Lost Love

They met in the spaces between messages. Distance was their first unspoken agreement. Sometimes the distance made them gentle. Sometimes it made them cruel.

Arguments felt sharper when you couldn’t reach for someone. Silences felt heavier when you didn’t know what was happening on the other side of the screen.

Still, they stayed.

Because when it was good, it felt real. And when it was hard, it felt worth it.

Different cities. Different routines. Different speeds of life. They told themselves it was temporary, or at least manageable. Video calls replaced dinners. Voice notes replaced hand-holding. Goodnight texts became rituals.

They learned each other in fragments.

He knew the way she went quiet when she was overwhelmed. She knew the way his jaw tightened when he was thinking too far ahead. He planned visits months in advance. She counted down days like lifelines.

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He was twenty-nine and steady, the kind of man who planned his weeks and saved his receipts. His life wasn’t perfect, but it was shaped career paths drawn in pencil that was slowly turning into ink. He knew where he was going, even if he didn’t always know how he felt about leaving things behind, he had learned the comfort of structure.

He grew up in a house where clocks mattered. His father believed in early mornings and finished sentences; his mother believed in quiet sacrifice. Love, in that house, was practical. It showed up as packed lunches, fixed shelves, steady presence. He learned early that stability was something you built, not something that arrived on its own.

By the time he left home, he carried that belief with him. University, work, promotions—each step felt like placing another brick. He didn’t rush, but he didn’t drift either. He made lists. He set goals. He told himself that once everything was in place, he would finally rest.

What he didn’t plan for was loneliness.

It crept in during nights after work, when success echoed too loudly in empty rooms. He had friends, colleagues, acquaintances. But no one who really saw him beyond what he was becoming.

Until her.

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She was twenty-three and surviving more than living. Each day was something she stepped into carefully, like cold water. Some mornings she felt brave. Other mornings, simply breathing felt like an achievement. Her future was fog, not because she lacked dreams—but because she hadn’t yet learned which ones would stay. Her life was unfinished in every direction.

She lived with her grandparents in the spare room. Some days she worked. Some days she searched. Some days she simply existed. The world expected her to be building something, but she was still trying to understand herself.

Her childhood had been loud, emotional, unpredictable. Love had come in waves, consuming, and then gone without warning. She learned to adapt, to read moods, to survive moment by moment. Planning felt dangerous. Hope felt fragile.

She told herself she was okay with uncertainty.

But at night, when the noise of the day faded, fear crept in. Fear of falling behind. Fear of being too much. Fear of never quite becoming the version of herself she imagined as a child.

Then he appeared—calm, grounded, steady.

He didn’t rush her. He didn’t try to fix her. He listened. When she talked about her doubts, he didn’t dismiss them. He treated her confusion like something sacred, not inconvenient.

For the first time, she felt safe enough to stop pretending she had everything figured out.

They lived far apart. Different cities, different time zones of emotion. Video calls replaced touch, and late-night voice notes stood in for comfort. They learned each other’s silences. They learned how to love through screens.

And they told themselves it was enough.