The weekend passed in sleepless fragments.  

Evan tossed and turned through both nights,  

the same image looping in his mind—  

Sienna in that hotel,  

a glass raised,  

a smile that wasn’t real,  

the faint distance in her eyes.  

He wanted to pull her out of that place,  

but he couldn’t.  

All he could do  

was force himself to keep writing—  

lines of notes, rough sketches of his restaurant plan—  

but even that ended halfway,  

abandoned under the weight of his restlessness.  

Monday finally arrived.  

He dragged himself into his shirt,  

washed his face with cold water,  

and stumbled into the office.  

The same noise,  

the same deadlines,  

the same endless tasks from his supervisor.  

He nodded, he answered—  

but none of it really landed.  

Until noon.  

His phone buzzed.  

He glanced down.  

> *Too busy at work last night. Couldn’t reply.*  

The message was short,  

but his chest loosened like someone had cut a tight knot.  

So that was it.  

She wasn’t ignoring him.  

She was just… living her life.  

Still, the relief came with something else—  

a quiet, reckless urge.  

He typed back immediately:  

> *It’s okay. Take care of yourself. Don’t drink too much.*  

He sent it before he could second-guess it,  

and then sat frozen,  

waiting, heartbeat racing.  

Minutes later, her reply came.  

> *Mm.*  

Just one syllable.  

Cold, almost perfunctory—  

and yet it made him smile.  

Because this time,  

it wasn’t silence.  

He was allowed to care.  

It was a small change,  

barely noticeable,  

but it cracked open the wall between them.  

The days that followed were quiet.  

They didn’t meet.  

But their brief messages  

became a quiet rhythm—  

a thread of connection neither wanted to cut.  

By day, Evan threw himself into work.  

He drafted proposals,  

called clients,  

pushed for deals.  

But between the calls,  

her image would slip into his mind.  

Her voice.  

Her eyes.  

Her quiet “Take care.”  

Each memory pressed deeper,  

as if burned into him.  

He knew this couldn’t last.  

Text alone couldn’t hold everything he wanted to say.  

That night,  

he sat staring at his screen,  

fingers trembling.  

Finally,  

he typed two simple words:  

> *Miss you.*  

He hit send.  

And for a moment,  

the world seemed to stop.  

His chest pounded,  

his palms were slick with sweat.  

He’d laid his heart bare—  

a fragile thing  

waiting in the glow of a phone screen.  

The room was too quiet.  

He stared at the message,  

waiting for an answer  

that might never come.