For a second, it’s just them. There’s no past between them, no future, just right now, her soft laugh in response to his request for a copy of Michael’s daily log. For that split second, he can almost pretend he’s still in Scranton, five feet away from her, her chuckle coming from just behind reception instead of through a phone. But then the awkward silence creeps in and they’re stuttering, and they’ve never had trouble just talking before. The past is now haunting him, the future terrifies him, and the right now feels suffocating.

“What time is it there?”

“What time is it here? Um, we’re in the same time zone.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

“How far away did you think we were?”

“I don’t know, it felt far.”

“Yeah.”

It has, and it does, feel far, most days. Some days it still feels too close, like three hours may as well be three minutes, like she’s close enough to touch and yet still just out of reach. But most days feel far. Like she’s on the other side of the world instead of just a couple states over. Like no phone, email, letter, could make its way to her even if he did try to reach out.

He thought it was just one-sided though. That even though she had broken up with Roy, she had moved on, possibly even forgetting about the lanky salesman who sat across from her. Heaven knows he’s tried to forget about her.

But now he knows that she feels the distance too. His heart leapt when she realized it was him and she actually sounded happy to talk to him. That she was able to crack jokes and tell him about her new apartment and how she got movies mixed up. And if he was able to pretend before, he felt like he was in another reality right now. One where he never told her he loves her, or one where he did and she loved him too, and that these kinds of conversations were an everyday thing.

So, even though he knows that once they hang up, he’ll still be in Connecticut and she’ll still be in Pennsylvania, he’s gonna stay in this fake reality for as long as possible. One where he loves her and won’t stop and that’s okay.

It’s not until he’s driving home, her giggles still ringing through his ears, that he knows that the fake reality wasn’t so pretend as he had hoped.