Nine Hours Apart

They lived nine hours apart, which meant Beth's mornings were his nights.

She learned to drink her coffee slowly so it would still be warm when Mark's face appeared on

her phone, grainy and tired, the city lights behind him blinking like distant stars.

They didn’t talk about missing each other directly. Instead, she told him about

the neighbor’s dog that barked at nothing. He told her about the train that passed his window at 2:17

a.m. every night, rattling the glass like it was trying to remind him he was awake.

On her wall, she kept a calendar with two time zones written in different ink.

Blue for her. Black for him. Every crossed-out day felt like progress and loss at the