The Vitamin on the Nightstand

The plastic bottle rattled as she set it on the nightstand—Vitamin D3, the doctor had said, essential for bone health, for recovery.Emma watched Marcus's face illuminated by his iPhone screen in the half-dark of their bedroom. The blue light washed over his features, making him look strangely distant, like a photograph developing in reverse."Did you hear me?" she asked softly."Hmm?" He didn't look up. "Yeah. Vitamins. Important."The scent of orange peel still lingered on her fingers from earlier—she'd sectioned one for him, careful to remove the bitter white pith, the way he liked. He'd eaten three segments without comment, then returned to his phone, to whatever demanded more attention than her illness, than this room that had become both sanctuary and prison.

The surgeon had been optimistic, but Emma had seen the way Marcus's eyes slid away from the incision site, how he found reasons to leave the room. Now she understood: some people cannot bear witness to vulnerability. They build elaborate architectures of avoidance, of work emails and group chats, of headlines scrolled past at 2 AM."Marcus.""Just one second," he said, thumbing the screen.She reached for the orange sections remaining on the bedside table. The fruit's bright color seemed wrong somehow, too cheerful for this room with its medical supplies and unspoken accusations."My mother called," he said suddenly. "She wants to visit."

The vitamins sat between them like a small admission of frailty. Emma felt something sharp andCitrus-sharp rise in her throat—not the orange, but something harder, something that had been accumulating for months."Your mother," she repeated. "Not you."Marcus finally looked up. The iPhone screen dimmed, reflecting both their faces back at them, distorted and overlapping."You know I'm bad at this," he said quietly. "Sickness. Hospitals. I never know what to say."

Emma picked up the vitamin bottle. The plastic felt warm against her palm."You don't have to say anything," she said. "You just have to be here. Not scrolling through news about people who don't know we exist. Not planning visits three weeks out. Just here."

The silence stretched between them, charged and breathing."I'm scared," he admitted, and the rawness of it surprised her. "That you're not going to get better. That this is permanent."

Emma set the vitamins back on the nightstand. She extended her hand, orange-stained fingers reaching toward him."Then we'll figure it out," she said. "Together. But Marcus—you have to put down the phone."

For a long moment, he didn't move. Then, slowly, he set the iPhone on the nightstand beside the vitamins. The screen went dark, and in the quiet that followed, Emma thought she could hear the first real thing they'd said to each other in weeks."I'm here," he said. "I'm here."