Episode 4: When Distance Learned Our Rhythm
964 Words
The second year felt different from the first.
I didn’t realize that at first. There wasn’t a single moment where something shifted dramatically. No announcement. No sudden clarity. Just a quiet change in rhythm, the way seasons change without asking permission.
The calls became more frequent.
Not just Fridays anymore.
At first, it was small. A message in the morning. A quick call before lights out. Sometimes just a few minutes to hear each other breathe on the other end of the line. But those minutes stacked up, one after another, until hearing from him every day felt normal.
Necessary.
I started waking up with my phone already in my hand.
Some mornings, I’d have a message waiting. Others, I’d send one first, knowing he’d see it when he could. We learned how to exist in each other’s pockets, even when the rest of the world demanded our attention.
The distance didn’t shrink.
But it stopped feeling empty.
He sounded different now.
Not hardened. Not cold. Just more sure of himself. His voice carried confidence without arrogance, steadiness without silence. He still didn’t speak more than necessary, but when he did, he meant every word.
I learned when to listen and when to talk. Learned how to read the pauses. Learned when he needed distraction and when he needed quiet.
Some nights, we didn’t say much at all.
We’d sit on FaceTime, phones propped up, doing our own things. Him cleaning gear or stretching after a long day. Me curled up on my bed, scrolling absentmindedly, comforted by the fact that he was there.
Presence became its own language.
I told him more about my days then.
About the relief of not forcing myself into hallways that felt hostile. About youth group becoming a place where I helped instead of hid. About the chalk wall filling up faster than ever, words layered over words until nothing was fully erased.
“You sound lighter,” he said once.
“I feel like I can breathe,” I admitted.
“I’m glad,” he replied. And I knew he meant it.
Sometimes, when the calls ran long and the night grew quiet, he told me about his world too. About Camp Lejeune. About the routines that structured his days. About the exhaustion that settled into his bones and the strange peace that came with knowing exactly what was expected of him.
“It’s weird,” he said one night. “I miss quiet, but I also need it.”
I understood that.
We were learning how to meet each other where we were, not where we wished we could be.
As the months passed, the conversations deepened without either of us naming it. We talked about values before plans. About what mattered to us. About what we never wanted to become.
“I don’t want to disappear into my job,” he said quietly. “I don’t want it to be the only thing I am.”
“You won’t,” I told him. “You’re more than that.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“That’s why I need you,” he said.
The words settled into me gently, not heavy, not overwhelming. Just honest.
He came home again during his second year.
Not for long. A few days. Enough to remind me that he was real outside of a screen.
We didn’t do anything extravagant. No big outings. No performances of happiness.
We sat together. Ate meals. Took quiet drives. Watched television without really paying attention. Laughed at things that weren’t funny to anyone else.
At one point, we ended up on the couch again, controllers in hand, another round of Call of Duty stretching late into the night. The familiarity of it made my chest ache in the best way.
“This feels normal,” I said without thinking.
He glanced over at me. “It is normal.”
I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to hear that.
When he left again, it hurt — but differently.
Not sharper.
Just deeper.
The calls picked up where they left off as if distance was just another room we knew how to walk through. He called more often now, not waiting for schedules to align perfectly.
“I don’t like going to sleep without hearing your voice,” he admitted one night.
I smiled. “Me neither.”
We started talking about the future in small, careful pieces.
Not plans. Not promises.
Just questions.
“What do you want to do someday?”
“Where do you see yourself after this?”
“What does home mean to you?”
Sometimes we talked about kids in abstract ways, like a far-off idea that didn’t belong to us yet. Sometimes we talked about nothing at all, letting the silence stretch comfortably between us.
The idea of us stopped feeling fragile.
It felt rooted.
One Friday night, after a long pause, he said, “I don’t think this is temporary.”
My heart skipped.
“Me neither,” I said.
“I mean… us,” he clarified. “I don’t see an end to this.”
The words didn’t scare me.
They steadied me.
We didn’t rush to label anything. We didn’t need to. What we were building didn’t require announcements. It existed whether we spoke it aloud or not.
I didn’t know yet how quickly life would accelerate. How choices ahead would arrive sooner than expected. How adulthood would demand more than either of us felt ready to give.
But I knew this:
The distance no longer felt like something we were enduring.
It felt like something we were moving through.
Together.
And for the first time, the future didn’t feel like a question mark hanging over my head.
It felt like a direction.
- Writer
