The first few weeks after Ryan left felt like someone had pressed mute on the world.

Everything still moved—the trains, the crowds, the laughter spilling from bars—but it all sounded slightly offbeat, like she was living half a second behind everyone else.  

Emily didn’t fall apart. She went to work, texted friends, fed the cat, paid bills. She was functioning, not feeling. There’s a difference.

Sometimes, when she caught herself checking her phone for his messages, she’d laugh. “You’re fine,” she’d mutter to herself. “You’re independent. You don’t need a man to remember to eat lunch.” Then she’d forget lunch.

Ryan’s messages came irregularly but never cold.  

Photos of coffee cups with captions like *Still can’t find one as good as yours.*  

Short updates: *Team’s good. Weather’s weird. Miss you.*  

Sometimes a meme about cats that made her snort at the bar mid-shift.  

It was both too much and not enough.  

The digital version of holding hands through glass.

Jess called it “emotional Wi-Fi.”  

“You’re connected,” she said, “but the signal keeps dropping.”  

Emily groaned. “Can we not make analogies?”  

“I’m a writer, I can’t help it.”  

“Well, tell your metaphors to back off. I’m fine.”  

“Sure,” Jess said, “you sound *very* fine—like the emotional equivalent of decaf coffee.”  

Emily flipped her off, but she smiled.  

The bar stayed busy enough to distract her.  

New faces, new chaos, old songs.  

Sometimes, a customer would ask her if she was seeing someone, and she’d shrug.  

“I have a long-distance relationship with time zones,” she’d say.  

They’d laugh.  

She wouldn’t.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Ryan was thriving—at least on paper.  

He liked the team, the city, the rhythm of something new.  

But he missed the mess.  

He missed *her.*  

He’d catch himself writing notes he never sent:  

*I saw a girl at a café who ordered like you—fast, chaotic, charmingly wrong.*  

*The bed feels too big.*  

*I didn’t realize silence could be so loud.*  

Instead, he sent her pictures of sunsets, as if color could fill the distance.

By late May, the silence had started to feel heavier.  

Their calls grew shorter.  

Sometimes they’d talk about groceries or TV shows just to avoid talking about everything else.  

He said, “I’ll visit soon.”  

She said, “Soon’s good.”  

Neither asked when *soon* was.  

One Friday, after a long night at the bar, Emily walked home through light rain.  

The streets shimmered, the city breathing steam.  

She stopped at the corner where she’d first spilled that drink on him, smiled bitterly, and whispered, “Gravity wins again.”  

At home, she poured herself a glass of wine and scrolled through their old photos.  

They were annoyingly beautiful together—laughing, messy, alive.  

She closed her eyes and wondered if you could miss a person and still be okay at the same time.  

Disco meowed loudly, unimpressed with her existential crisis.  

“Fine,” Emily said, “at least someone still needs me.”  

The cat blinked. Then knocked over her wine glass.  

“Perfect. Just like your father.”

A few days later, she received a postcard.  

It was from Ryan, but it wasn’t romantic—it was stupid, funny, completely him.  

A picture of the Golden Gate Bridge with a doodle of a cat wearing sunglasses.  

The message read: *Still allergic. Still wish you were here.*  

She laughed out loud in the middle of the bar.  

Jess leaned over. “What’s that?”  

“Proof he’s still alive.”  

“And still in love?”  

Emily looked down at the card. “Maybe. Or just bad at drawing.”  

In early June, Ryan flew back to New York for a conference.  

He didn’t tell her right away—he wanted to surprise her.  

But New York, as always, had its own plans.  

He showed up at the bar on a Tuesday night, the slow kind where regulars nursed old heartbreaks and Emily’s hair smelled faintly of citrus and exhaustion.  

When she saw him, she froze.  

He looked different. Tired. Older, maybe. Or just more real.  

He smiled, unsure. “Hey.”  

Her heart stumbled. “You could’ve texted.”  

“Wanted to see your face first.”  

She crossed her arms. “You really suck at long-distance etiquette.”  

“I’m learning.”  

“Clearly not enough.”  

But she was smiling now, despite herself.  

After her shift, they walked along the river.  

The city glowed, humid and restless.  

They didn’t hold hands at first—just walked, the air between them filled with everything they hadn’t said.  

Finally, she spoke. “You look like you’ve been thinking too much.”  

“Occupational hazard.”  

“Still solving equations?”  

“Just one.”  

“Which one?”  

He glanced at her. “How to love someone without losing yourself.”  

She stopped walking.  

For once, she didn’t try to make a joke.  

“Did you figure it out?”  

“Not yet. But I think it involves cats and bad coffee.”  

She laughed, a small, tired laugh.  

He reached for her hand then, and she let him.  

At the end of the night, they stood outside her building.  

No dramatic music, no promises.  

Just two people who’d seen the world stretch between them and still found a way back.  

He said, “I fly back Sunday.”  

“Of course you do.”  

“I could come again soon.”  

“Soon’s good.”  

They both knew *soon* meant maybe, but maybe was enough for now.  

She leaned in, kissed him once—soft, real, unfinished.  

“Safe flight,” she said.  

He smiled. “See you in the next timezone.”  

And for the first time in months,  

she didn’t feel behind the world anymore.  

She was exactly where she was supposed to be—  

somewhere between here and there.  

Still moving. Still hers.