The Orange Peeler

She kept the prenatal vitamins in the bathroom cabinet, behind the extra toothpaste and expired sunscreen. Three years after the miscarriage, still taking them. A small, pointless rebellion against the body that had failed her, or perhaps a habit she couldn't break any more than she could stop checking her phone during sex.

The subway rattled across the Manhattan Bridge, and Sarah watched the woman across from her—a stranger, maybe sixty, with hands that told stories Sarah couldn't read. The woman was peeling an orange with surgical precision, the citrus scent cutting through the metallic air of the car.

Sarah's mother had called her 'Bear' growing up—not because she was particularly fierce, but because she would curl into herself when hurt, protective and small. She hadn't thought of that nickname in years.

The woman on the subway looked up and caught Sarah's gaze, then held out a segment of orange. Her fingers were stained with juice.

"You look like someone who forgot to eat today," she said.

Sarah took it. The burst of sweetness made her eyes burn.

"My husband used to call me Bear," the woman continued, as if they were old friends sharing a coffee. "He died in February. I keep forgetting to tell people he's gone, so I just... let them think I'm alone because I want to be."

The train lurched. Sarah chewed slowly.

"I'm alone too," she said. "Not because anyone died. Just... choices I made or didn't make."

"Those are harder to mourn," the woman nodded, and handed her another piece. "The ghosts that never lived."

That night, Sarah threw the vitamins in the trash. She bought three oranges from the bodega on the corner. And for the first time in three years, she didn't check her phone once when she lay in bed, watching the streetlights move across the ceiling, feeling something like possibility flicker in her chest.