Continued from here

He was far away that night but his love came through in a flurry of text messages.

They'd been together a long time and in all those years, they were rarely apart. These absences took some getting used to. And with time they started to get more frequent. He longed to take her with him but it wasn't always possible.

She never felt like going along with him. That didn't mean she didn't want to be with him. She did more than anything else, just not there where he was. Or here where she was. There was a place they had been to a couple of years back. She wanted to go back there. With him.

Every morning she looked at him and smiled. Yes! She'd say to herself, I can still wake up next to him feeling happy. But now he was gone and even though she knew he'd be back soon, this time the waiting seemed tougher than usual. A couple of days back when the weather was dry, she looked out at the moon. She reached for her phone, expecting him to call. He always did that, everytime he saw a beautiful full moon, he'd call her if they were not together. And if he was with her, he'd make sure they looked at it together.

He didn't call that day because he wasn't looking at the same moon. Now it was raining outside and cold as hell. He couldn't see the rain either. She missed him. She walked to the window and leaned against it, looking outside. Her mind going further than the hills across.

She held her glass in one hand and ran her index finger around the rim with her other hand. The rains have come too soon this year, she thought. Finally, her phone beeped. She smiled thinking it must be another message from him. But it wasn't. It was that message, the one she'd never expected.

If nothing ever happens. If we never meet again. If you go away. I'll always remember such tenderness.

Years later, when she sat by herself at another window trying to figure out how and when the sun went down on their love. That message was all she could think about. It didn't matter who sent it, because that person didn't matter. But that night while she sat waiting with the rain outside something in that starless night transpired to tear them apart. Or so she thought.

A stranger had sent the words she'd been waiting to hear from her love all her life. And the cold hard wind blew them in from another direction, turning her love into a stranger.

Sometimes the moment of truth melts before you can get to it.