Online

She's online every night at 2:04. So am I.

Her name was Cassie. We were together for nearly three years, long enough that I forgot what it felt like to wonder if someone liked me. The ending was quiet. Slow. A kind of fading. We blocked nothing. We deleted nothing. We just stopped.

But I still have her on WhatsApp. Pinned. I know I should unpin it. I won't.

Every night, I open our chat. Not to message. Just to look. The old messages stacked like a ledger of everything we were. "Home soon x." "Can you grab milk?" "Love you. Night."

And right at the top, under her name, a small grey line. "Online."

Every night. 2:04 AM. Like she's standing in the same room.

At first I thought it was a glitch. But it isn't. She's there. She's actually there. Opening our chat. Just like me.

We're both in the same chat at the same time, staring at each other's names, neither of us typing.

I tested it. Last night I closed the chat, waited, then opened it again. "Last seen today at 2:04 AM."

She'd left a second before I came back.

We're like two people standing outside the same door. Each waiting for the other to knock. Both too scared to be the first.

I typed three words. "Are you up?" Then deleted it.

Tonight, she was online again.

And I realised we've been talking for weeks.

Just in the quietest language there is.