The Geometry of Absence

The flight attendant smiles like this isn’t another funeral. I smile back because I know my part.

We shuffle forward with neck pillows and duty-free bags, a procession pretending to be a vacation. Someone ahead of me jams a swollen carry-on into the overhead bin, shoving hard, like grief can be forced to fit if you push long enough. The latch snaps shut. We move on.

I take my usual seat by the window. The seat belt frays where it crosses my lap, threads loosening as if it’s tired of holding anything together. I lower the shade halfway. I want the view, just not all of it. London shrinks as we taxi. So does the version of him I can reach.

This is the part where I’m supposed to feel the swell behind the sternum, the ache that proves something matters. I try to summon it the way you try to remember the taste of food you loved as a child. Instead, there is a small, traitorous ease. Room to breathe again. Space where my thoughts don’t have to coordinate with another time zone.

I switch my phone to airplane mode. I slide it into the seat pocket as if the choice might stick, but I can feel it there, a dormant heart waiting to beat the moment we touch tarmac.

We didn’t meet the way I would have scripted it. No sparks. No locked eyes. He posted a photo from somewhere called Lovers Point, though the image showed only a lake and a stretch of rock too sharp to sit on. I asked if anyone actually went there together. He said, not really. And somehow, agreeing on that tiny impossibility felt like our first quiet alignment. Distance didn’t come later. It was the design. We lived in the gaps between replies, in the echoes of missed weekends. By the time we finally spoke in real time, it felt like we’d already decided not to rush. We built everything around departures and arrivals.

During the safety demonstration, I watch the oxygen mask drop in the video and think about how they always say to put yours on first. No one ever explains what happens if you need air before you can share it.

The cabin smells like sanitizer and recycled goodbyes. Pretzels pass down the aisle like condolences. I take one even though I’m not hungry. Chewing gives me something to do with my mouth so it doesn’t confess.

“Tea, please.” The word slips out like habit.

The cup lands tepid in my palms. I watch the bag sag, color seeping slow into the water like a bruise. I lean in, eyes closed, expecting the bergamot to trigger a memory of his kitchen, the steam, the rain, the weight of his hand on my shoulder. Nothing comes. Scentless.

It hits my tongue flat and thin, tasting only of the sky and the paper cup. I hold the reality longer than it deserves, the lukewarm weight against my fingers. The faint pulp aftertaste lingers like an unanswered question, blander than the wait. Longing wins every time, because it never has to sit in my hands and go cold. It doesn’t owe me anything.

He is easy to love. That’s the problem. He has a way of falling into subjects like they’re wells: football arcana, the anatomy of running shoes. He doesn’t skim. He disappears, resurfacing only when there’s nothing left to know. When he listens to me, it’s the same. He stays with a thought longer than anyone ever has. Sometimes I worry he’ll reach the bottom of me and realize there’s less there than he expected.

I imagine the Tuesday of us. Nothing deferred. No detail pocketed for a future call, no small observation shaped in the interval. Events arrive and dissolve in the same breath. A coffee spoon clinks against a mug, once, then silence. Footsteps fall into predictable sync. Fingers brush when we reach for the same fork, and nothing comes of it. There’s no margin left to stand in between. No return flight on the calendar.

He never seems to wonder about any of this. That should comfort me. Instead, it makes me restless.

Once, I told him he deserved someone local. I dressed it up as generosity. Someone who moved through his streets like they were her own. A lover who belonged in his mornings, not just in his notifications. I smirked when I said it, like a joke we both understood.

He didn’t laugh. He stirred his tea and went quiet. He respected the suggestion. That’s when I understood what I was really testing. I wanted him to come back wrong-footed and breathless, proving I was worth the panic. He never did.

I pull a napkin from my pocket. His handwriting loops across it. Come back soon. Missing you already. A drop of tea spills from my cup, hitting the paper. I watch the ink smear across Missing, turning the word into a blue ghost. I watch the fibers of the napkin drink the liquid until the entire sentiment blurs, illegible but permanent. Gone.

I miss him most noticeably when he’s an ocean away. But I’d miss the longing more. The clean geometry of absence. The way distance makes me generous and patient, better than I am in close quarters. When we live inside the countdown, months until the next visit, hours until the next call, I’m excellent. Attentive. Grateful. I can endure anything because it has walls.

Now, strapped into this seat and headed back to my ordinary life, relief slides in so quietly I mistake it for calm.

Lately, he’s been talking about timelines. Logistics. Shared laundry. It’s practical. Loving. Reasonable. From thirty thousand feet, what I’m afraid of isn’t losing him. It’s losing the version of love that never asks me to stay. Distance has been a kind of insulation, but the seal is cracking.

The captain announces descent. Seat belts click tighter.

The wheels hit the runway. My thoughts don’t.

My thumb finds the phone in the seat pocket. I don’t turn it on. I just hold it.

You don’t need a death to practice mourning. Sometimes it’s enough to repeat the ritual, knowing the middle won’t hold forever.