Viewed Two Minutes Ago

There's a doc we made three years ago, just a running scroll of 2am thoughts, no order to it. Whoever couldn't sleep first would drop something in. He hasn't written a line since March. I check anyway, and every time his name is right there at the top, viewed 2 minutes ago, sometimes viewed just now, like we're both standing in a doorway neither of us will walk through.

Tonight the bus is basically empty and I've got the doc open on my knee, cursor blinking under the last thing I wrote, some rambling paragraph about a bad shift. He's viewing it right now. I can see the little icon with his initial, sitting there, not typing.

I could write something. Anything. Hey, are you okay, or even just a period, so he'd know I'm awake too. My thumb's over the keys and I don't move it. If I write and he doesn't answer, then I actually know. Right now I just get to guess, and the guessing is easier to live inside.

He's still there when I put the phone away. Still there when the bus pulls up to my stop. I don't know what two people watching a blank page and saying nothing to each other is supposed to be called, but we've apparently been doing it for months.