The Vitamin Spy

Elena counted the vitamins on the counter—B12 for energy, D3 for mood, zinc for whatever the internet claimed this week. Each pill a tiny admission that her body was failing her, or perhaps that her life was.

She watched Marcus from the window. He was at the padel court again, laughing with her sister's husband. He looked so handsome when he wasn't lying to her. His racket moved through the air with easy grace, while she stood in their kitchen, drowning in tap water she'd forgotten to drink.

"You're becoming a shadow," her therapist had said yesterday. Elena wanted to reply that shadows were cast by something real, and she wasn't sure she qualified anymore.

The corporate espionage job had seemed exciting seven years ago. She'd been the fox in the henhouse, sleek and clever, stealing trade secrets from rival pharmaceutical companies. Now she just felt tired. The vitamins were from the very company she'd helped dismantle, a small irony that kept her up at night.

Marcus didn't know what she did. He thought she was in biotech research, which was technically true if you stretched the definition to include researching which executives drank too much and which ones could be bribed.

She swallowed the handful of pills dry. A fox darted across their backyard—lean, hungry, wild in ways she'd forgotten how to be. It paused at the edge of the patio, watching her through the glass door.

"Spy on someone else," she whispered.

The fox's amber eyes held hers for a long moment before it slipped into the woods. Marcus was coming up the walkway now, racket over his shoulder, sweat staining his shirt. He'd ask her about dinner. She'd lie and say she'd eaten. They'd both lie, as they had for years, about who they were and what they wanted.

Elena turned on the faucet and let the water run until it was cold. She'd tell him tonight. Or tomorrow. Or maybe the vitamins would finally work their magic, and she'd become the person he thought he'd married—someone who didn't collect secrets like others collected dust.