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 orders a cortado. Seven dollars. Oat milk, extra foam. The barista draws a heart in the microfoam that she'll destroy with the first sip.
Red lipstick. MAC Ruby Woo. The same shade in her Sephora cart seventeen times, deleted sixteen. Today she bought it. Today she wears it for someone who isn't me.
"I don't feel the same way."
The words land between us. Clean entry wound, no exit. She's practiced this. Mirror work. Maybe recorded herself on Voice Memos, played it back until the tremor disappeared. Her iPhone face-down on reclaimed wood. Screen lighting up: blue text, gray text, blue, blue, gray. Never green. She only texts iPhone users.
Behind her, third table from the window: him.
Norwegian Wood spread open to page 247. The spine uncreased: new purchase, probably Strand, $18.95. Wire-rim glasses he doesn't need; prescription plausibly zero. Moleskine notebook, Pilot V5 pen. Black coffee cooling while he watches her reflection in his phone screen. Watching her watch me not watch her watch him.
This is the choreography.
"You understand, right?"
Her fingers drum. Shellac manicure, "Ballet Slippers." Index, middle, ring, pinkie. The same rhythm as my pulse. As his pulse. As everyone's pulse who's ever sat in this specific chair, across from this specific kind of smile.
The man adjusts his book. Pages 247 to 248. Been on those same pages for twenty-three minutes. His Tom Ford Oud Wood cuts through the coffee smell. He's been watching her since she walked in.
She knows.
I know she knows.
He knows I know she knows.
The espresso machine hisses. Steam wand against metal. Someone's playing a TikTok about attachment styles. The couple next to us discusses their shared Google calendar. The barista calls "Tyler" and nobody responds.
"Sure," I say.
She's explaining something. Timing. Headspace. Journey of self-discovery. The words stack like Amazon packages outside an empty apartment. I watch her mouth move. Invisalign, definitely. Twenty-four monthly payments. Her lips part, close, part again. Behind them: perfect white tombstones.
Click.
His pen. Deliberate. She turns, fractional. Three degrees. Their eyes meet in the reflection of the pastry case glass. Hold for two seconds. Three. Look away.
My phone vibrates against my thigh. Lauren. Again. She sends memes about Mercury retrograde. About coffee addiction. About emotional unavailability. Three blue dots appear, disappear, appear again. I won't respond. Won't even open them. The same way he won't get what he wants from her. The same way she won't get what she wants from whoever's lighting up her phone. The same way I won't get—
Click. Click.
His pen again. Morse code for notice me. She touches her neck. Adjusts a necklace that doesn't need adjusting. Gold vermeil, probably Mejuri. The Instagram algorithm knows her better than I ever will.
"I should go."
She stands. Patagonia jacket. Fjällräven backpack in Ochre. The uniform of Brooklyn girls who think they're different. Who moved here from Ohio or Michigan or Pennsylvania. Who work in creative fields that aren't creative. Who date men like him.
He closes Norwegian Wood. Finally. Page 248 bookmarked with a MetroCard he'll never use because he only takes Ubers.
"Take care," she says.
She walks past his table. Slows. His hand moves toward his coffee cup. Their fingers could touch. Almost touch. Don't touch. She keeps walking. He waits exactly thirty seconds. I count them against my pulse. Then follows.
The bell above the door: ding. Ding.
Through the rain-streaked window: the collision. Choreographed. He drops his book. She helps. Their hands definitely touch this time. Laughter that looks like a toothpaste commercial. Phone exchange. Instagram, probably. Maybe Hinge. Her profile: "Fluent in sarcasm. Oxford comma enthusiast. Probably reading or at a wine bar." His: "Norwegian Wood was okay. Coffee snob. Ask me about my Criterion Collection."
In three weeks, she'll sit across from him. Different café. Same cortado. Same red lipstick. Same words falling between them like coins into a fountain that grants no wishes.
"Tyler?" The barista again. Louder. Still nobody.
I order another coffee. Ethiopian single origin. Nine dollars. Won't drink it. The girl who takes her seat opens a laptop covered in stickers. Oat Milk Latte Liberal. Eat the Rich. A dinosaur saying "All My Friends Are Dead." She's waiting for someone. Checking her phone every forty-three seconds. He'll arrive twelve minutes late with explanations that sound like apologies but aren't.
This is how the wheel spins.
My phone: Lauren's sent a voice note. 2:47 long. I delete it unplayed. Check her Instagram story: mirror selfie, Glossier lip gloss, caption about self-care.
Outside: she's showing him something on her phone. He's leaning in. The precise distance of interested but not desperate. They'll text for nine days before the first official date. Sushi. Sake. Sex on the second date. His apartment in Bushwick. Exposed brick. A mattress on the floor he calls "minimalist." In four months, she'll find other books in his bathroom. Titles she recognizes. The Metamorphosis. The Stranger. Never opened. Props in a play about being interesting.
"Tyler?"
The wheel spins. We orbit. Elliptical paths that never quite intersect.
She'll text me in six months. "Hey stranger." I'll respond in six hours. Too eager. Too late. Always too something.
The man reading Murakami will text someone else tonight. Someone who loves someone who loves someone who loves someone who—
Ding.
New customer. New heartbreak. New choreography to learn.
And the thing is, I know someone else is 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 him. But I won't. And she won't. And he won't. And that's how the wheel keeps spinning.
Tyler never shows.
Nobody ever shows.
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.