Silence had settled in,
        heavy,
        stretched thin,

        days measured in waiting,
        in spaces she used to fill.

Then—
     a pause,
     a breath,
     a heartbeat…

       *Ding*

Not just a sound.

Not just a message.

But her.

There, on my screen,
       before I even read it,
       before I knew if it was

       hello,
       goodbye,

       or something in between.

For half a second,
    I just stared—

    as if looking too fast might make it vanish,
    as if the universe had given me a glitch,

    a loophole back to her.

Then breath,
     movement,
     the slow press of my thumb,

     opening the door to whatever came next.

But in that split second,
    before meaning met words,
    before I knew anything at all—

    I knew _everything_.