Vitamin Water Espionage

Elena ran her fingers through Marcus's hair while he slept, the dark strands slipping through her fingers like silk. At 38, she still marveled at how little he'd aged, while she'd started finding gray hairs at her own temples—the kind you pluck in secret, hoping no one notices. The dog, Buster, stirred at the foot of the bed, his nails clicking against the hardwood as he dreamed of chasing something.

She should have been asleep too. Instead, she was thinking about the vitamin bottle she'd found in Marcus's gym bag—calcium with added vitamin D, labeled "For Her." Elena was allergic to calcium supplements. They made her break out in hives.

Marcus didn't take vitamins. He said they were for people who didn't know how to eat.

The water glass on his nightstand was still half-full. She'd started noticing these small discrepancies months ago: the brand of coffee he bought (her favorite, not his), the playlist he'd made on Spotify titled "Running" that contained zero running songs and twelve songs she'd loved in college, the way he'd started leaving flowers on the kitchen counter every Tuesday.

Gestures that felt like reconnaissance.

She'd joked once, early in their marriage, that she'd married a spy—someone who watched her so carefully he could predict what she needed before she knew herself. It had been romantic then. Now it felt like something else entirely. Like he was collecting data on a person he no longer recognized, trying to remember why he'd loved her.

Or trying to decide if he still did.

Buster let out a soft whine in his sleep. Elena's throat tightened. She thought about the woman at Marcus's office—Sarah, with her bright laugh and manicured nails. Marcus had mentioned her three times in the past week. Each time, he'd quickly changed the subject, as if caught saying something he shouldn't.

The dog shifted again, and Elena carefully extricated herself from the bed. She padded to the kitchen, barefoot against the cool floor. The moonlight through the window illuminated the space where she'd left her own vitamins on the counter—plain, unmarked, generic.

Next to them: Marcus's phone, screen dark.

She knew his password. She'd always known it. But knowing and using were different things. Spies didn't just collect information. They acted on it.

Elena stood in the kitchen with the moon on her face and the dog's distant breathing in the bedroom, and realized she'd become exactly what she'd once joked about: someone who watched from the shadows, gathering intelligence on a life that might already belong to someone else.

The water in the glass by the bed would be warm by morning. Some things, once discovered, couldn't be unknown.

She went back to bed and curled around Marcus's sleeping form, burying her face in his hair. Buster sighed contentedly. Elena closed her eyes and practiced being someone who didn't know anything at all.