The Vitamin We Never Took

The papaya sat on the granite counter, its orange flesh freckled with black seeds, mocking her. Three days since Marco left, and she was still buying fruit he'd never eat.

She ate it standing up, juice running down her wrist, feeling ridiculous in her padel skirt. The club membership had been his idea—something about networking, about being seen with the right people. Now she went alone, smacking the ball against the glass walls until her arm ached, pretending it was his face.

"You look exhausted," Elena said from across the locker room. "Running yourself ragged again?"

"Just staying active," she lied, though the truth was she'd been running every morning at 5 AM, pushing herself until her lungs burned. It was the only time she didn't feel like she was waiting for something.

She reached into her bag for the vitamin bottle. Doctor's orders, after the miscarriage. Take your vitamins, try again, keep going. She'd been swallowing them for six months, little capsules of hope that now felt like poison.

"Are you still with Marco?" Elena asked, and something in her tone made it clear everyone already knew.

The papaya had tasted sweet, like the lie she'd been living. She'd married him because he was safe, because he wanted children, because she was thirty-two and tired of everyone asking what she was waiting for.

"We're taking a break," she said, and realized she was crying. Not about Marco. About the years she'd spent trying to become someone else's version of complete.

Her phone buzzed—her mother, probably, calling to say she'd warned her. She ignored it. Instead she walked out of the club into the bright afternoon, not toward her car but toward the trail that wound up the hill.

She started running, not because she needed the exercise but because for once, she wanted to feel something real. The vitamin tablets rattled in her pocket with every step, a reminder that sometimes the things meant to heal you are just another way to stay sick.

She didn't stop until she reached the top, chest heaving, legs trembling. Below her, the city spread out like something she might someday learn to love again.

Tomorrow she'd cancel the membership. Tomorrow she'd throw away the vitamins. But tonight, she'd just stand here and breathe.