Then I stopped opening that closet.
When Marcus matched into a strong residency program in internal medicine, he picked me up in our kitchen and spun me around until I hit his shoulder and laughed.
“We did it,” he said.
“You did it.”
He smiled into my shoulder. “No. We did.”
By the time graduation came, I had built entire private rituals around that word.
We.
We made it.
We survived.
We were finally standing at the edge of the life I had been postponing for years.
But in the last month before graduation, Marcus changed.
Not enough for anyone else to notice.
But I noticed.
He started taking calls outside.
He shut his laptop whenever I walked into the room.
Once, I saw a folder in his bag with my name printed on a tab.
“What’s that?” I asked.
He zipped the bag too quickly.
“Just paperwork,” he said. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
