I must have stared at those words for an hour before I could force my fingers to enter a reply. He was there, right before me, but I was terrified if I moved too quickly, I would startle him and he"d be gone again.
Carefully, I selected my words. I read it through several times before pushing “send.”
“How are you?”
The words were classic, simple, and wreaked of one very specific meaning I meant to convey and knew he would understand. I wasn"t simply asking "how are you?" I was saying, "Hello, my dearest friend. Why did you ever leave me?" all while raising the white flag and releasing the doves. The wrong word right now, and he would be gone again.
I pushed send and held my breath.
I didn"t have to wait long for an answer, but the next five minutes felt like I had my neck stretched un
