Things We Bear

The waiting room television flickered between channels, the **cable** connection intermittent at best. Not that it mattered—Marcus wasn't watching. He was too focused on the **water** dispenser in the corner, that familiar glug-glug rhythm like a heartbeat he couldn't quite synchronize with his own.

He pulled the **vitamin** bottle from his pocket. Doctor's orders, though Marcus suspected it was more about giving him something to control than any real medical necessity. Vitamin D deficiency. How appropriate—the sun inside him had been dimming for months, and now there was a clinical name for it.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Sarah was probably at their usual **padel** court, playing with someone else. The thought didn't sting anymore. That was the problem—the numbness was worse than the pain. Their Sunday matches had been the only thing keeping them tethered, him chasing balls into the corners while she waited at the net, her laugh carrying across the court like something he didn't deserve. Now he wondered if she still laughed, or if that sound had retired along with everything else they'd built.

The nurse called his name. Marcus stood, his joints stiff. He'd been **bearing** this particular weight for three weeks—the unopened envelope on his kitchen counter, the messages he couldn't bring himself to answer, the way he moved through his apartment like a ghost haunting his own life.

"Mr. Harmon?" the nurse said again, softer this time.

He walked toward the door, past the water cooler with its condensation-slicked surface, past the television where some morning show host was laughing about something trivial. Marcus thought about how much of life was just waiting rooms and prescribed vitamins and broken connections, how we kept playing games we'd already lost because the alternative—stopping—felt too much like surrender.

He pushed through the door. Whatever was on the other side, at least it was finally happening.