Everything I Didn't Say

I've been running from that conversation for three years. That's what happens when you're forty-two and still don't know how to lose people gracefully.

Sarah sat across from me at the bar, her left arm a tapestry of scars where the grizzly had torn through flesh and muscle during her solo hike in Glacier. She'd almost died out there, and I hadn't even known she'd gone.

"You never called," she said, not accusing. Just陈述事实. "After.

"I didn't know what to say."

"You could've said hello."

The bartender set down her drink—something aggressively orange, sunset-colored, the kind of cocktail you order when you're trying to be someone you used to be. I watched the ice melt and thought about the summer of 2018, sitting behind the backstop at that minor league game, how she'd looked over at me during the seventh inning stretch and I'd pretended to watch the baseball avoid the catcher's mitt.

"I'm getting married," I'd blurted then, apropos of nothing. Because I was scared of whatever was building between us, scared of the way she looked at me like she could see every cowardly thing I'd ever done.

"Congratulations," she'd said, and that was the last time we'd really spoken, until her sister's email landed in my inbox last week: *She's alive. You should come.*

The bear attack, the near-death, the way everything narrows down to what actually matters—I'd missed it all. Because I was busy being married to a woman I didn't love, running from the one I might have.

"He left me," I said now.

Sarah nodded, like this made sense, like it was the only ending that story could have had. "The bear took most of my arm," she said, lifting the scarred limb. "But it gave me something back. It reminded me that we don't get to keep putting things off.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"You're here now."

Outside, the sky turned that impossible orange of autumn evenings, the kind that makes you believe in second chances. I ordered another drink and finally let myself look at her—really look at her—and wondered if some stories still had endings worth writing.