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Three Sundays have passed since Ryan called me and every boundary between us disappeared beneath the sound of our need. We kept the promise we made afterward. At nine my time, his voice reaches me from Milwaukee, and we talk without stripping, touching ourselves, or asking to see what distance is keeping from us. The first call left both of us raw enough that saying good night felt like tearing something open. The second was easier, and by the third, we could laugh without immediately wondering whether happiness had tricked us into trusting too quickly.

Thanksgiving entered the conversation near the end of Sunday’s call.

“It isn’t our night,” I told him.

“That won’t stop either of us from wanting to call.”

“No, but wanting comfort doesn’t automatically make something urgent.”

He remained quiet long enough for me to hear everything he wasn’t volunteering.

“We leave the day alone,” he finally said. “No waiting for a call, analyzing a text, or deciding silence means something it doesn’t.”

The agreement made sense on Sunday.

Today, it feels fucking awful.

Lance invited me to dinner three times. The first invitation came through my mother, the second arrived in an email containing enough careful language to feel drafted by his attorney, and the third came directly from him this morning. He offered communication, which is the word he uses when he wants credit for speaking without accepting responsibility for what he says.

I declined.

He called anyway.

The conversation lasted seven minutes before he began explaining how my mother’s “instability” had influenced me, how my friends had encouraged my disrespect, and how Ryan had returned to my life at the precise moment I was finally becoming rational.

I listened until he said Ryan’s name.

Then I told him, “You don’t get to speak about him to me.”

“I am trying to protect you from repeating a mistake.”

“No. You’re trying to regain control over a decision that no longer belongs to you.”

“I am your father.”

“And I am your daughter, not your property.”

He attempted to interrupt me, and I ended the call.

The guilt arrived immediately. I let that suck too.

By noon, I can’t tolerate the silence of my loft, so I go downstairs to my boutique. Snow lands in soft, determined flakes against my window while the radio plays cheerful songs about family, home, and gratitude. I turn it off halfway through one.

My boutique, Encanto, is closed for the holiday, but I use my key and switch on the lights. The displays glow beneath the chandeliers, each dress hanging exactly where my employees left it yesterday. I adjust a crooked sleeve, answer three emails nobody expects me to answer until Monday, and reorganize a rack that doesn’t need my assistance.

Work usually settles me, but today, every task feels like another object I’m moving around the truth.

I miss him.

There is no healthier phrasing that makes the loss smaller. No motivational speaker, meditation exercise, or carefully structured coping mechanism can turn longing into something dignified. I miss Ryan with the same vicious clarity I missed him two years ago, except now I know exactly where he is and how much he loves me.

Knowing makes the distance worse.

I sit behind the desk in my office and open my laptop. Ryan’s mailing address is memorized, and a stack of cream stationery waits inside the bottom drawer, but a letter would take days to reach him. I need him to know before this Thanksgiving ends.

We agreed not to talk today.

We never said I couldn’t send an email. Loophole theory wins once again.