What We Bear

The empty prescription bottle sat on Maya's nightstand for three weeks before she finally threw it away. Vitamin D supplements—the doctor said her body was starving for sunlight, but Maya knew the truth. She was starving for something else entirely.

Across the dinner table, Sarah laughed at something Mark said, her hair falling across her shoulder in that effortless way Maya had always envied. They'd been friends since college, twenty years of shared secrets, rented apartments, heartbreaks. Now Sarah was seven months pregnant, glowing with that terrifying radiance of new life, while Maya's own body had become a stranger to her.

"You okay?" Sarah asked, and Maya realized she'd been staring at the wine glass in her hand.

"Fine. Just tired."

She could tell her. The words sat on her tongue like stones: the miscarriage three months ago, the way Mark had held her afterward and said "maybe it's for the best," the nights she'd spent Googling fertility treatments while he slept beside her. But Sarah's happiness was so fragile, so carefully constructed after years of trying herself. How could Maya burden her with this darkness?

"You should really take those vitamins," Sarah said, nodding toward where the bottle used to sit. "Mark said you stopped picking up your prescription."

Maya's chest tightened. Of course he'd told her. Mark, who was always trying to fix things, who didn't understand that some wounds couldn't be healed with supplements and optimism.

"I'm fine, really."

"Bullshit." Sarah's voice was gentle but firm. "I see you, Maya. I've always seen you."

Something cracked open inside Maya—something she'd been holding together for months. She looked at her friend, really looked at her, and saw the same exhaustion mirrored back. The same fear.

"I keep thinking," Maya whispered, "if I just—bore it better. If I was stronger. Like a mother bear protecting something that isn't even there yet."

Sarah reached across the table and took her hand. "You don't have to bear it alone. That's not how this works."

Outside, summer rain began to fall, and for the first time in months, Maya didn't feel so entirely alone with the weight of what she carried.