“How have you been?”

Chandra let the question hang in the air for a moment as she thought about how to respond.

“I’ve been well,” she began, glancing down at her cup. Asking questions had been much easier than answering them. “I’m finally taking time off of work since Kartika’s getting married. It's been nice to wander around and visit old places."

Kyra nodded. “It’s been a while since you’ve been back in town, right? Are you still working as a research associate?”

“Oh. No, actually.” Chandra blinked in surprise. She was beginning to remember that Kyra had an impeccable memory. “I um. I work with dancers now.”

Kyra perked up. “You do?”

“Yeah.” Chandra scratched the back of her head, realizing that things were about to be revealed to Kyra in ways she wasn't prepared for. “I’m a community engagement coordinator for a dance company. We do a lot of stuff with schools and local art communities, and I’m the person who figures things out.”

“Oh! That’s really cool.” Kyra gasped, and she said it in a way that seemed like she actually meant it, rather than just to be polite. “I didn’t think you'd be working in the dance industry.”

“Oh, well. I realized that I actually like…working with dancers.”

There was a pause and Chandra thought she saw some semblance of an understanding begin to dawn on Kyra. Chandra coughed. “Anyway, it’s not nearly as cool as actually being a dancer. I heard you’re pretty popular in the campus dance cypher.”

“Oh that, I’m really not!” Kyra laughed, waving her hand to deny the statement. Chandra noticed she did that pretty often. “It’s just a fun way for me to de-stress sometimes. I can’t sit for too long at a desk since the dancer in me would rebel.”

Chandra laughed. “I'm not surprised. I heard you ate up all the undergrads at the cypher last week. You’re quite the talented dancer.”

The expression on Kyra’s face was one that Chandra couldn’t decipher and she wondered if she had said too much, before Kyra smiled warmly in response. “Thank you.”

There was another pause in their conversation, like a breath in the middle of a sentence. Chandra felt as if they were having two conversations at once—one on the surface for their exchanges as old university friends, and one in the subtle gestures of the body, for all the uncommunicated messages between them. 

The two conversations interlaced clumsily with one another, resulting in these quiet pauses and seated moments. Chandra picked up her cup to take a sip, hoping to fill the quiet pause with movement.

“You know,” Kyra began. “I’m glad I could catch you before you ran away from me again.”

Chandra nearly choked on her tea. “You—?”

Kyra laughed. “I’m teasing, I’m teasing.” She pushed the pile of paper napkins towards her. “I know it was pretty sudden of me to ask you to meet up, Dra. But y'know from my end... I just felt like I wanted to catch up with you.”

Chandra looked at her as a strike of electricity ran through the entire length of her spine when Kyra called her by her nickname, called her Dra. If her heart was doing somersaults before, it was doing Olympic gymnastics now.

“I just wanna chat, if that’s cool with you?” Kyra smiled. “No expectations or anything, just catching up.”

And Chandra felt that tucked within those words, no expectations, were the thousand different things that had gone unsaid between them during their undergrad years. Things that Chandra had never found the courage to name and wasn’t sure that she had the courage to name now. 

But a strange sort of happiness filled her chest as she continued to sit in front of Kyra, absorbing what she had just said. The abyss that she had carried with her for the past five years suddenly felt a little lighter, and somehow a little less empty.

She finally allowed herself to admit that she was truly happy to see Kyra, happy that Kyra wanted to see her in return, and wanted to continue hearing Kyra say all the things that she had to say. 

“I’d like that a lot, actually,” Chandra responded.

And Kyra's smile widened, complimenting the warmth of the rays of the sun that fell on her shoulders. 

The rest of the afternoon witnessed the two filling in the gaps of each other’s absences, until the sun began to set and the evening lights of the coffee shop turned on, signifying that the day was coming to an end.