Vitamins for the Heartbroken

Elena stared at the vitamin organizer on her kitchen counter, the little plastic compartments labeled with days of the week. Monday through Friday, she swallowed them with tap water that tasted of rust and resignation. Saturday and Sunday she forgot, as if her body knew weekends were for letting things slide.

The fox appeared at dusk, a flash of rust-colored fur against the dying hydrangeas. Elena watched from her kitchen window, wine glass forgotten in hand. The fox moved with deliberate grace, not like the scavengers she'd seen in documentaries, but like a creature who understood something about patience.

She thought about Marcus then. How he'd moved through their apartment with that same quiet precision, gathering his things in cardboard boxes while she sat on the sofa, unable to speak. Three years together, reduced to taped boxes and a taxi waiting outside.

"You're overthinking everything," he'd said, his voice gentle in that way that made it worse. "Just like you overthink those vitamins."

But the vitamins were the one thing she could control. A, B, C, D, E—letters that promised something she couldn't articulate. Protection against something she couldn't name.

The fox looked up at the window, eyes catching the last light. Elena felt seen, stripped bare in her flannel pajamas and loneliness. The creature didn't look away. It held her gaze with an intensity that made her chest ache.

She'd been drinking too much water lately, waking up three, four times a night to piss. The doctor said anxiety, prescribed different pills. She took them along with the vitamins, a cocktail of chemicals to fix what couldn't be fixed.

The fox trotted away then, toward the neighbor's yard where a light flickered on. Somewhere, people were having dinner, moving through rituals that made sense. Elena turned from the window and swallowed Monday's vitamins without water, dry pills scratching her throat, grounding her in the body she still inhabited.