Wellness Check

Maya found herself in the upscale wellness clinic, surrounded by eucalyptus-scented air and women who looked like they'd been mainlining green juice since birth. She clutched her clipboard like a shield. The nutritionist, a woman named Seraphina with teeth too white to be natural, gestured to the spinach salad arranged like a delicate art installation on the consultation table.

"This represents your baseline," Seraphina said, her voice smooth as expensive lotion. "But we need to discuss what's missing."

Maya thought about what was missing. Her husband, for starters. Three weeks ago, James had announced he needed space to "find himself" — a phrase that somehow cost half their assets and left Maya sleeping in her childhood bedroom with her mother's crystal collection watching her every move.

"I've been taking a multivitamin," Maya offered weakly.

Seraphina shook her head, pity clouding her perfect features. "Synthetic supplements can't compensate for emotional malnutrition." She reached across the table and took Maya's hand, palm upward. "Let me see what your body is telling us."

Maya almost pulled away. The last person who'd read her palm was a drunk girl at a bachelorette party who'd promised Maya would meet a tall stranger. Instead, she'd met James, who was neither tall nor a stranger by the time he finished with her.

"Your lifeline is fragmented," Seraphina murmured, tracing a finger across Maya's palm. "You've been giving pieces of yourself away. The vitamin deficiency isn't nutritional. It's that you've stopped nourishing your own needs."

Something in Maya cracked. Not dramatically — no weeping or confession — but a quiet structural failure, like a foundation settling after years of drought. She thought of all the times she'd swallowed her words, taken the smaller portion, accepted crumbs of affection while calling it a feast.

"The spinach," Maya said, her voice steady. "Is that supposed to fix me?"

Seraphina smiled, genuine this time. "No. But learning to put yourself on your own plate might."

Maya walked out without buying the package of thirty sessions for three thousand dollars. But she stopped at the grocery store on the way home and bought spinach. She ate it standing over the sink, thinking about the woman she'd been before she learned to make herself small enough to fit into spaces that were never meant for her.

The vitamins could wait. She had larger deficiencies to address first.