The Vitamin deficiency

Margot stared at the orange pill bottle on her desk, the plastic clinking softly against her coffee mug. Her doctor had called it a vitamin D deficiency, but she knew better. It was a life deficiency.

Forty-seven years old and she was still taking orders from a man twenty years her junior, who walked with his chest puffed out like a bull ready to charge the conference room. Last week, he'd told her to "bear with him" on the restructuring, as if she hadn't been bearing with this company for two decades.

Her phone buzzed. A text from her ex-husband: "Cat needs her meds. Can you pick her up?"

She'd refused the cat in the divorce. Let him deal with the hair, the scratching post, the凌晨 three a.m. yowling. Now she found herself at the animal shelter every Sunday, volunteering because at least the cats didn't ask her about her five-year plan or suggest she update her LinkedIn profile.

The orange sunset bled across her office window. The same window she'd stared through for eight thousand days. Sometimes she wondered if she should just walk out. But retirement was twelve years away, and her rent had gone up again.

"Margot?" The bull stood in her doorway. "You good? You look... tired."

She swallowed the vitamin dry. "Just thinking about my cat."

"Oh, cool. Cool." He nodded, like cats were a normal thing to discuss at 6 PM on a Friday. "Anyway, great Q3. Really bear down on this next quarter, you know?"

He left. She watched the last of the orange light fade from the sky, and for the first time in years, she didn't feel like bearing it anymore.