Vitamins for the Drought

Lena sat on the edge of the hotel pool at 2 AM, her bare feet dangling in the water. She'd stopped crying an hour ago, but her face still felt sticky with salt. In her palm: two white pills. Vitamin D supplements her mother had pressed into her hand before she flew out for this conference. "You don't get enough sun," she'd said, as if sunlight alone could fix what was broken.

The pool's surface reflected the moon like a wounded mirror. She'd left him three days ago—finally, after eight years of bearing the weight of his moods, his criticism that wore her down layer by layer like erosion. Her therapist called it "emotional attrition." Lena just called it exhausting.

She heard the splash before she saw him. A man emerged from the water at the shallow end, slicking back dark hair plastered to his skull. He pulled himself up and sat beside her, dripping water onto the concrete. Neither spoke. The silence felt companionable, strange and electric.

"Bad night?" he asked finally.

"Bad life," she said. Then surprised herself: "I left him. My husband. Well, we're not divorced yet, but I left."

He nodded slowly. Water beaded on his shoulders. "I'm at a conference. Presenting a paper on microplastics in marine ecosystems. My girlfriend broke up with me yesterday via email while I was in the middle of my keynote."

A laugh escaped Lena's chest—sharp, startled. "God, that's awful. I mean, really terrible. But also—" She gestured vaguely at the absurdity of it all.

"Also hilarious in the worst way," he finished. His name was Marcus. They talked until dawn, right there on the pool's edge, as the water slowly reflected the changing sky from black to blue to gold. They talked about everything except the things that hurt, which somehow meant they were talking about everything.

When the hotel staff began to arrive, Marcus stood and offered her his hand. "I should shower before my flight."

"Me too," she said. Then she opened her palm, still holding the two vitamin D pills. "You want one? For the sun we're probably not going to see enough of."

He took it, dry fingers against damp skin. His swallow was visible in his throat.

Lena watched him walk away, water still dripping from his shorts, and realized she wasn't thinking about her husband for the first time in days. The water in the pool caught the morning light, and somewhere between the vitamins and the dawn and a stranger's kindness, something in her had begun to heal.