The Vitamin of Regret
The morning light hit her iPhone screen just so, illuminating the crack running diagonally across the display—a perfect mirror for the fracture in her chest. Sarah sat at the kitchen counter, the plastic vitamin bottle poised between thumb and forefinger like a revolver cylinder.
Another birthday. Thirty-eight.
She swallowed the orange gelcap without water, a ritual performed daily since the diagnosis. The bull-headed specialist had been clear: "Take these religiously, or we're having a very different conversation in six months."
The apartment smelled faintly of orange peels from her morning juice, the citrus scent clinging to everything like the memory of him.
Marcus had called at midnight—his voice thick with bourbon, the way it always was when he wanted something. "I made a mistake, Sarah. Come back."
She'd stared at his name on the screen, thumb hovering over answer, and instead watched the seconds tick down. By 12:01, the call had ended. By 12:02, she'd blocked his number.
Her phone buzzed now. Not Marcus. Her assistant.
"The client is being a complete bull about the deadline," the text read. "Says if we don't deliver by Friday, he's pulling the contract."
Sarah set the phone down. Let them pull it. Let it all crash.
She walked to the window, watching the city wake up. Somewhere in this maze of glass and steel, Marcus was probably waking up beside someone else, or maybe alone. Neither thought brought comfort.
The sunlight painted everything in shades of orange and gold. A beautiful day for dying, she thought darkly. Or for starting over.
Her finger traced the crack in her phone screen again.
One decision at a time. That's how you rebuild a life.
She opened the contacts, scrolled past Marcus, past her boss, past all the ghosts that haunted her, and landed on her sister's number.
She pressed call.
The world didn't fix itself in that moment. The pills wouldn't cure what truly ailed her. But as her sister's voice came through the cracked screen, something inside Sarah began to mend.