Unspooled

Mark stared at the orange prescription bottle on the kitchen counter. Another vitamin supplement Elena had ordered after watching some influencer on social media. Vitamin D, B-complex, magnesium, zinc — their medicine cabinet looked like a GNC exploded inside it. He wondered if swallowing enough pills could actually fix a marriage, or if that was just another thing people sold themselves to keep getting out of bed.

"You coming?" Elena called from the hallway. She was already dressed in her athletic wear, fresh-faced in that way she always was now, like she'd been reborn while he was still stuck in the previous version of their life together.

"Yeah," Mark said. "Let me grab my racket."

Padel had been her idea. Something new to try together, she'd said. A way to reconnect. He'd agreed because agreeing was easier than the alternative, which was having the same conversation they'd been having for months. The one where they circled each other like strangers who happened to share a bed and a mortgage.

The drive to the court was quiet. The radio played some song from college that made his chest hurt for reasons he couldn't name. He watched the telephone poles pass, the thick black cables strung between them like black veins carrying connections to everyone except them.

He worked with cables all day. Fiber optics, ethernet, coaxial — he knew exactly how connections were supposed to work. You stripped away the protective layers, you made careful, precise joins, you tested the signal. If something wasn't right, you fixed it. You didn't just leave it frayed and hoping nobody would notice.

"You okay?" Elena asked as they walked toward the court.

"Fine," he said. "Just tired."

She nodded, accepting it, and he hated that she accepted it so easily.

They played, and it was fine. They laughed a few times. But underneath it, Mark could feel everything that wasn't being said, the way the ball hit the racket and traveled across the net, always returned but never quite caught. The way Elena's smile didn't reach her eyes when she looked at him now. The way he measured his words carefully, like cable stripped too bare, something essential missing from the connection.

Afterward, sitting in the car again, sweat cooling on their skin, Elena reached for her water bottle and the vitamin supplements she'd brought.

"These are supposed to help with energy," she said, tapping the bottle. "The woman at the store said they changed her life."

Mark watched her swallow them with practiced efficiency. He thought about all the things they were both swallowing just to keep going.

"Maybe," he said, turning the key in the ignition. "Maybe that's all we need."

But they both knew better than that.