I knew she was beginning to feel unwanted. I kept hoping she would bring it up in a way that wouldn’t make me feel accused.

When she finally asked, “Have I done something?” I stared at the message for a long time.

There was an honest answer. I had been waiting to hear from her all afternoon, and now that she was here, wanting something as ordinary as a conversation, I felt myself reaching for a reason to leave.

I typed, “Just a lot going on.”

There was always a lot going on. I made sure of it.

Work was useful because nobody could reasonably ask me to stop having responsibilities. Exhaustion was useful because it was usually true. I could build an entire disappearance out of things that were technically true.

And while she tried to be understanding, I sat with my phone in my hand, wishing I could tell her how much I wanted to speak to her.

That is the part I have never known how to explain without sounding like I am asking to be forgiven.

For a while, it was easy.

Then I began thinking about how much I would miss this if it ended. How quickly I had become accustomed to another person being there. How she could ruin an ordinary Tuesday simply by deciding she no longer wanted me.

She was asleep. Nothing had happened.

By morning, I had found several things about us that concerned me.

I knew enough about myself to recognise the timing. I still spent the next week examining those concerns with the seriousness of someone who believed he was being honest.

Some of them were real. That helped.

—

She began asking whether it was a good time before calling. Then she began apologising for calling. Eventually, she waited for me.

I remember feeling relieved that we had found a rhythm.

It hurts to write that.

She was becoming careful with me. She was checking the temperature of conversations before allowing herself to want anything. And I was enjoying how much easier the relationship had become.

Sometimes she would say, “I miss you,” and I would feel such tenderness that I had to put the phone down.

Then I would leave it there.

By the time I replied, I had found something lighter to say.

I wanted to tell her that I missed her too. I also knew she might reasonably ask when she could see me, and somehow, in my head, admitting affection had become agreeing to a future I could no longer control.

I could hear how unreasonable this was. My chest stayed tight anyway.

The last time we spoke properly, she asked whether I actually wanted her in my life.

I hated that question because the answer was yes, and almost everything I had done lately suggested otherwise.

She cried. I wanted to hold her. I was afraid that holding her would reassure her, and that tomorrow I would wake up frightened again and take the reassurance back.

So I sat there, trying to find something I could promise without being afraid.

She waited.

I still remember how long she waited.

Eventually, she wiped her face and said she couldn’t keep doing this.

I said I understood.

Even then, I managed to sound like the reasonable one.

—

There was relief after she left. Enough that, for a few days, I believed I had made the right decision.

Then I had a bad afternoon and opened our conversation without thinking.

I wanted to tell her about it. I wanted the particular way she would listen, the question she would ask that made me realise she remembered something I had mentioned weeks before.

My thumb was already over the keyboard when I remembered that I had helped make this unavailable to me.

I put the phone down. Picked it up again.

I thought about what receiving that message might do to her. How quickly she might start hoping. How little I had changed since the last time I let her.

That was when I should have cried, but I don’t cry, do I?

There was nobody there to misunderstand me. I could finally feel everything without being asked what I intended to do about it.

I still rehearse what I would say if we spoke again. Sometimes I get further than the apology. Sometimes I manage to tell her that I was happy, that being happy frightened me, that she must have been so lonely sitting beside someone who kept insisting he cared.

In every version, she calls first.