The Vitamins We Don't Take

The morning light hit Maya's pillow at 6:47 AM, same as always. She reached for the bottle of vitamin D on her nightstand—her doctor's recommendation after her bloodwork showed deficiencies she pretended didn't depress her. In the kitchen, Ben stood bare-chested, scrambling eggs. His dark hair was longer than she liked, curling at his neck, intimate and untamed. She wanted to bury her face in it and also wanted him to cut it off.

"Running late again," he said, not looking at her. The spinach he'd sautéed yesterday sat slimy in the colander. She'd bought it with such intention—this would be the week they started eating well, this would be the week they stopped drinking wine on weeknights, this would be the week they finally tried for the baby they'd been postponing since before the pandemic.

The dog, Buster, nudged her knee with his wet nose. She'd rescued him three years ago after her promotion, proof she could nurture something. Now he was just another creature who needed what she couldn't give.

"Ben," she said. His name caught in her throat.

"Yeah?" He slid eggs onto plates, steam rising between them like something they couldn't say.

"I'm not going in today."

He finally looked at her. "Again?"

"Not to work. Just—not in." She poured the vitamins into her palm. Small white obelisks of promises to herself she kept breaking. "I'm going for a run. And then I'm going to figure out why I keep trying to become a person who eats spinach and takes vitamins and wants a promotion she hates."

Outside, the morning air tasted like exhaust and possibility. She started running—not the measured jog she'd been doing since college, but something wilder. Her hair came loose from its ponytail. She ran past the office tower where she managed teams she didn't care about, past the pharmacy where she filled prescriptions for a life she didn't want. Her lungs burned. Buster would need walking. Ben would be confused. The vitamins would sit on her nightstand tomorrow too.

But for nineteen minutes, everything that wasn't essential fell away, and Maya understood exactly who she was: someone learning how to stop running from the wrong things.