He unearthed the chat after eight months. “Hey stranger.”
“Hey stranger. Been a minute.”
Eight months of silence. Then “Hey stranger”.
I was not a stranger. I was the person whose last three messages remained unanswered beneath his new greeting, like archaeological layers.
He asked what I had been up to. I said, “Developing object permanence.”
Field note: some people do not come back. They simply check whether the door is still embarrassingly unlocked.