The Bear in the Kitchen

The spinach was wilting in the colander, much like I was wilting on the kitchen floor. Marcus had left three hours ago, taking his cat and his half of the silverware, but leaving behind the bear-shaped honey dispenser we'd bought on that disastrous trip to Vermont. I stared at its plastic eyes, wondering how something so ridiculous could make my chest ache this profoundly.

I forced myself to stand, to reach for the knife, to chop the greens that had seemed like such a good idea at the grocery store. Cooking for one again. The ritual of it felt foreign, like speaking a language I'd forgotten. Marcus had always been the one who made dinner, moving through the kitchen with the confident ease of someone who believes they deserve to take up space.

My phone buzzed on the counter—my sister, sending another article about gut health and vitamin deficiencies and how heartbreak literally changes your body chemistry. She'd been sending them since the breakup, these little digital offerings of concern that felt less like comfort and more like reminders that I was failing at wellness.

"You need to eat," she'd said yesterday, her voice tight with that particular brand of love that feels like judgment. "You look like a ghost."

I dumped the spinach into the pan, watching it collapse in the heat, and remembered how Marcus used to call me his little bear when I was grumpy in the mornings. How he'd wrap around me from behind, his chin on my shoulder, breathing in sync with me until the irritation melted into something warmer. Now the kitchen was so quiet I could hear the refrigerator hum, the spinach sizzle, my own hollow heart beating against my ribs.

The vitamin bottle on the counter caught my eye—D3, the sunshine vitamin, something about bones and teeth and not falling apart. I dry-swallowed one, thinking about how we're all just trying to keep our structures intact, how love dissolves you and then you have to rebuild yourself, supplement by supplement, meal by meal.

I plated the spinach, added salt, sat at the table across from the empty chair. Outside, the October wind stripped the trees. I took a bite, chewed slowly, and let myself taste the bitterness without looking away.