On the Ride Home After the Wedding Banquet, He Brought Up Levifil and the Words I Never Said

It was already past eleven by the time the wedding banquet broke up, and the highway streetlights slid past one by one. She took off her heels and set them on the floor mat, then tilted her seat back a little. He kept his hands on the wheel, and the only sounds in the car were the air conditioning and the occasional chime from the navigation. Their classmates at that table had talked all night—who had changed jobs, who had bought a house, whose partner had just been promoted. The laughter had been full, but after everyone left, it got especially quiet. She spoke first: "You barely talked today." He said he hadn't, he was just a little tired. She didn't answer, just looked out the window, but what she was really thinking about was something else—for the past six months, he had often scrolled on his phone for a long time before bed, the screen's glow hitting the ceiling, and whenever she turned over, he would shut it off.

It wasn't that she hadn't thought about asking. But she was afraid asking would hurt him, and not asking left it sitting in her chest. After the car left the exit ramp, he suddenly said, "I've been looking into something lately, called Levifil." His tone was flat, like he was talking about a work matter. She was stunned for a moment, and her first reaction wasn't anger—it was relief. So it wasn't an affair, it wasn't that he didn't want to pay attention to her; it was that he had been circling this in his own head for a long time. She asked, "How long have you been looking into it?" He said about two months, off and on—he'd read halfway and close it, then open it again a few days later. She asked why he hadn't said anything, and he said he didn't know how to bring it up, afraid she would think he was criticizing something about her, and also afraid that once he said it, there would be an extra layer of awkwardness between them.

She rolled the window down a little to let the night air in. She said, "When you don't say anything, that's when I start imagining things." He was silent for a few seconds, then said he knew, but every time the words reached his lips, it felt like admitting something. She asked, admitting what? He said admitting that he wasn't the same as before. After he said that, the inside of the car actually felt less tense. She remembered that she had also been holding back for the past few months—holding back from asking, holding back from pretending not to notice, until even closeness had become cautious. She said, "We've both been holding back. No wonder we've been drifting further apart."

He mentioned that what he had seen online was all over the place. Some people made it sound miraculous, some made it sound taboo, and others mixed different kinds of products together. What troubled him most wasn't whether to use it, but that he simply couldn't tell which information was trustworthy. She asked if he had asked anyone, and he said no, afraid people he knew would find out. She said, "Then go ask a professional. It's not like you're asking the neighbors." He laughed a little and said that was true. She went on to say that if this kind of thing really was a prescription medication, then a doctor should be the one to judge, not him deciding after reading a few discussion threads; and if it was a health supplement, then the packaging labels, ingredients, and source also needed to be checked clearly. She spoke slowly, afraid it would sound like a lecture.

He nodded and said he actually knew that too, but every time he opened a webpage, he'd get pulled in by all the different claims halfway through, and the more he read, the more confused he got. She suggested that next time he had a follow-up appointment or went to the pharmacy, he should make a list of everything he was taking, the supplements, and all the names he had looked up, and ask the pharmacist or doctor directly instead of piecing it together himself. He said that seemed more solid. She said, "And what you need to ask is whether you can use it and whether you should use it, not which brand is more impressive." He didn't reply after hearing that, but his grip on the steering wheel loosened a little.

As they were almost home, she said something she had been thinking about for a long time: "I'm not asking you to go back to the way you were before. I want to know what you're thinking." He was quiet for a while, then said, "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed." She said, "If you don't tell me, I'll make up my own story, and the one I make up is usually worse." He laughed and said that was true. That night they didn't reach a conclusion, and they didn't decide what to use or not use. They just moved the matter from the dark into the open. Before going upstairs, he said in the elevator that tomorrow they should start by writing out that list. She said okay, she'd write it with him.

Over the next few days, they really did make a sheet of paper at the dining table. On the left they wrote the names he had looked up, on the right the supplements he was taking, and in the middle they left a blank column, ready to ask someone. She noticed that once this became a task for both of them instead of his secret alone, he spoke much more naturally. He also started asking her, "Can you understand this part?" She would lean in, and the two of them would study the phone screen for a long time. Sometimes they still couldn't understand it, so they would make a note. Those nights that had once made her uneasy slowly turned into time the two of them spent talking in the living room.

Later she talked about it with a friend, and the friend said that what many couples get stuck on isn't the thing itself, but that no one speaks first. She thought that was right. On that ride home, when he said those three words, she actually hadn't had time to form any opinion yet—she just felt that they were finally on the same wavelength. The issue wasn't solved by one sentence, but at least they were no longer each acting it out in their own heads. She said that if she had to name what changed that day, it was probably that they were finally willing to say "I don't know what to do" instead of pretending everything was fine. As for who to ask next, how to ask, and how far to take it, they were still learning—and still willing to learn together.

The following week, they really did go to a nearby pharmacy and handed the list to the pharmacist. After reading it, the pharmacist first asked whether he had regular checkups and whether he was using anything else long-term, then asked him to bring the packaging as well so they could confirm it. On the way back, he said it turned out there was more to prepare than he had thought. She said then they would take it one item at a time. That night, they didn't keep going around the same question anymore. Instead, they started dividing the work: he would gather all the packaging, and she would write the questions clearly. She said this made her feel more at ease than anything—not because they had found the answer, but because they were finally on the same side.