Vitamin for What We've Lost

The cat appeared every evening at dusk, a calico with a suspicious gash above her left eye. She sat on the edge of the apartment complex's pool, watching as if waiting for something to surface from the chlorinated water. I named her Delilah, though she never came close enough for me to earn the right.

That July, the pool became where everything between Marcus and me finally dissolved. We'd been friends since sophomore year of college, a decade of shared apartments, disastrous relationships, and the kind of easy intimacy that feels like family. But Marcus had been promoted to regional director, and somewhere between the corner office and the country club, he'd started referring to our shared history as "my difficult phase."

"It's just a vitamin regimen, Elena," he said, shaking the bottle. "You'd be surprised how much mental clarity costs."

We were floating on our backs, staring up at the sky's bruising purple. The water buoyed us, weightless and equal. Or so I thought.

"I'm not talking about supplements. I'm talking about how you haven't asked about my mother's surgery once."

Silence rippled between us. The cat licked her paw from the pool deck, unconcerned.

"You know how I get when I'm stressed," Marcus said finally. "Work has been—" He broke off. A red fox emerged from the landscaping, moving with deliberate grace toward the pool's edge. Delilah hissed, backing away.

"Work," I finished for him. "Right. The fox guarding the henhouse."

The fox drank from the pool, daintily, as if it owned the water. Marcus watched it, smiling slightly. "Maybe some animals just know how to survive."

I turned to face him, treading water. "Is that what we are? Animals competing for resources?"

"Don't be dramatic." He checked his watch. "I have an early meeting."

He climbed out, dripping expensive. The fox retreated into the shadows. I stayed in the pool until my skin wrinkled, until the automatic timer shut off the pool lights and I was floating in darkness, watched only by Delilah's glowing eyes.

The next day, I left a box of Marcus's things at the front desk. Bittersweet, really—how some friendships end not with explosion, but with the quiet recognition that you've outgrown the shape someone else has made for you. The vitamin I took each morning after that was simple: the knowledge that I'd finally learned to swim alone.