The Bear in the Room

The corporate pyramid loomed overhead, twenty-three floors of glass and ambition, as I picked at the fruit salad I'd foolishly believed would bring me clarity.

My iPhone lay beside my lonely lunch, its screen dark and accusing. No messages. Not from David, not from anyone who mattered.

"Vera." Marcus's voice cut through the cafeteria's ambient noise. "The client presentation. We need it by two."

I studied the papaya chunks glistening under fluorescent lights. So much false promise wrapped in bright orange flesh — like the words David whispered before leaving our bed for the final time. I need space to grow, he'd said, as if either of us were still capable of expansion.

My internet had died that morning — the cable severed during street repairs outside my building — leaving me disconnected from work, from him, from everything. That first day without constant digital tethering felt strangely freeing, until the panic set in. How could I exist without knowing? Without checking?

I'd tried streaming comfort television but discovered only static where my favorite shows should be. So I lay on the couch instead, watching dust motes drift across sunbeams, staring at David's bear on the shelf — that ridiculous thing he'd kept since childhood, worn fur and missing one button eye, witness to five years of relationship decay.

He claimed he needed space, yet I'd seen him Saturday. Golden Park, laughing with someone whose papaya-hued dress put my gray corporation-approved slacks to shame. They stood by the pyramid sculpture downtown — that pretentious art installation — while I watched from behind my own cowardice.

The cable wouldn't be restored for another two days.

Marcus was still talking. I could see his lips moving, pale and thin, but heard only my own heartbeat, steady and defiant.

"Vera? Are you listening?"

I stood, iPhone in hand. "Actually," I said to the stunned executive across from me, "I don't believe I am."

Outside, the summer heat embraced me like permission as I walked toward my disconnected apartment and the solitude waiting there like an old friend — one bear, no cable, and the truth I'd been dodging: some things, when cut, cannot be reconnected.