The Last Bear

The morning coffee had stopped working months ago, but Elena still drank it, hoping the ritual might restore something resembling life. She felt like a zombie moving through her corporate existence—present but not quite alive, responding to emails and attending meetings while something essential hollowed her out from the inside.

Then Marcus called.

"I'm getting divorced," he said, and she could hear the exhaustion in his voice, the way it cracked around the edges. "I need a friend."

She'd known Marcus since college, since the nights they'd sat on rooftops drinking cheap wine and talking about the kind of people they wanted to become. She'd watched him fall in love with Sarah, had stood beside him at his wedding. Now that life was unraveling, and he asked if she'd come visit.

He lived in a cabin in Montana now—a place he'd bought during the pandemic, dreaming of something simpler. Elena arrived to find him thinner, his eyes shadowed, but he still managed a genuine smile when he saw her. They spent the first day talking in circles around it, until dusk painted everything in shades of bruised purple and burning orange.

"I have to tell you something," Marcus said, pouring them both another drink. "I don't know if I can bear this alone."

The confession came slowly, in pieces. Sarah had left six months ago. He'd stopped going to work. Most days, he didn't leave the cabin. He'd just sit on his porch and watch the forest, waiting for something to happen.

"There's a bear," he said. "A grizzly. She comes around sometimes. I started feeding her, I think. I leave out scraps." He laughed, but it wasn't really a laugh. "Sometimes I think she's the only thing that actually sees me."

Elena felt something tighten in her chest. "Marcus, you can't feed wild bears. That's how people get killed."

"I know," he said quietly. "But some days, it feels like she's waiting for me more than Sarah ever did."

That night, Elena couldn't sleep. She kept thinking about the bear—about what it means to be so lonely that you seek out something that could destroy you. Around 3 AM, she heard movement on the porch. Quiet. Heavy. She knew she should stay inside, but she found herself moving toward the door anyway.

The bear was there, massive and terrifying in the moonlight. She turned toward Elena, and for a moment they just looked at each other—two creatures awake in a world that preferred sleep, both bearing their own particular hungers. The bear's eyes were surprisingly intelligent, dark and ancient, and Elena understood in that moment why Marcus had started feeding her. Sometimes being seen by something dangerous feels better than being unseen by everyone.

She didn't go outside. She didn't feed it. But she watched it until it loped back into the darkness, and somehow the encounter felt more real than anything she'd experienced in years.

In the morning, she told Marcus she was staying. Not forever—she had a job, a life, however zombie-like it felt. But long enough to help him find his way back. And as they sat on his porch drinking coffee while the sun rose, burning orange across the Montana sky, Elena realized she'd been waiting for someone to need her too.

The bear appeared at the edge of the woods, watching them. Marcus reached for Elena's hand, and for the first time in months, neither of them felt quite so dead inside.