The Wellness Check

Marcus stared at the plastic bottle on his desk—Vitamin D3, the gelcap gleaming like a false promise under fluorescent lights. At forty-seven, he'd started measuring his life in supplement bottles and quarterly earnings calls.

"You're taking the bull by the horns," his manager had said that morning, patting his shoulder after assigning him the doomed Mercury Project. The corporate metaphor landed with its usual weight—something about strength, about charging forward. Marcus had nodded, the practiced smile already hurting his jaw.

Now his phone buzzed. Elena.

He hadn't seen her in three years, not since the那次 when she'd left their shared apartment with nothing but a backpack and her cat, Biscuit—a mangy tomcat she'd rescued from a dumpster behind their office building. She'd sent him postcards from Portland, from Sedona, from a small town in Costa Rica where she'd learned to ferment kombucha.

"I'm back in town," her text read. "Can we talk?"

Marcus found himself at a dimly lit bar at 7 PM, watching Elena push olive around a martini glass. She looked older—laugh lines around her eyes, a streak of silver in her dark hair. She looked alive.

"I sold the startup," she said, as if continuing a conversation they'd never had. "Made more money than I know what to do with. And I hated it. Every corporate meeting, every bull strategy session—I kept thinking about you, still there. Still believing."

Marcus swirled his drink. "I have Vitamin D3 deficiency now."

Elena laughed, and it was the same sound he'd fallen in love with in college. "God, we used to stay up all night talking about changing the world. Now you're worried about vitamins and I'm worried my cat has anxiety."

"Biscuit?"

"He's very sensitive," Elena said. "I read that cats absorb their owners' stress."

Marcus wanted to ask if she'd come back to stay. If she'd ever loved him as much as he'd loved her. If she'd ever regretted leaving that rainy Tuesday morning with her backpack and her cat.

Instead he said, "I miss having a friend who knows who I used to be."

Elena reached across the table, her hand covering his. "You're still that person, Marcus. You're just buried under everything you think you should be."

The bull in his chest—the one that charged through meetings and performance reviews and quarterly goals—suddenly stilled.

"What if I quit?" he asked.

Elena smiled. "I hear Costa Rica's nice this time of year. Biscuit could use a friend."