Not in a romantic, tragic way either. More like… a skill. Something we work at because we don’t have another choice.
Our schedules slide past one another like they’re actively avoiding contact. When they line up, it’s never for long, and we both know it before we even see each other. That’s the worst part.
The anticipation comes with an expiration date attached. A night here. A morning there. A meal eaten too fast. A shower shared because it saves time. Sex that’s half laughter and half desperation because one of us has to leave in three hours and neither of us wants to be the one who says it out loud first.
We don’t talk about how ridiculous it is. We just do it.
The apartment helps. Kind of.
When Rafe’s home, the place feels alive in the way it always does when he’s in it. His shoes kicked off in stupid places. Music bleeding through his headphones. His unfinished coffee abandoned on the counter because he forgot it existed the second he got distracted.
He leaves little traces everywhere like breadcrumbs.
When he’s not home, the apartment feels paused—like it’s holding its breath.
I don’t move his stuff. Not because I’m sentimental, but because it feels like tempting fate. Like if I put his hoodie away or shift his guitar case even an inch, the universe will decide he doesn’t have to come back.
Which is insane. I know that.
Still.
But it’s the nights that are brutal. Not because they’re lonely in a poetic way—lonely in real life is mostly just annoying.
It’s the hotel beds that are either rock hard or so soft they swallow your spine. It’s pillows that never sit right under your neck. It’s air-conditioning that smells like cleaning chemicals and failure. It’s the fact that I’m always too wired to sleep, even when I’m exhausted.
I fall asleep with my phone in my hand more nights than I don’t. Wake up to messages time-stamped hours earlier and feel that split second of panic—like I missed something important. Like I missed him.
Sometimes we actually talk. Real talking. Long calls where neither of us wants to be the first to hang up, so we circle around nothing, voices quieter and softer until we’re basically breathing into the line.
Other times it’s quick check-ins layered over exhaustion.
“Did you eat?”
“You sound wrecked.”
“Text me when you land.”
“Are you safe?”
“I love you.”
That one never drops. If anything, it hits harder now. Not because we’re fragile, but because we’re not. Because we keep doing this anyway—keep choosing each other even when it would be easier to stop trying so hard.
And some nights, after we hang up, I lie there staring at the ceiling and think:This is what people mean when they say love is work. Not candles and anniversaries and slow dancing. Work.
The thing that finally knocks the wind out of me isn’t big. It’s stupid. It’s one of those tiny, petty little cuts you don’t even feel until you look down and realize you’ve been bleeding.
I’m in a hotel room—Phoenix, I think. Or maybe I just played Phoenix. Everything in here is beige enough that it barely matters. Beige walls. Beige carpet. Beige curtains trying to pretend they’re not curtains. The kind of room you could swap with ten other rooms and no one would know.
The air conditioner rattles like it’s struggling for purpose. The numbers on the clock glow red and accusatory.
2:17 a.m.
I should be asleep. I need to be asleep. We fly in the morning. My legs are still heavy from the game. My shoulder aches where someone got me on a drive and smiled about it after like it was friendly.
But my body won’t let go.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the court. The crowd. The line. That moment right before the ball leaves my hand when everything goes silent in my head and I can hear my own heartbeat like it’s mic’d.
