vitamin bottle rattled as Elena's hand trembled. She looked at Marcus—really looked at him—and saw the exhausted investor beneath the confident exterior. They were both just bulls in china shops, breaking things they couldn't fix, pretending the destruction was part of some greater strategy.

"Your palm," she said suddenly. "Let me see it."

He held out his hand. She traced the life line with her thumb, not because she believed in fortune-telling, but because she needed to touch something real. Something that wasn't a spreadsheet or a strategic initiative or a loveless marriage held together by property values.

"You're going to be fine," she lied.

"So are you," he lied back.

Neither of them believed it. But for the first time in months, Elena swallowed her vitamin without checking the expiration date first.