At first she called once a day.

“Hello,” he’d answer, even though he knew who it was from the caller ID display. “How was your day?”

Monotonous and boring, although she didn’t phrase it that way. She gave detailed recounts of what time she woke up, and whether she showered in the morning or the night before. And then, what was on Oprah.

“My day was fine,” he’d say. “I just worked.”

Then one Saturday evening while he was home and watching an old movie, and missing her comfort, he realized that she didn’t call that day, and he immediately looked through his call log to see if maybe she had called and he hadn’t noticed, or whether she left a message or not. But she hadn’t. The last time they had spoke was the day before, for two minutes and fifty three seconds, at nine-fifty three in the evening.

He called her and she didn’t answer. He left a message. “Just calling to say hello. Call me back,” he said. He never liked to seem desperate, even when he was, because he knew that desperation scared a woman off more than anything else. She didn’t call that night. Or the next. So the next night he called again. Again, there was no answer. “I’m worried about you. Is everything okay? Call me back.”

Two more days passed, and he worried. His work fell behind, and he suffered from silly mistakes. At night time he couldn’t sleep. He imagined her off with another man. He imagined her happy and walking hand in hand down near the Lincoln monument, or whichever one was right on the water.

Two days passed again, and he finally received a phone call. She wanted to break up. At first he felt betrayed, stricken and hurt. He felt this way for a long time. He called in sick to work, and listened to a Dave Matthews song about heartbreak again and again and he sang along and his voice rang through his small apartment.

Two more days passed. He had not tried to contact her. Give her space, he had been told. If she wants, she will contact you. And what about me? He thought. He pictured himself never leaving the couch. He couldn’t think of a future. He couldn’t imagine living life without this woman.

This all eventually passed.