The Wellness Protocol

Margaret stood before the bathroom mirror, swallowing another vitamin B-12 supplement with the mechanical precision of someone who had forgotten how to want anything at all. The pills were supposed to help with fatigue, but what she really felt was a hollow sort of tiredness that no supplement could touch.

She was forty-two, a senior vice president at a pharmaceutical company that marketed the very vitamins she now swallowed religiously. The irony wasn't lost on her, even if the humor had grown thin over the years.

Her phone buzzed on the counter—David, again. They'd been separated for three months, living in the same apartment like strangers passing in the night, communicating mostly through passive-aggressive notes about whose turn it was to buy organic spinach for the smoothies neither of them enjoyed anymore.

Margaret pressed her palm against the cold glass, staring at her reflection. The tiny lines on her hand seemed to map out a life she hadn't exactly chosen, but had somehow agreed to step into, one compromise at a time. David used to trace those lines with his fingertips, claiming palmistry was nonsense while secretly reading her future in them anyway.

Tonight was the company's annual wellness gala, and she was supposed to give a speech about living authentically. The irony was making her chest hurt.

She found David at the party, standing near the buffet with a woman half their age—unlined, unjaded, laughing with her whole body. They were reaching for the same spinach wrap, fingers brushing, and something in Margaret's chest simply gave way. Not broke. Gave way.

"You're still taking those vitamins," David said, appearing at her elbow with two drinks. "You know they found out the clinical trials were fabricated, right? Our division's just been delaying the recall."

Margaret accepted the champagne without looking at him. "I know. I helped design the delay."

"God, Margaret." His voice cracked. "When did you decide that was okay?"

"When did you decide sleeping with your research assistant was?" she asked, and the terrible thing was that she hadn't even known until the words left her mouth. Some part of her had been carrying it like a stone in her pocket, rubbing her thumb over it until she knew its shape by heart.

David's face went still. "How long have you known?"

"Since you started buying organic spinach again." She set down her glass. "You always said it was a scam."

She walked out without waiting for his answer, leaving her phone, her speech, and the life she'd been performing for a decade. Outside, the city lights blurred together like stars seen through tears. For the first time in years, she pressed her palm flat against her own chest and felt something true beating there—terrified, hollow, and finally, finally real.