One year later…
The applause echoed through the auditorium, bouncing off high, elegant ceilings and settling into the velvet silence that followed. Karen Higgins stood at the podium, a little breathless, a little stunned. The women's symposium in New York had drawn over four hundred attendees, and she had just finished the final speech of the weekend—on power, desire, and self-reclamation in a world that taught women to become invisible after forty.
She stepped back from the mic and offered a gracious nod as the crowd stood, some cheering, some with tears in their eyes. She smiled—grateful, yes—but tired. She'd spent the last six months flying from city to city on the back of her surprise bestseller Burning Late, a nonfiction memoir threaded with personal reflections and feminist critiques. It was raw, unfiltered, and it had caught fire.
But as she returned to the green room, Karen felt the familiar ache—the one that lived just beneath her ribs. She checked her phone instinctively.
No message from Jonny.
It had become a pattern. Long stretches of silence between them. They still shared a home, technically. Jonny was living there in her absence, finishing his MA thesis and tutoring part-time. But their conversations had shrunk to quick "How's your flight?" texts and occasional phone calls that felt... polite.
Distance, both physical and emotional, had quietly crept between them. It wasn't anyone's fault. It just was.
---
Back home in Philadelphia, Jonny stood at the kitchen counter stirring a pot of pasta. The apartment was clean, quiet, and strangely soulless without Karen's scattered papers and vintage jazz echoing from the speakers. He checked his phone. No reply from his earlier "Good luck today ."
He exhaled, trying not to let it sting.
Their life had started like a wildfire—hot, fast, alive. But now? It felt like embers. Jonny loved her. That hadn't changed. But he couldn't shake the feeling that she was moving forward... without him.
He was proud of her—so proud. Watching Karen rise into her voice, unafraid and fierce, was awe-inspiring. But the more powerful she became, the more he questioned his place in her orbit.
Was he still a partner? Or just a fond memory she hadn't yet let go of?
---
When Karen returned two days later, the apartment smelled of rosemary and lemon. Jonny had cooked her favorite: roasted chicken with garlic mash. She dropped her luggage inside the doorway and blinked at the unexpected gesture.
"You cooked," she said softly, removing her coat.
"I did." Jonny smiled. "I thought we could have dinner. Together."
They sat across from each other at the table they'd picked out together a year ago. The candlelight flickered between them. For a moment, it felt like old times—warm, real, intimate.
But as they ate, silence hung between bites.
"How was the symposium?" he asked eventually.
"Great turnout. Powerful conversations." She paused. "I talked about you."
Jonny raised an eyebrow. "Me?"
"About the first time I realized I still had the capacity to love. To desire. It was because of you."
A soft breath escaped him. He smiled, but there was pain behind it. "I'm glad. Really. But... sometimes it feels like I gave you wings just to watch you fly away."
The words sat heavy between them.
Karen swallowed. "That's not fair."
"Isn't it?" he replied gently. "We live in the same apartment but haven't spent more than a full day together in months. I wake up some mornings and forget what it feels like to wake up next to you."
She looked away, wounded and unsure how to answer.
"I'm not asking you to stop growing, Karen," Jonny continued. "But I can't keep chasing a version of us that only exists in the past."
Karen nodded slowly. "I don't know how to balance this… all of this. I fought so long to feel whole again. I'm scared that if I slow down, I'll lose myself."
"And I'm scared I've already lost us," he said quietly.
---
That night, they slept in the same bed, backs turned.
Neither spoke the words that hovered betwee
n them—Are we drifting apart? Or are we just scared to hold on harder?