Two Very Different Things

The cab pulled up and they got out and the front door looked so far away. But maybe it was just the winter, she thought, and how everything is longer in winter. The cold, the dark, the distance. It was a new city and she hadn't a proper coat, she'd sold her car, she wasn't used to walking, she made them take cabs everywhere, and she could swear even those were cold.

She had moved here for him, moved in with him, together. It was the thing to do. They had spent most of their relationship apart, two years and two time zones. And after the split, when they had decided to get back together and make a go of it, they knew it had to be in the same town, and she knew it had to be his. She had the kind of life you could just leave. It wasn't even discussed, and it upset her.

But the same city and the same roof are two very different things, and she was beginning to realize this. A table habit, an after-work attitude, a thousand things both big and small that she never knew because she was states away. And now they were there, and he was there, and she was there, all the time. And she didn't even have a proper coat.

Her hand was on the car door, her breath suspended. He walked on, and she realized he had no idea that she wasn't right behind him. It wasn't a thought that ever would have entered his mind. He unlocked the front door and, walking in, only then noticed her, still standing by their taxi cab. And he asked her if she was coming in.