Remaining Weeks

The last two weeks had a strange quality to them. Time moved differently when you were counting toward something. The days felt longer but the weeks felt shorter and he couldn't reconcile the two.

He kept working. He kept cooking. He kept existing in the ordinary machinery of his life. But underneath everything there was a hum. A frequency only he could hear. The sound of something approaching.

She was quieter than usual. Not distant. Not pulling back. Just quieter. Like she was conserving energy for what was coming. Her messages were shorter but no less warm. She still called. Still late at night. Still with that voice that went through him like a current. But she said less. She let the silences do more of the work.

He understood. She was processing. She was sitting with the reality of what they had agreed to and she was turning it over in her hands the way she turned over everything, looking for the sharp edges, testing where it might cut her.

He let her be quiet. He didn't chase. He didn't ask if she was okay every five minutes. He sent her a photo of his breakfast and she replied with a heart emoji and that was enough. He told her about a song he'd found and she said send it and he did and she listened and said that's good and that was enough.

Everything was enough now. Because everything was tinged with soon.

He started making lists in his head. Things to pack. Things to prepare. Work he needed to finish before he left. Instructions for the plant sitter he didn't have because he didn't own plants. The lists were a way of managing the anxiety. A way of feeling like he had control over something when the thing that mattered most was entirely out of his control.

He thought about what to wear on the plane. Then he thought about how that was ridiculous. Then he thought about it anyway.

He thought about what to wear when he saw her for the first time. Then he thought about how that was even more ridiculous. Then he spent an hour thinking about it anyway.

He settled on nothing. He would wear what he always wore. A plain t-shirt. Jeans. His boots. He wouldn't pretend to be someone he wasn't. She had spent a year learning who he was. Showing up in a costume would be an insult to that.

She messaged him nine days before the flight.

She said: Can I ask you something?

He said: Always.

She said: When you get here. What happens? Like. What's the plan? Do we just. I don't know. What do we do?

He thought about it. He had been thinking about it constantly but he hadn't wanted to be the one to bring it up. He had wanted her to ask. Because her asking meant she was ready to talk about it.

He said: I think we keep it simple. I land. I get to the Airbnb. I let you know. You come over. Or I come to you. Whatever you want. And then we just. Exist. For a bit. No agenda. No plan. Just see what it feels like to be in the same room.

She said: That's terrifying.

He said: I know.

She said: What if it's weird?

He said: It will be weird. Everything about this is weird. We've been talking for a year and we've never been in the same room. Of course it will be weird. Weird isn't the same as bad.

She said: You keep doing that. Making distinctions.

He said: Because distinctions matter.

She said: What if I don't know what to say?

He said: You'll know what to say. You always know what to say. And if you don't, we can just sit there. I'm good at sitting.

She said: You are good at sitting. You're very talented at sitting.

He said: See? We're fine.

She said: We're not fine. We're insane. This is insane.

He said: Probably. But we're doing it anyway.

She said: We're doing it anyway.

She went quiet for the rest of that day. He didn't hear from her until the next morning. A single message.

She said: I packed a bag for when you're here. Not for going anywhere. Just. A bag of things I might need. So I don't have to think about it while you're here. So I can just. Be there.

He said: That's smart.

She said: I'm smart. I'm also terrified. But I'm smart.

He said: I know you're both.

Seven days. Six. Five.

He packed his bag on the Wednesday before. A small suitcase. Clothes for a week. Toiletries. His phone charger. His headphones. Nothing else. He traveled light because he always traveled light and because the less he brought the less there was to worry about.

He stood in his flat after packing and looked around. The flat looked the same as it always did. The kitchen counter where he took the food photos. The couch where he sat when he called her. The bed where he lay at three in the morning with the phone against his ear listening to her breathe.

In a few days he would be somewhere else entirely. In a few days the flat would be here and he would be there and the distance that had defined everything would be gone and he didn't know what would fill the space it left behind.

He called her that night. The last call before the flight.

She picked up on the first ring. She never picked up on the first ring.

She said: Hi.

He said: Hi.

A pause. The kind of pause that used to scare him and now just felt like part of how they communicated. The silence was never empty. It was full of everything they weren't saying.

She said: How are you feeling?

He said: Like I'm about to do something I can't undo.

She said: Is that bad?

He said: No. It's just real.

She said: Yeah. It's real.

She was quiet for a moment. He could hear something in the background. The TV. Low. Her best friend's son laughing somewhere far off.

She said: I need to tell you something before you get on that plane.

He said: Okay.

She said: I'm bad at this. At being known. At letting someone see me. You know that. You know more about me than anyone and I've still been holding things back. Not big things. Just. The last layer. The part I'm most afraid of.

He said: You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to.

She said: I know. That's why I want to. Because I know I don't have to. Because you've never made me.

He waited. He could hear her breathing. Slow. Deliberate. Like she was steadying herself.

She said: I'm scared that when you see me you'll realize I'm not what you think I am. Not the photos. Not the writing. Not the voice. Just. Me. The actual me. And I'm scared that won't be enough.

He closed his eyes. He pressed the phone harder against his ear.

He said: You know what I see when I look at your photos?

She said: What?

He said: I see someone who is trying to show me who she is without letting me see too much. I see someone who picked pumpkin pajamas for the first photo because she wanted me to see her as she really is, not dressed up, not performing. I see someone who picked a bookstore for the third photo because books are the thing she loves and she wanted me to see her in a place that meant something. I see someone who drew a window in the dark and called it just a window when it was actually a portrait of how she sees the world. I see you. That's all I've ever seen. And that's all I want to see.

She didn't say anything for a long time.

Then she said: You're going to make me cry and I'm going to be mad about it.

He said: I'll take the mad.

She said: I know you will. That's the worst part.

He said: Why is that the worst part?

She said: Because you mean it. You always mean it. And I'm not used to that. I'm not used to someone meaning it.

He said: Get used to it.

She said: Two days.

He said: Two days.

She said: Don't miss your flight.

He said: I won't.

She said: Don't forget your charger.

He said: I packed two.

She said: Of course you did.

He said: I'm prepared.

She said: You're something. I don't know what yet. But you're something.

He said: I'll be something in person too. That's the whole point.

She said: Yeah. That's the whole point.

They stayed on the call for another hour. Not saying much. Just breathing. Just being there. The way they had been there for each other for a year. The way they would be there for each other in two days. In the same room. Without the ocean between them.

When they finally hung up he sat in the dark for a long time. The flat was quiet. The kind of quiet that used to feel like loneliness and now felt like the last breath before something changed.

He thought about the flight. About the hours in the air. About landing in a country he had never been to. About walking through an airport and knowing that somewhere in that city she was waiting. She was going about her day. She was probably smoking. She was probably texting her best friend about how scared she was. She was probably looking at the clock.

He thought about what it would feel like to see her. Not in a photo. Not through a screen. Her. Standing there. Real. Three dimensional. Moving. Breathing. Close enough to touch.

He didn't know what he would do. He didn't know if he would freeze or move or speak or just stand there. He didn't know if he would cry. He thought he might. He hadn't cried in years but he thought he might. Not from sadness. From the sheer weight of something he had been carrying for a year finally being set down.

He thought about her hands. Cold. She had told him. Always cold. He wanted to hold them. He wanted to wrap his hands around hers and feel how cold they were and not let go.

He thought about her voice. Not through a phone. Right there. In the room. The way it would sound without the compression of a speaker. The way it would fill a space instead of being piped through a tiny hole next to his ear.

He thought about her hair. Blonde. Wavy. Past her shoulders. He had seen it in photos. He wanted to see it move. He wanted to see what it did when she turned her head. He wanted to see what it looked like when she pushed it behind her ear.

He thought about the soot sprites on her arm. The purple star being held out. The green one resting. The pink one floating away. He wanted to see them up close. He wanted to trace them with his eyes. He wanted to know if the colors were as soft in person as they were in the photo.

He thought about all of it. Every detail he had collected over a year of words and photos and calls. He held them in his head like a map of something he was about to visit for the first time.

And then he went to bed. And he didn't sleep. And that was fine. Because in two days he would be on a plane. And everything was about to change.