The Vitamin Cabin

The cabin smelled of pine and decay, exactly as advertised. Maya had insisted on this trip—no phones, no expectations, just three days in the Montana wilderness to fix whatever had broken between them.

"Your vitamin," Daniel said, sliding the orange bottle across the rough-hewn table. It was the first thing he'd said to her since they'd arrived.

Maya stared at the bottle. Vitamin D3. The supplement she'd started taking after her miscarriage, when her doctor said her body was depleted. When everything felt depleted.

"Thanks."

Outside, the wind howled through the trees. Earlier that afternoon, they'd seen the tracks—a grizzly bear had walked through their campsite. The ranger had warned them at the station: keep food sealed, make noise, don't run. But there was something thrilling about being in territory where you weren't the apex predator anymore. Something honest.

"You're not my friend anymore," Maya said suddenly. The words hung in the cabin's silence.

Daniel's jaw tightened. He looked older than thirty-two. The kind of older that comes from disappointment, not years. "I know."

"I don't know how to fix it."

"Maybe we don't."

Maya remembered when they'd bought their dog together—a golden retriever puppy they'd named Buster. That was back when they still made each other laugh, back when they still touched without thinking about it. Buster had died two years ago. They hadn't replaced him. They hadn't replaced anything.

She swallowed the vitamin without water.

"Do you remember what you said when we got engaged?" Daniel asked. "You said we'd be the kind of old couple who still held hands."

"I was twenty-four."

"I know."

They sat in silence as the cabin grew dark. The bear tracks outside felt closer somehow. Danger had a way of clarifying things.

"I stopped taking them for a while," Maya said. "The vitamins. I thought if I stopped trying to be healthy, maybe I'd stop trying so hard at everything else too."

"And?"

"And now I'm taking them again."

Daniel nodded. It wasn't forgiveness, but it was something.

Outside, somewhere in the darkness, a branch snapped. They both heard it. Neither moved. The bear was out there, and so was tomorrow, and neither of them had to be faced just yet.

"Hand me the bottle," Maya said. Daniel passed it across the table. Their fingers didn't touch, but for the first time in a long time, she didn't pull away.