She'd been over since dinner. It was past eleven and neither of us had looked at the time in hours. We'd been talking the way we talk — the kind of conversation that moves between three topics at once and lands in places neither of us could have planned for. Now she was at the door, putting her coat on, and even this small quiet moment felt like part of the same conversation. I stood in the hallway and watched her zip up. She said goodnight and said we should do this again soon, and I said goodnight back and we both knew "again soon" meant within the week because we couldn't stand long gaps anymore. I held the door. Watched her to the gate. Closed it. And the thread between us, the particular long thread, was still there across the distance, the way it always was.
