The Vitamin Hat

The fluorescent hum of the office at 7 PM always reminded Eleanor of hospital corridors. She swallowed her vitamin D supplement with lukewarm coffee — doctor's orders for someone who saw sunlight only through filtered windows. Her fedora sat on the desk, a felt crown she'd worn since David left, a barrier between her scalp and the world's expectations.

Marcus from accounting leaned against her cubicle wall, holding two mugs of something that smelled like whiskey. 'Rough quarter, Ellie.'

'They're all rough now.'

'Remember the team building? That indoor swimming pool?' He laughed, bitter. 'We were supposed to be bonding while the company laid off half the department.'

Eleanor adjusted her hat. 'I remember you almost drowned in the shallow end.'

'Thanks to you, I didn't.' His fingers grazed her wrist. 'Thanks to you pulling me out.'

The touch lingered. Something electric and terrifying.

'That was three years ago, Marcus.'

' Three years of swimming upstream.' He set the whiskey down. 'My vitamin regimen stopped working somewhere around the second reorganization. Now I just show up and pretend.'

Eleanor looked at the hat on her desk. David had called it her armor. He wasn't wrong.

'I've been offered a position in Berlin,' Marcus said softly.

The air between them thickened.

'I leave Friday.'

She'd almost asked him to stay. Instead she picked up her fedora, settled it over her hair like a second skin. 'Take your vitamins.'

He laughed, genuine this time. 'You first.'

She swallowed another supplement with cold coffee and watched him walk away, already swimming through memories she'd never allowed herself to name. Tomorrow she'd buy a different hat. Tomorrow she'd stop waiting for someone else to pull her to the surface.