January moved slowly, as if time itself wanted to test me one last time.
Every day came with the same thought: he's coming. End of January. Just a few more weeks. Just a few more nights of missing him through a screen. I counted days the way people count breaths, holding onto patience even when longing pressed too hard against my chest.
Between Paris and Bali, we had survived distance with words and promises. But now, the waiting felt heavier—because hope was close enough to touch, yet still out of reach.
We talked about his arrival constantly. What time his flight would land. What I would wear. Whether I would cry or run or freeze the moment I saw him again. He laughed and said he would recognize me anywhere. I told him I was afraid I wouldn't be able to speak at all.
The nights before his flight were restless. Sleep came in fragments. My heart refused to calm itself, replaying the memory of our goodbye and imagining its opposite—an ending where no one walked away.
When the day finally arrived, Bali felt brighter, louder, unreal. I checked my phone obsessively, tracking his flight, watching the little airplane inch closer across the map. Every notification made my heart race.
At the airport, time stretched thin. I stood there, surrounded by strangers, holding onto breath and memory. Then I saw him.
For a moment, the world disappeared.
He walked toward me, familiar and unreal all at once, like a dream stepping into daylight. When our eyes met, everything I had been holding back collapsed. I ran to him without thinking. He held me like he had been waiting just as long, like distance had never touched us.
I cried. He laughed softly. We didn't speak much—words felt unnecessary. Our bodies remembered before our minds could catch up.
Love returned in a single moment.
Outside, the air was warm, the sky wide. Sitting beside him again felt like something finally clicking back into place. The distance, the fear, the long nights apart—all of it faded into something survivable, something that had led us here.
That night, lying beside him once more, I listened to his breathing and let the truth settle into my bones.
We had waited.We had endured.And we were here.
January ended with his arrival, but something else ended too—the uncertainty that love might not survive distance.
Because as I held him in the quiet dark, one thought stayed with me, steady and certain:
Some love doesn't break when stretched.
It grows.