The Vitamin Run

Elena's **running** shoes hit the pavement at 5:47 AM, exactly as they had every morning for three years. The rhythm was her anchor — left, right, breathe — while her marriage dissolved in silent increments inside the house she'd return to in forty-five minutes.

She adjusted her **hat**, pulling the brim lower against the rising sun. It was Mark's hat — a faded Red Sox cap he'd left on the kitchen counter the night he moved out. She'd told herself it was practical, sun protection for her morning runs, but the truth sat heavier in her stomach: she was wearing his absence like a second skin.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Her sister, again. About the divorce papers. About the therapy she wouldn't attend. About the **vitamin** supplements her doctor had prescribed for the stress that had manifested as physical symptoms — the ones that sat untouched on her bathroom counter because taking them felt like admitting defeat.

The run was her rebellion. Not against Mark, though he was easier to blame. Against the slow erosion of herself, the person who had once made art in their tiny apartment kitchen, who had laughed with her whole body, who had believed in something bigger than mortgage payments and predictable mornings.

Today was different. She stopped at their old coffee shop — the one where they'd had their first date, where he'd said he loved her between sips of burnt espresso. She ordered his usual, sat in his corner booth, and waited for grief to catch up with her.

The barista set down the cup. "You're Elena, right? Mark's —"

"Ex-wife."

"Right. He said you'd come by eventually. Left something for you."

A envelope. Inside, a photograph she'd thought lost years ago — her twenty-four-year-old self, paint smeared across her cheek, wearing that ridiculous oversized **hat** at the county fair, alive in a way she couldn't remember being recently.

On the back: *You were always the artist. I was just your canvas.*

Elena walked out leaving the coffee untouched, the hat finally removed. The morning run could wait. For the first time in years, she wasn't running from anything — she was walking toward something.

The **vitamin** pills remained on her bathroom counter. Some things you had to heal on your own.