The Wellness Protocol

Maya stared at her husband across the dinner table, watching him methodically arrange his spinach into three perfect mounds. A pyramid of vegetables on his plate, just like everything else in their life—structured, measured, hollow.

"You're doing it again," she said.

Nathan didn't look up. "Doing what?"

"The thing. Where you pretend to be present but you're actually somewhere else entirely."

He finally met her eyes. "I'm eating dinner, Maya. Can we not?"

Her iPhone vibrated against the table—his iPhone, technically, since they'd swapped phones yesterday when his battery died. She'd seen the notifications then. The encrypted messages. The surveillance app installed under a folder labeled 'Vitamin Supplements.'

She'd thought their marriage needed vitamins too. Something to restore what had been depleted over seven years together. But Nathan had found something else entirely.

"I know about the project," she said quietly.

Nathan's fork paused halfway to his mouth. "What project?"

"The one at work. The corporate restructuring. The one you've been working on for eighteen months."

He set down his fork. "Maya—"

"I know I'm part of the restructuring, Nathan. I know my name is on the list."

The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating. Outside their window, Chicago's skyline glittered like stolen jewelry.

"I'm not the spy you think I am," he said finally. "I tried to get you removed from the list. I've been fighting for your job for six months."

Something in his voice cracked. Something genuine.

"Then what were you doing with surveillance software on your phone?"

"Tracking the people who are trying to tank your department before they can do it." He laughed bitterly. "I've been spying on your boss, Maya. Not you."

The spinach on her plate suddenly looked absurd. All this time, she'd been writing narratives in her head—betrayal, indifference, a husband who'd stopped caring—when he'd been fighting battles she knew nothing about. Building pyramids of secrecy to protect her, not entrap her.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you would've tried to fix it yourself." He reached across the table. "And you would've gotten destroyed."

She took his hand. Their fingers interlaced like they used to, before exhaustion and unspoken fears built walls between them.

"We need vitamins," she whispered.

"What?"

"Real ones. For us. Not supplements. The real thing."

Nathan squeezed her hand. "I can do that."

They finished their dinner in the warm silence of two people who'd forgotten how to talk to each other and were just beginning to remember.