I hadn't seen her in months.
This sort of thing is bound to happen, really, and we both knew it was coming, but we chose to ignore it. If it's not spoken, it can't be there, right?
Wrong. Of course. Our willful ignorance soothed the pain at the time, and made it okay to pretend the day would never come.
As we'd soon figure out, that's not how time works.
The last time I had seen her was a sunny September afternoon. I watched her put the idling car into drive and pull away from the curb, trying to navigate her way out of the airport in that rust-bucket Toyota of hers. I sighed and headed to the ticket counter.
I soon found myself clear on the other side of the Earth. It's a concept you can never really wrap your brain around — spend a day sitting in an ugly chair, wake up and you're eight thousand miles away. Technology is amazing, isn't it, but for the most part the distances involved are unfathomable.
We talked often. There's another amazing bit of technology — trans-continental phone lines. My words turn all electronic, take a quick journey across the Earth, and then turn back into words, all in the space of a second or so.
She was going to pick me up once my flight landed.
The past months flew by, but the hours spent 30,000 feet in the air refused to end. I couldn't sleep, so I spent time watching the airplane icon creep pixel by pixel over the map on the tiny screen embedded in the seat in front of me.
Hello, this is the captain speaking. We're getting near the end of our trip, but there's a pretty serious thunderstorm system in the way. I'm checking with nearby airports for clearance to land, but it looks like we'll have to spend some time up here until the storm clears up a bit.