Vitamin Z

The goldfish circled its bowl in endless loops, the same thirteen laps Elena counted every morning while she swallowed her vitamins. A, C, D, E, B-complex — a pharmaceutical cocktail designed to keep her functioning at peak efficiency in a world that demanded nothing less.

She caught her own reflection in the glass: pale skin, eyes half-lidded, the slack expression of someone who'd stopped pretending three years ago. She felt like a zombie, animated not by desire or purpose but by sheer momentum.

"You're still doing that," David said from the doorway, his voice scraping against the morning quiet. He meant the counting. He meant the vitamins. He meant everything.

She didn't turn. "It's calming."

"It's obsessive."\n

"It's five minutes where something makes sense."

The goldfish paused at the front of the bowl, mouth opening and closing in silent appeal. Elena pressed her hand against the glass until her fingerprint remained on the surface, a temporary ghost.

"I talked to Sarah at work," David said. "She said her sister tried those vitamins you're taking. Made her heart race. Insomnia. She said she felt like she was dying."

Elena finally looked at him. "Maybe she was finally feeling something."

David flinched. The air between them had grown thin, worn away by five years of small disappointments and larger silences. They'd become roommates who shared a bed and a mortgage, two zombies shuffling through the same routines, feeding the same fish, taking the same vitamins, waiting for something that never came.

"What happened to us?" he asked, the question sudden and raw.

The goldfish began its circuits again. Count: one, two, three.

"We got efficient," she said. "We got healthy. We started taking our vitamins."

David stepped closer, reaching for her hand. His fingers were warm. His pulse thrummed against her wrist. He was still alive in there, somewhere.

"Stop taking them," he said.

"The vitamins?"

"All of it. The routines. The counting. Let's just... let's just be dysfunctional again. Messy. Real."

The goldfish swam to the back of the bowl, disappearing into the plastic castle. Elena watched it go, then turned off the kitchen light.

"Okay," she said. "But we start tomorrow. Tonight, I just want to sleep."

David's hand tightened around hers. In the darkness, their hearts beat at different rhythms, out of sync but finally, undeniably, there.