The Weight We Bear

The old teddy bear sat on the motel nightstand, its glass eye watching me like a guilty conscience. I'd rescued it from the donation box yesterday—Claire's doing, another thing discarded without my consent. The bear smelled of dust and twenty years of our shared history, its fur matted where she'd rested her head during chemotherapy.

I went running again at dawn, desperate to outpace the ache in my chest. The streetlights flickered orange against the foggy Portland sky, that sickly sodium hue that makes everything look like a crime scene photo. My sneakers slapped the pavement rhythmically, each step an attempt to run from the lawyer's office, from the papers she'd already signed, from the way she'd looked at me like I was a stranger wearing her husband's face.

An orange peel lay in the gutter, startlingly bright against the gray concrete. I remembered how she used to eat oranges in bed, staining the sheets with juice, laughing at my irritation. She said the mess meant we were alive. Now the house is pristine, empty, clean enough for whoever comes next.

The morning air burned in my lungs as I ran harder, faster, like if I pushed myself to exhaustion maybe I wouldn't have to bear the silence waiting at home. My phone buzzed in my pocket—her name on the screen, maybe asking if I wanted the grill, or the bear, or just checking if I was still breathing.

I slowed to a walk, bent double, gasping. The orange sun was finally rising over the horizon, and for the first time in months, I cried. Not for her, exactly, but for the version of myself that had died trying to be what she needed. The bear watched from my memory, and I kept running anyway.