The Space Between Us

Maya stirred her coffee absentmindedly, the spoon clinking against the ceramic mug. It was a Sunday morning like any other, but silence stretched between her and Rohan like a taut thread ready to snap. He sat across from her at the kitchen table, scrolling through his phone, pretending not to feel the tension.

They had been married for twelve years. Parents to a daughter, co-managers of a house, teammates in life. But somewhere along the way, they had stopped being lovers, even friends. Their conversations had dwindled to school fees, grocery lists, and who was picking up Anaya from dance class.

Maya remembered a time when Rohan would bring her flowers on weekends, not because it was a special occasion, but because he’d passed a florist and thought of her. Now, she couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at her and really seen her.

“Did you check if the plumber confirmed?” She asked, her voice flat.

Rohan didn’t look up. “Yeah. He’s coming at noon.”

She nodded and sipped her coffee. Bitter.

“Do you want to talk about this?” she asked suddenly.

His fingers froze mid-scroll. “About what?”

“This. Us.”

He sighed, put his phone down, and leaned back in his chair. “What do you want me to say, Maya?”

“That we’re not okay. That this silence between us isn’t normal. That you miss me. Something.”

He looked at her then, eyes tired but searching. “I do miss you,” he said. “But I also feel like I can’t reach you. Like there’s a wall between us, and no matter what I say or do, you’re always… somewhere else.”

Her eyes burned. “You stopped trying, Rohan. And when you stopped, I stopped too. It just felt easier.”

They sat in the stillness of the kitchen, surrounded by the smell of burnt toast and the hum of the refrigerator.

“I think we started living parallel lives,” she said. “Always busy, always occupied—but never with each other.”

He nodded. “It’s like we’ve been roommates who raise a child together.”

Maya looked away. “I used to write poems about you, you know? Little ones, in the margins of my diary. Now I can’t remember the last time I wrote anything.”

Rohan reached for her hand. It was tentative, like testing cold water. “Maybe we let too many little things go. The date nights. The compliments. The silly jokes. We thought love would keep working on its own.”

She didn’t pull away. “Love needs attention. Just like Anaya, just like the plants I keep forgetting to water.”

He chuckled softly, and it broke something between them. A crack of light in a wall built too high.

“We could go for a walk later,” he said. “Just us. No phones.”

Maya gave a small smile. “And maybe talk about more than plumbing and groceries?”

“Yes. Maybe about poems. And the last time I made you laugh.”

They sat together a little longer, holding hands like they hadn’t in months. It was awkward and unfamiliar. But it was a beginning.

Later that evening, they walked through the park near their house. The air was warm, scented with jasmine. Children played in the distance, and the sky burned orange with the setting sun.

“Remember our first anniversary?” Rohan said, breaking the silence.

Maya laughed. “When you tried to cook lasagna and nearly set the oven on fire?”

He grinned. “I still maintain it was the recipe’s fault.”

“You bought a fire extinguisher the next day.”

“And you still married me.”

She slipped her arm through his. “I still would.”

And just like that, something shifted. Not all at once. Healing is not a switch—it is a series of small moments. A glance. A conversation. A walk.

That night, Maya opened her journal for the first time in a year. She wrote one line:

“The space between us is still here. But now, we’re walking across it together.”