The Space Between

It’s a strange kind of hell, loving someone who loves someone else. But that’s the deal, right? Some cosmic joke, an unspoken rule no one warns you about until you’re too far gone.

She’s sitting across from me. Red lipstick. Eyes like half-remembered dreams, blurry around the edges. She’s smiling, but it’s the kind of smile you wear when you’re about to deliver bad news. Casual. Like breaking hearts is just part of the routine.

“I don’t feel the same way,” she says, and the words drop like stones into the space between us, leaving ripples I’ll feel for weeks. Months. Maybe years.

I don’t react. I’ve gotten good at that. The not-reacting part. Numbness is a skill, like walking barefoot over broken glass and pretending it’s soft as sand. So I just nod, sip my coffee, and wonder how people can sit in cafés and talk about love like it’s a business transaction. Like they’re not bleeding out on the table in front of them.

She’s talking again, filling the silence with noise that doesn’t mean anything. I stopped listening a while ago. Stopped hoping too. Somewhere between “I really like you” and “But I don’t love you,” I lost the ability to hear things that aren’t already burned into my chest.

Across the café, there’s a guy watching us. I notice him out of the corner of my eye, but I pretend I don’t. He’s her type—dark hair, sharp jawline, that quiet confidence that says he knows exactly what he’s doing. She’ll pretend she doesn’t see him too, but I can already feel the pull, like gravity, like inevitability. The one she loves is always just out of reach. Like me, like her, like all of us.

The one you love and the one who loves you are never the same person. That’s the punchline.

And the thing is, I know someone else’s out there. Someone who thinks about me the way I think about her. Someone staring at their phone, waiting for a message that won’t come. Someone convincing themselves I’m worth the wait, that I’ll notice them eventually, like she’ll notice me. But I won’t. And she won’t. And that’s how the wheel keeps spinning. Like the universe is a goddamn cruel machine that feeds on mismatched hearts.

She gets up. Same smile. Same soft, apologetic tone. The kind of goodbye that sticks to your ribs like an old wound, never healing, always there, just beneath the surface.

“Take care,” she says, and it’s over. She walks away, leaving behind a ghost of a perfume I’ll catch on someone else one day and feel like I’m falling through time.

The guy across the café stands up, his eyes locked on her as she passes. I see it. The way his hand twitches, like he’s about to reach out, say something. But he doesn’t. He just watches her walk away. I know that look. It’s the same one I wear every time I see her.

And that’s the curse, isn’t it? Love keeps us orbiting each other, forever out of sync. The space between us a chasm that no amount of hope or desperation can cross.

The one you love is never the one who loves you back. And even if they are, it’s never at the same time.