Vitamin for the Drowning

Marion stood at the kitchen sink, watching the water cascade over her hands like time itself—relentless, cold, and indifferent. The bottle of orange pills sat on the counter, its label promising what her therapist called 'emotional regulation' and what Marion called 'the price of functioning in capitalism.'

Her cat, Basil, wound through her legs, purring with that maddening certainty of creatures who know they'll be fed regardless of human existential collapse. He'd been David's cat first, a fact he seemed determined to prove by vomiting exclusively on Marion's side of the bed since David left three months ago.

The vitamin bottle stared at her. Take one daily with food. She hadn't eaten today. Unless lukewarm coffee counted as food in this economy.

'You're thinking about him again,' her sister had said yesterday. 'He was married, Marion. He was never going to leave his wife.'

Marion twisted the faucet off. Water dripped, each tap a small accusation. She'd been so sure David was different—so certain their late-night conversations about leaving their respective spouses were leading somewhere real. Instead, he'd gone back to his wife, and Marion had gone back to her vitamins, her cat, and the crushing ordinariness of a life without secret betrayals to animate it.

Basil meowed, indignant. Right. Feeding time.

She opened a can of expensive organic paté, the kind David had insisted on, watching the orange label catch the sunset through the window. Everything in this apartment still smelled like him, like cologne and lies and the particular warmth of someone who was never really yours.

Marion dry-swallowed the vitamin. It scratched her throat on the way down, sharp and real.

Tomorrow she'd cancel the therapy session. Tomorrow she'd adopt out Basil. Tomorrow she'd stop checking David's wife's Instagram for signs of strain.

But tonight, she'd stand at the sink and watch the water flow, feeling exactly as hollow and necessary as a pipe carrying something that wasn't meant to stay.