The Distance Between Hands

The iphone lit up at 2:47 AM, its blue glow cutting through the darkness of our bedroom like an accusation. Maya's face illuminated beside me, her breathing steady and deceivingly peaceful. I watched her thumb slide across the screen, a habitual movement I'd once found endearing — now it felt like a weapon being primed.

I'd started running six months ago, partly for the marathon training, mostly to escape the growing silence between us. Each morning at 5 AM, I'd lace up my shoes and push myself through the predawn streets, my footsteps matching the rhythm of questions I couldn't bring myself to ask. How did we become roommates who happened to share a bed? When did her iphone become more interesting than my voice?

That morning, I didn't go running. Instead, I lay there as Maya's fingers scrolled through message threads I wasn't meant to see. When she finally placed the phone on the nightstand, her palm grazed my arm — a fleeting touch that once would have pulled me closer to her. Now it felt like a ghost passing through.

"We need to talk," she whispered, not meeting my eyes.

I waited for the crushing weight of what would come next. But instead of confession, instead of the ending I'd been bracing myself for, she said: "I'm pregnant."

The room tilted. My palm, sweaty against the sheets, found hers automatically — that same instinctual reaching that had pulled us together five years ago in that crowded bar, that had guided her through labor with our first child, that had held her through her mother's funeral. Our fingers interlaced, and for the first time in months, the silence between us didn't feel like an absence. It felt like possibility.

Her iphone buzzed again. This time, neither of us moved to answer it.