Five Pages Apart

She’d been away on a short work trip. Two days, maybe less. But the office had felt hollow without her. No light laugh drifting over the cubicle wall. No gentle footsteps. The place had all the charm of an unplugged fan.

On day two, I caved. Found some half-baked reason to message her.
She replied hours later. Made sense, she was on a client visit. Probably swamped. Besides, it’s not like we’re close. Far from it. Across nearly twenty years being colleagues, we wouldn’t even scrape together five full pages of conversation. And I’m counting the work emails. That’s the distance.

And yet.

She’s something. A presence. A light. A soft glimmer. A strange warmth I look forward to in the dull corridors of office life. Not because there’s a story waiting to happen, there isn’t. Nothing’s going to happen, and I’m not hoping it ever will. Not because there’s anything to be pursued. That path isn’t for walking. Not by me. Not now. But just knowing that such a path exists, somewhere out there in theory, holds a quiet kind of comfort. The kind you don’t question too closely. A warm lie I let myself keep.
But that’s not really the point.

She was back today.
She pinged me about some pending task.
I brushed it aside. Texted a teasing line instead;
So, what did you get me?

She laughed.
That laugh... it did something to the room. That alone felt like a win.

But then she said it.
Something casual. Simple. Offhand.
Didn’t even think of bringing anything.

That’s all. Just that.
Didn’t cross her mind.
That landed harder than it should have.
And something in me cracked.
It broke me. Shattered me, actually.

Not because I expected a gift. Of course not. Even in my most delusional moments, I wouldn’t have dreamed that. Not even because she forgot me while she was away. Why would she remember me? Never expected to occupy that much space in her day. That part never did hurt. That’s not the wound.

But the way she said it, light, casual, utterly unthinking. That’s what undid me. Like I’d never existed in that little span of time, not in any space of hers. Like I don’t live anywhere in her mind. Because in that moment, the truth was unmistakable. In the vast landscape of her thoughts, I don’t even register. And that stung. Not because I matter. But because I clearly, absolutely don’t.

That theoretical road I sometimes glanced toward, that road I never meant to walk? It wasn’t just closed. It'd vanished. No signage now, not even a mirage. Just empty air.

And that’s how it ends. That’s it.
No drama. No headlines. No great tragedy.
Just a crumbly little truth, collapsing quietly in a corner of the day.
Just a flicker extinguished. One more quiet reminder, that some of us are simply background noise.