The Vitamin Deficiency

Maya stood in the produce aisle, staring at a bag of spinach like it might reveal the meaning of her thirty-seventh year. Three months since David moved out, and she'd started doing things she swore she never would: buying organic, considering joint supplements, downloading dating apps at 2 AM when insomnia felt like a physical weight.

Her phone buzzed. Sarah, the friend who'd been fielding her middle-of-the-night texts since the breakup: 'Padel at 7? I'm trying to convince Mark to join.'

Padel. The sport David had tried to get her into, the one that now represented everything she'd resisted about his world—the country club memberships, the dinner parties where everyone discussed their vitamin regimens and investment portfolios with equal passion. She'd always declined. Now she found herself texting back: 'Why not.'

The cat wound around her ankles, a reminder that at least one living thing still needed her. Barnaby had chosen sides in the divorce; apparently, he preferred the person who remembered to buy the expensive food. David had never liked cats, anyway. Too independent, he'd said. Too much like you.

That evening, standing on the padel court with a borrowed racquet, Maya felt ridiculous. But as she began to hit the ball, something shifted—the rhythmic *thwack* against the wall, the sudden focus required, the way her body moved without overthinking. Sarah cheered from the sidelines, and for the first time in months, Maya wasn't thinking about David, or the empty side of the bed, or how she'd somehow become a person who bought spinach just to watch it rot in the crisper drawer.

Afterward, they sat on a bench outside the court, sweaty and breathless. 'You were good,' Sarah said. 'David would be shocked.'

Maya laughed, surprised to find it was genuine. 'Fuck David.'

'Exactly.' Sarah handed her a water bottle. 'Also, you should probably actually eat that spinach instead of using it as a metaphor for your emotional growth.'

Maya smiled. The cat would be waiting. The apartment would still be half-empty. But somehow, standing there with sweat drying on her skin and the peculiar satisfaction of having hit something hard and fast, she thought she might actually make a salad when she got home. Maybe even with tomatoes.