The Wellness We Make

The vitamin D supplement sat on her nightstand like a tiny promise of immortality. Sarah had started taking them six months ago, along with the probiotics, the ashwagandha, the collagen peptides. A wellness regimen that smelled of desperation.

"You're obsessing," Marcus said, watching her line up the bottles in military precision. The morning light caught the gray in his temples—handsome, distinguished. The kind of aging Sarah was trying to pharmacologically outrun.

"I'm being proactive." She swallowed the pills without water. "Unlike some people, I don't think decay is inevitable."

Marcus laughed, but it didn't reach his eyes. They'd been having this conversation since his last promotion, since the long hours at the firm had metastasized into permanent distance. Sarah had started seeing someone else—not an affair, nothing so melodramatic. Just a fox-eyed personal trainer named Elena who made her feel seen in ways Marcus hadn't in years.

The bull in the room was unspoken: Marcus's bonus, tied to a merger that would eliminate half the department he managed. The ethical compromise he'd made, choosing job security over the people who'd trusted him. Sarah had found the paperwork three weeks ago—employee termination lists he'd helped draft.

"Your vitamins," Marcus said, "they're not going to fix what's actually wrong."

"And what's that?"

"Us." His voice cracked. "Sarah, I know about Elena."

The silence stretched between them like a wound. Sarah reached for the vitamin bottle automatically, then stopped. Her hand trembled.

"You know what's funny?" she said softly. "Elena sees me. She listens. And you—" She gestured at his suitcase, already packed for Monday's trip. "You've been leaving for months. I just stopped asking when you'd come back."

Marcus reached for her hand, but she pulled away. The supplements stood between them like tiny monuments to all the ways they'd failed each other. Some things, Sarah realized, no pill could fix. Some absences were too absolute to metabolize.