The Dot

I still have her location. Every night at 2 AM, I check that little dot, and every night it's sitting in her flat.

Nadia and I broke up in the spring. Mutual, quiet, no drama. We just kept sharing locations because turning it off felt like an actual funeral.

So I watch her dot like it's a pulse. Gym at six. Library at ten. Home by eleven. Safe. I'm not stalking, I tell myself. I'm just making sure she gets home okay.

Last Thursday, the dot went somewhere new. An address across town, a street I'd never seen her visit. It stayed there till 3 AM. I sat on my bed, thumb hovering over the screen, doing math I had no right to do.

I don't know who was there. I don't want to know.

At 3:12, I did the grown-up thing. I opened settings and turned my own location off. Stop sharing. Done. Clean. I even felt proud for about three minutes.

Then my phone buzzed.

Nadia: "Why'd you turn yours off?"

Three minutes. She noticed in three minutes.

Which means she'd been watching mine, too. Every night. Maybe at the same time. Maybe while I watched hers.

I stared at the message. Couldn't answer. Typed "I thought you'd stopped looking," and deleted it.

Two people, both pretending they've moved on. Both sitting in the dark. Both watching a dot.

We never lost each other.

We just got really good at keeping our distance.