What We Carry

The cabin smelled of pine and old mistakes. Sarah stood by the window, watching an orange slice of sun dip behind the mountains. She hadn't seen Maya in six years—not since the funeral, not since the words that couldn't be unsaid.

"You look tired," Maya said, from where she sat at the scarred wooden table, pushing spinach around her plate with a fork. The dinner sat untouched between them.

"Work," Sarah said. "The partnership track. It's... consuming."

Maya nodded slowly. She looked different—softer somehow, the sharp edges of ambition smoothed away. Sarah felt a sudden pang of loss for the friend she'd once known, the one who'd dreamed of changing the world instead of teaching pottery in small-town Montana.

"I saw your mother last week," Maya said quietly. "She asked about you."

"What did you say?"

"That you were busy. That you were doing important things."

The spinach grew cold on Maya's plate. Outside, the last orange light surrendered to twilight.

"I wanted to call you," Sarah said, her voice tight. "After everything. I just—I didn't know how to begin."

"So you didn't."

"No. I didn't."

Maya stood up and walked to the glass case against the far wall. Inside, a preserved bear stood on hind legs, its mouth frozen in an eternal roar, dead eyes watching them both.

"My grandfather shot it," Maya said. "Forty years ago. He said he was protecting us. But looking at it now... I wonder who needed protection from what."

She turned to Sarah. "Some things you can't take back. Some things you just have to bear."

The words landed between them like stones. Sarah felt something crack open in her chest—six years of silence, of carefully constructed distance, of pretending she hadn't chosen her career over the only person who'd ever truly known her.

"Can we start over?" Sarah asked, her voice barely steady. "Can we... can I try again?"

Maya studied her for a long moment. Then she smiled, faint but real. "Finish your dinner first. Then we'll see."

Outside, darkness fell around the cabin. Inside, something small and tentative began to grow.