Crossing Space
477 Words
Chapter 10
The building was supposed to be empty by now.
Maya realized it when the elevator doors opened onto
silence instead of the usual hum. No voices. No
footsteps. Just the soft whir of lights and the distant echo
of the city far below.
She checked her watch. It's nearly midnight.
“Of course,” she muttered, stepping out.
The conference floor glowed with after-hours lighting
too bright to feel intimate, too dim to feel safe. Her heels
sounded louder than they should have as she crossed the
room and dropped her bag on the table.
“You’re still here.”
She didn’t jump. Didn’t turn right away.
“So are you,” Maya said, opening her laptop.
Alexander stood near the windows, jacket off, sleeves
rolled, tie abandoned somewhere she couldn’t see. He
looked less composed like this. Less finished. The glass
behind him reflected a version that didn’t quite match the
one the world expected.
“I thought you left,” he said.
“I tried,” she replied. “The revisions weren’t done.”
He nodded once. “Same.”
Silence settled between them, not awkward, just unfilled.
The kind that usually didn’t last long around him. Maya
worked. Alexander watched numbers scroll on his phone
and then stopped checking it altogether.
Minutes passed. Maybe more.
Maya shifted in her chair, neck stiff. Alexander noticed.
He crossed the room without comment and adjusted the
thermostat.
“Better?” he asked.
She glanced up, surprised despite herself. “Yes. Thanks.”
He returned to his side of the table, but the distance felt
shorter now. Charged.
She spoke without looking at him. “You don’t have to
stay.”
“You don’t either.”
She smiled faintly. “I’m paid to.”
He considered that. “I’m trapped by it.”
Her fingers paused over the keyboard.
“That sounds like a choice,” she said.
“Most people think that,” Alexander replied.She finally
looked at him then. Really looked. The lines of
exhaustion. The loosened guard. Not the man on screens.
Just the one in front of her.
The air shifted.
He noticed too.
They were close enough now that she could hear his
breathing when the room went quiet again. Close enough
that neither of them stepped back.
“This is crossing space,” Maya said softly. “The thing
people do when they stop pretending distance matters.”
His eyes held hers. “And does it?”
Her answer came slower than usual. “Not tonight.”
A sound from the hallway broke the moment—footsteps,
distant but real.
Maya straightened, pulse sharp. Alexander glanced
toward the door, then back at her.
Neither moved.
And for a suspended second, it was impossible to tell
whether the closeness they’d crossed could be undone or
if something irreversible had already begun.
- Writer
