The Vitamins We Swallow Whole

Elena stood in the supplements aisle, the fluorescent lights humming above her like a dying insect. She held two bottles in her hands—one vitamin D for "bone health," another biotin for "hair, skin, and nails." As if vitamins could fix what three years of silence had hollowed out.

Mark stood three feet away, examining the protein powders. His hair had started thinning at thirty-one. Now at thirty-nine, he cropped it close to hide what was gone, like he hid everything else. She remembered running her fingers through it the night they met, how it curled at the back of his neck when it grew too long. Now she couldn't remember the last time she'd touched him.

"You need this one," he said, sliding a tub of something aggressively orange onto their growing pile. "It's got adaptogens."

Adaptogens. That was the word of the year—the thing they'd all swallowed to adapt to lives they'd stopped choosing.

"What about real food?" she asked, not really asking. "Spinach? Actual meals?"

"We eat spinach," he said, defensive already. "We had it Tuesday."

Tuesday. Two days ago. Had they? She couldn't remember. The days blurred together in a wash of spreadsheets and streaming shows and sleeping with their backs to each other. The last thing she could recall with clarity was six months ago: finding him crying on the balcony at 3 AM, and walking past him to get a glass of water, because she'd forgotten how to ask what was wrong.

They moved to the checkout line. The clerk was young, maybe twenty-two, with the glossy hair of someone who still remembered to drink water. Elena caught her own reflection in the security mirror—dull skin, eyes that had learned to stop expecting anything. When had she become this version of herself?

"Cash or credit?" the clerk asked.

Mark reached for his wallet. His palm brushed against hers—a ghost of contact. Elena jerked back like she'd touched a hot stove, and for a second, something raw and terrified flashed in his eyes. Then it was gone, replaced by the mask he'd worn for years.

"Credit," he said.

In the car, Mark started the engine but didn't shift out of park. The bottles of vitamins clinked together in the bag between them like glass hearts.

"El?" he said quietly. "I'm not—"

"Don't."

"I'm not happy."

She turned to him then, really looked at him. The lines around his mouth, the way his shoulders hunched like he was waiting for something else to go wrong. The palm of his hand rested on the gearshift, the small crescent-shaped scar where he'd burned himself on a pot their first anniversary. She'd kissed that scar once, softly, like it was something holy.

"Me neither," she said. "But we're excellent at pretending."

"Are we?"

"We spend eighty dollars a month on vitamins to stay alive in a life we're not living. We're goddamn professionals."

He laughed—a startled, genuine sound she hadn't heard in so long. The air between them shifted, something cracking open.

"What would happen," he asked, "if we stopped?"

She thought about their apartment, the lease signed for another year. Their friends who'd stopped inviting them anywhere because the tension was like broken glass you had to walk across. The emails from her mother asking when they'd have children.

"We'd have to feel things," she said. "Probably drown in them for a while."

"That sounds terrible."

"It does," she agreed. "But maybe better than this."

Outside, rain began to fall on the windshield, blurring the world into something softer. Mark reached for her hand across the console, and this time she didn't pull away. His palm was warm, his fingers lacing through hers. For the first time in years, she didn't know what came next. And terrifyingly, wonderfully, that felt like hope.