The Wednesday We Stopped Pretending

Marcus stood at the kitchen counter, mechanically chopping spinach for a salad neither of them would eat. The knife rhythmically cut through the green leaves—thwack, thwack, thwack—each strike a small violence against the evening silence.

"You're going to be late for padel," Sarah said from the doorway, not looking at him. She was already dressed for her own thing—drinks with colleagues from the new firm. The hat she wore, a wide-brimmed thing he'd never seen before, cast half her face in shadow.

"I know," Marcus said. "I'm not going."

The knife stopped.

She laughed, sharp and incredulous. "What? Since when do you skip padel? It's Wednesday. The boys are expecting you."

"Since I realized I'd rather stare at a wall than spend two hours pretending to care about Gavin's crypto portfolio or Carl's renovations." He pushed the spinach into a bowl. "Since I realized we haven't had a real conversation in six months, Sarah."

The water glass she'd been holding slipped from her fingers, shattering on the tile. Neither of them moved.

"Don't," she said quietly.

"Remember when we used to drive to the mountains? Remember that time we saw the bear by the side of the road, and you made me pull over because you thought it looked lonely?" Marcus finally looked at her. "We watched it for twenty minutes. Just watched. Now you can't give me twenty minutes."

"We're adults, Marcus. We have responsibilities. Careers." She stepped over the broken glass. "Padel is networking. Those drinks tonight are networking. This is what life is at thirty-seven."

"Is it?" He walked to the sink, ran the water, watched it circle the drain. "Because I thought life was supposed to feel like something more than just ... not dying yet."

She paused at the door, hand on the frame, hat still casting shadows.

"You can't bear the weight of your own unhappiness, so you're putting it on me," she said, and for a moment she sounded almost tired. "Fix yourself, Marcus. Then maybe we can talk about bears and mountains again."

The door clicked shut.

Marcus stood alone in the kitchen with a bowl of spinach and a floor of broken glass. He didn't move. For the first time in years, he had nowhere to be.