What Remains in the Glass

The hair came in clumps that first week — dark, tangled fistfuls in the drain, on the pillow, scattered across the bathroom floor like fallen leaves. Elena watched herself disappear each morning, her reflection fragmenting into something she didn't recognize. At forty-two, she'd finally stopped dyeing away the gray. Now even that choice was being made for her.

"You should call people," her sister had said. "Let them in."

Elena thought of Sarah — the friend who'd once held her through a divorce, who knew which wine to bring when Elena's mother died. But Sarah had stopped visiting three appointments ago, her texts growing shorter, then nonexistent. Some griefs were too contagious.

The waiting room smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee. In the corner stood a stuffed bear — one of those old-fashioned hunting trophies with glass eyes that seemed to watch everyone who entered. Its fur was matted, one ear nearly torn off. Elena had started thinking of it as the chemotherapy bear: something preserved long after it should have rotted, a reminder that some things endure even when they shouldn't.

"You're losing weight," the bear seemed to say today. Its glass eyes caught the fluorescent light, dead and knowing.

Elena's hand went to her head. Just smooth skin now. No more hiding behind the curls that had been her signature since college, the ones clients complimented, the ones that said here is a woman who has not yet been broken by this city, this job, this life.

She pulled out her phone and scrolled to Sarah's name. The last message sat there from two weeks ago: "Thinking of you."

Her thumb hovered. The door opened. A nurse called her name.

Elena stood up, caught her reflection in the darkened window — scalp shining, collarbones sharp, eyes that held something like recognition. She pocketed the phone without typing.

The bear watched her walk toward the treatment room. In its glass gaze, she saw no pity. Just witness.

That was enough.