Anaya’s online relationship feels intense, intimate, and real — until she meets him in person. At a roadside tea stall, she admits she prefers digital intimacy to real-world vulnerability. This Spill the Tea story explores online friendships, emotional loneliness, and the quiet cost of choosing a screen over a life.
Anaya rang the bell without calling first. When I opened the door, she was already stepping in, as if the decision had been made somewhere else and she was only carrying it out. I asked her to sit. She chose the edge of the sofa, not leaning back. I went to the kitchen and opened the cupboards, scanning for something to put in front of her. There was a steel dabba of mathi from last week, a packet of mixture, two small bowls stacked inside each other. I brought the mathi out and set it on the table between us. “I’ll make tea,” I said.
She looked at the plate and then at me. “No,” she said. “Don’t make it here.” I thought she meant she didn’t want tea. She shook her head. “Let’s go out. Tapri chai.” She said it lightly, but she was already on her feet. I told her there was fresh milk in the fridge. She gave a small smile. “That’s exactly why,” she said.
I opened the drawer near the fridge and found a bar of chocolate I had forgotten about. I broke it into uneven pieces and placed them on a small plate. She took one without comment. The foil crackled in the quiet room. I asked if she wanted more. She shook her head and was already walking toward the door. I slipped my keys into my pocket and followed her out.
The tea stall was at the corner where the pavement dipped slightly toward the drain. A blue tarp was stretched overhead, tied to a tree on one side and an electric pole on the other. The kettle was already boiling. Steam rose in sharp bursts each time the vendor lifted the lid. Anaya stood close to the counter, close enough that the heat touched her face. “Two cutting,” she said before I could speak.
The glasses arrived cloudy with years of washing. She waited until I paid before lifting hers. The tea was strong, sweet, thick with milk. She drank without blowing on it first. I watched the way her fingers curved around the glass. She did not wince at the heat. There was a jar of mathi near the register, stacked in uneven circles. She pointed at it. “One.” The vendor dropped a few into a paper twist. She opened it and held it between us. We each took one.
After a moment she turned toward the cigarette stall next to the tea counter. “One Classic Mild,” she said. She paid for it herself. When she lit it, she did not shield the flame from the wind. She took a long drag, held it, then exhaled slowly. “Cigarettes ruin lungs,” she said, looking at the traffic instead of me. “For women, they ruin reputation too.” I said there was no warning like that printed on the pack. She gave a small huff. “Of course not.”
She stood under the tree where the shade broke into pieces on the ground. The smoke moved through the light before thinning into the air. Her office bag hung from her shoulder, the strap pressing a line into her shirt. She had not changed out of work clothes. The sleeves were folded once, as if she had done it in a washroom mirror before coming here. She did not look at me when she spoke. “You won’t smoke?” she asked.
“No.”
She nodded, not approving, not disapproving. She took another drag and studied the road. A bus passed too close to the curb and the dust lifted briefly around our shoes. She shifted her weight but did not step back. There was something deliberate about the way she occupied space, as if she had decided not to shrink today.
She held the cigarette away from herself and watched the ash gather at the tip. “He was here this week,” she said. She did not explain who. She tapped the ash off with her thumb and let it fall near the tree roots. “In the city.” She took another sip of tea. It had cooled now. She swallowed without expression.
“The one from your phone?” I asked.
She nodded. Not smiling. Not embarrassed. Just confirming. Then she looked at me for the first time since we arrived. “We met,” she said.
“We met at a café near his hotel,” she said. “Glass walls. Too much light.” She took another drag, slower this time. “He was already there.” She paused, then corrected herself. “Actually, I was early.” She looked at me briefly, as if to check whether that detail mattered. “He stood up when I walked in. He hugged me.” She lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “It was normal.”
“Normal,” I said.
“Yes.” She watched a biker argue with an auto driver across the road. “He ordered cold coffee. I ordered the same. We talked about traffic. About how strange it was to see each other.” She pressed her lips together, then added, “He has a softer voice in person.”
She finished the cigarette and crushed it under her heel. “He checks his phone a lot,” she said. “Not in a rude way. Just… habit.” She glanced at me. “Everyone does.” She reached into her bag and pulled out another cigarette. This one she tapped twice against the packet before lighting it. The flame flickered in the afternoon wind. “It’s different when someone pauses in front of you,” she said. “Online, a pause feels like thought.”
She inhaled and held it longer than before. The smoke left her mouth slowly, almost controlled. “In person, a pause feels like distraction.” She laughed then, a short sound. “Maybe I’m being unfair.” She offered me the cigarette without looking at me. It was already lit. I hesitated, then took it. Her fingers brushed mine briefly before she turned back toward the road.
I’ve heard people speak about closeness before. Tara once described intimacy that had body but no belonging. Anaya’s version was the opposite. No body. Only belonging.
She took the cigarette back after I had tried it once. “He looked exactly like his pictures,” she said. “Maybe a little thinner.” She wiped her thumb against her palm where the ash had fallen. “I kept waiting for that feeling.” She did not explain which one. “You know when you open a message and your stomach drops a little?” She tapped her chest lightly. “That.”
“And?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It didn’t drop.” She said it almost clinically. “I thought maybe it’s because it was daytime. We’ve never really spoken in daylight.” She gave a small smile. “We’re more of a 1:47 a.m. situation.”
The kettle behind us screamed again. The vendor poured tea from one steel container to another in a high arc. Anaya watched the stream, as if it required concentration. “He said I was calm,” she added. “Exactly how he imagined.” She lifted her eyebrows slightly. “Calm.” The word sat between us. She rubbed her fingers together, as if something sticky was there.
“Were you?” I asked.
She gave a quiet laugh that did not last long. “Online?” She looked at me then. Directly. “I once sent him eight voice notes in a row because I couldn’t sleep.” She glanced away almost immediately. “I don’t think that’s calm.”
“He used to wait,” she said. The second cigarette had burned halfway without her noticing. “If I said I couldn’t sleep, he stayed.” She did not look at me. “Even if he had work. Even if it was stupid.” Her mouth tightened slightly. “He would say, ‘Stay. Don’t log off yet.’”
The traffic thinned for a moment. The street felt wider than before. She took another drag, but it was uneven this time. “In the café, when I stood up to leave, he said, ‘Text me when you get home.’” She let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “It’s a normal thing to say.” She nodded, as if defending him from an accusation that had not been made. “Polite.”
She flicked the ash away, harder than necessary. “Online, he asked me to stay. In person, he let me go.” She said it without drama. Like a small correction in a report. But her hand, the one holding the cigarette, was no longer steady.
I did not speak.
She continued anyway. “It wasn’t that he was different. He was… fine.” She searched for a word and gave up. “He paid attention. He asked about my job. He remembered my mother’s surgery.” Her voice lowered slightly. “He remembered everything.” She looked down at her shoes. “Just not the way he used to.”
She took the cigarette back from me and drew in slowly, as if she needed the delay. The smoke left her mouth in a thin line. “When he types,” she said, “he watches the screen. You can feel it. Like you’re the only tab open.” She gave a small smile. “In person, the waiter walked by and he looked at him. A notification came and he looked at that. I was sitting right there.”
The vendor shook the jar of mathi to loosen the last pieces. Anaya reached in, took one, and broke it cleanly in two. She did not offer it immediately. She held both halves in her palm as if measuring weight. “We’ve told each other everything,” she said. “Things I haven’t said out loud to anyone. Not even you.” She placed half the mathi in my hand then, almost absently. “He knows how I panic before presentations. He knows I sleep with the light on when there’s a storm.”
“And he was still the same?” I asked.
“He was the same,” she said. “That’s the problem.” She looked up at the branches above us, light slipping through in narrow strips. “He was exactly the person who types. Just… placed inside a body.” She swallowed. “And the body made it smaller.”
A bus roared past and the dust lifted again. She did not move away this time. “Online, he fits in my head,” she said quietly. “In person, he fits on a chair across from me.” She glanced at me, almost sharply. “Do you know the difference?”
I took a bite of the mathi. It was harder than it looked. “You expected something larger?” I asked.
She shook her head quickly. “No. I’m not stupid.” Then she slowed down. “I just… thought it would expand.” She rubbed her thumb against her forefinger, as if feeling the edge of something invisible. “Like when a file opens full screen.”
The cigarette had burned close to the filter. She looked at it for a second before stubbing it out against the metal side of the stall. The vendor glanced at her but said nothing. She reached for her tea again, though it had gone lukewarm. “He touched my hand once,” she said. “Just to make a point. He said, ‘See? We’re real.’” She gave a short smile. “As if I was the one doubting it.”
“Were you?” I asked.
She did not answer immediately. A group of college boys crowded near the counter, laughing too loudly. One of them looked at her cigarette butt near the stall and then at her face. She held his gaze for a second too long. He looked away first. Only then did she speak. “I wasn’t doubting it,” she said. “I was hoping it would feel heavier.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. “When he types,” she said, “there’s that bubble. You wait. Your whole body waits. In the café, he paused mid-sentence and I felt nothing. I just… watched him think.” Her voice thinned slightly. “I didn’t feel chosen. I felt scheduled.”
The kettle screamed again. The vendor poured another round for someone else. Anaya watched the arc of tea without blinking. “Last night,” she said, “I texted him like usual. Same time. Same tone.” She looked at me now, steady. “And he replied like usual.” A small crease formed between her brows. “And it felt good.”
“And it felt good,” she repeated, softer now. Not defensive. Not triumphant. Just admitting something small and ugly. “He asked if I had eaten. He sent me a picture of the ceiling fan in his hotel room. Said it looked like it would fall.” She let out a quiet breath. “That’s the version I know. The one who sends me stupid things at night.”
She bent to pick up a fallen leaf near her shoe and tore it slowly down the middle. “In the café, he told me about his colleague. About traffic. About how expensive the city has become.” She looked up at me. “Do you know he once stayed awake with me while I cried about a presentation I hadn’t even given yet?” Her mouth trembled, just slightly, and she swallowed it back. “He didn’t say anything useful. He just… stayed.”
I said nothing.
She nodded once, as if agreeing with her own memory. “When I was leaving the café, I waited,” she said. “I don’t know for what. For him to say something reckless. Something unnecessary.” She pressed her lips together. “Instead he said, ‘It was nice finally meeting.’” She mimicked his tone. Polite. Finished. “Nice.”
A rickshaw backfired behind us. She flinched before she could stop herself. “It was nice,” she repeated. “But it wasn’t what we were at 2 a.m.” Her eyes were steady now. Clear. “At 2 a.m., we were braver.”
She looked at the road, but she wasn’t really looking at it. “I didn’t tell anyone I was meeting him,” she said.
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “What would I say? That I’m meeting someone who knows how I sound when I can’t breathe properly but has never seen me cross a road?” A small line appeared between her brows. “There isn’t a word for that.”
The vendor dropped more mathi into the jar. The glass clinked. She watched it settle. “When I came back home after the café, my neighbour asked where I’d been. I said office work.” She gave a dry laugh. “I didn’t know how to explain him.”
She bent slightly, tying and retying the lace of her shoe though it wasn’t loose. “If something had gone wrong,” she said quietly, “who would I have told? That the man I talk to every night disappointed me in daylight?” She straightened. “They would say, ‘So stop talking.’” She shook her head. “Like it’s that simple.”
She looked at me now, not defensive, not angry. Just tired in a very specific way. “He knows more about me than anyone. But if I lose him, there’s no proof he was ever here.” She glanced at the tree above us. “It’s like loving someone in pencil.”
She picked up another piece of mathi but did not eat it. “On the way to meet him,” she said, “I kept thinking about who I’d tell first.” She smiled, but it was tight. “I had lines ready.” She glanced at me briefly. “You. Probably you.”
I waited.
“I imagined saying his name out loud,” she continued. “I’ve never said it in a room before.” She pressed the mathi between her fingers until it broke. “It sounded strange in my head. Like I was borrowing it.”
She dropped the crumbs back into the paper twist. “In the café, halfway through, I knew I wouldn’t introduce him to anyone.” She said it simply. No build-up. “Not because he’s bad. Not because it failed.” She looked at the road again. “Because he doesn’t belong anywhere I live.”
She shifted her weight and leaned back against the tree, the bark pressing into her shoulder blade. “I even thought about what I’d say about how we met,” she said. “I edited it. Removed the embarrassing parts.” A faint smile crossed her face. “I was going to make it sound accidental. Casual.”
“You planned that?” I asked.
“Of course.” She didn’t look at me. “You don’t introduce someone like that without cleaning it up first.”
The vendor poured tea for a delivery driver who didn’t step off his bike. Anaya watched the exchange as if it required her attention. “In my head,” she continued, “I’d bring him here one day. To this stall. You’d both stand awkwardly for a bit. Then you’d ask him something direct.” She glanced at me. “You always do.”
I said nothing.
She nodded slightly, acknowledging the silence. “In the café, when he was talking about his office politics, I suddenly pictured him in my living room.” Her jaw tightened. “It didn’t fit.” She exhaled slowly. “He didn’t fit in my room. He fit in my phone.”
A group of schoolgirls passed, their laughter sharp and brief. Anaya followed the sound until it disappeared. “I think I knew then,” she said quietly. “He exists where I hold him. Not where I stand.”
She rubbed her hands together once, as if cold, though it wasn’t. “If I introduce him to my world, he becomes measurable,” she added. “He gets compared. Not to other men. To real life.” She paused. “And I don’t want that.”
She looked at me then, steady and unblinking. “Do you know what that means?”
I did not answer.
She did not seem to expect one.
“It means I don’t want him tested,” she said after a moment. “If I bring him into my life, someone will ask him a question he doesn’t answer properly. Or he’ll say something ordinary. Or he’ll look bored.” Her mouth tightened. “And then I won’t be able to protect what we have.”
She bent and picked up the paper twist of mathi again, though there was barely anything left. “Online, nothing interrupts us,” she said. “No one overhears. No one challenges him. No one sees how he sits. Or how he laughs.” She looked up at me. “If you saw him at 2 a.m., you’d understand why I stayed.”
“And if I saw him at 4 p.m.?” I asked.
She held my gaze for a second too long. “Then you’d say he’s fine.” The word landed heavily. “You’d say he’s decent. You’d say I’m overthinking.” She looked away. “And you wouldn’t be wrong.”
The kettle shrieked again. A man asked for less sugar. Anaya’s voice dropped lower. “I don’t want him reduced to fine,” she said. “Fine is what you say about someone you don’t stay up for.”
A bus slowed at the signal, brakes hissing. She watched it pull away. “If I introduce him, he becomes part of the day,” she continued. “He becomes explainable.” She swallowed. “And what we have is only powerful because it doesn’t survive explanation.”
She fell silent then. Not dramatic. Just still.
“Does he know that?” I asked.
Her answer came quickly. “No.” She almost smiled. “He thinks we’re building something.”
He talks about next time,” she said. Her voice did not change, but something in it tightened. “Not next chat. Next visit.”
I waited.
“He asked which part of the city I’d show him properly,” she continued. “He said we didn’t get enough time.” She looked down at the crushed cigarette near her shoe. “He said we should do a full day.”
“And?” I asked.
She gave a small shrug. “I said yes.” A pause. “Of course I said yes.”
The vendor wiped the counter with a cloth that had seen too many days. Anaya watched the motion absently.
“He thinks this is step one,” she said quietly. “Like we met and now the story moves forward.” She looked at me then, steady and unsmiling. “But I liked it before it had direction.”
Silence.
“He thinks we’re building something,” she repeated, softer. “I think we already built it. And it only stands because it doesn’t have a door.”
She shifted her weight again. “If we keep meeting, it becomes a relationship. And relationships need explanations. Introductions. Space.” She shook her head slightly.
She looked down at her shirt as if seeing it properly for the first time. “I changed twice before leaving,” she said. “I never do that for work.”
“For the café?”
She nodded. “I tried wearing something softer. Then something sharper. Then I went back to what I usually wear.” She smoothed the fabric at her waist, though it didn’t need smoothing. “Online, he’s only seen my face. Angles. Lighting. I can decide what exists.”
“What did you end up wearing?” I asked.
“This.” She pulled lightly at the cuff of her pale blue shirt. It was tucked neatly into dark trousers, the kind she wears every weekday. “Safe.” A pause. “Structured.”
“And before that?”
She hesitated, then gave in. “A black dress.” She didn’t look at me when she said it. “Not dramatic. Just softer. It moves when you walk.” She pressed her lips together. “I felt stupid in it.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s only ever seen my face.” She gave a small shrug. “Online, I control the frame. Shoulder up. Good light. Good angle. You can’t tell how someone stands from that.” She glanced at me. “You can’t tell if they take up space.”
The vendor banged the lid of the kettle shut. The sound echoed briefly against the metal pole.
“In person,” she continued, “he saw everything at once.” She did not elaborate. She did not have to. “The way I sit. The way my shoulders fold in when I’m listening. The scar near my elbow.” Her voice stayed level. “There’s no cropping in daylight.”
“Did that bother you?” I asked.
She let out a breath that might have been a laugh. “I don’t know.” She paused. “I think I preferred when he didn’t know my height.” She looked at me quickly, almost embarrassed by the honesty. “Online, I could be taller.”
A motorbike sped past. She did not move.
“I don’t think he noticed anything,” she added after a second. “That’s the worst part.” Her eyes sharpened slightly. “He didn’t study me the way he studies my words.”
She crossed her arms now, not defensively but as if holding something in place. “I dressed for him like he was going to see me,” she said quietly. “But he had already seen the version he liked.”
Silence sat between us.
She did not look at me when she spoke next. “I didn’t tell him I don’t want it to grow.”
The traffic light changed. Cars moved forward in one long impatient line.
“I let him talk about next time,” she continued. “About meeting properly. About not rushing.” Her jaw tightened slightly. “I nodded. I even suggested a place.”
“Why?” I asked.
She took a breath and held it for a second before answering. “Because if I tell him I prefer it the way it is, he’ll hear something else.” She looked at me now. “He’ll hear that I don’t care enough.”
“And do you?” I asked.
Her eyes flickered, just once. “Too much,” she said.
“I care enough to want to keep it safe,” she continued. “Safe means small.” She swallowed. “Safe means contained.” Her voice lowered. “If he steps fully into my life, I’ll have to decide if he belongs there.”
“And you don’t want to decide.”
“No.” The answer was immediate.
A pause.
“He thinks we’re walking toward something solid,” she said. “I’m trying to keep us on air.”
She let that sit.
Then, almost as an afterthought: “I texted him after the café and said I liked seeing him.” She looked at her hands. “I didn’t say I liked him better before.”
“I hope he doesn’t push,” she said.
The words came out flat. Not ashamed. Not proud.
“If he pushes?” I asked.
She picked at the edge of the paper twist until it tore completely. “Then I’ll have to say something clear.” She looked at the torn paper in her hands as if it had done something irreversible. “And clear things don’t survive the way we are.”
The vendor asked someone for change.
“I think he believes proximity will make it deeper,” she continued. “More real.” She looked at me. “But it’s already real to me. It’s just… not built for daylight.”
She inhaled slowly, without a cigarette this time. “If he asks me directly what I want,” she said, “I won’t be able to answer without hurting him.”
“Because you don’t want more?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Because I don’t want different.”
Silence stretched.
“He’ll ask eventually,” I said.
“Yes.” A pause. “And I’ll stall.” Her mouth curved slightly, but it wasn’t amusement. “I’m good at that.”
A bus slowed beside us. A woman stepped down slowly, adjusting her dupatta against the wind. Anaya watched her, then spoke again.
“I think I’m waiting for him to get tired,” she said quietly. “To meet someone in his actual life. Someone who doesn’t disappear at midnight.” She swallowed. “Then it won’t be my decision.”
The vendor poured tea into a fresh glass. The steam rose between us briefly.
“And what was he wearing?” I asked.
“White shirt,” she said immediately. “Sleeves rolled once. Grey trousers. Brown belt.” Her voice stayed steady. “He smelled like something clean. Nothing strong.” She swallowed. “He looked exactly like someone who works in an office and leaves on time.”
“And that disappointed you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It made him real.” A small pause. “Too real.”
She folded her arms, not tightly, just enough to hold herself. “In the black dress, I would have felt like I was stepping into something,” she said. “In this,” she touched her sleeve again, “I felt like I was going to a meeting.”
She let that sit.
“He didn’t notice what I wore,” she added after a second. “Not really. He said I looked ‘nice.’” The word flattened in her mouth. “Online, he once described the way my hair fell over my left eye in a photo from months ago.” She looked away. “In person, I was just… there.”
She shifted her weight. “I dressed like he was going to see me,” she said quietly. “But he’d already memorised the version he needed.”
“In the café,” she said after a long pause, “there was a moment when he was talking about something ordinary. His team lead. Deadlines.” She watched the road but her voice had shifted inward. “I wasn’t listening.”
“What were you thinking?” I asked.
She answered without hesitation. “I was thinking I miss you.”
The words did not tremble. They sat there, plain and exposed.
“I wanted to say it,” she continued. “Across the table. Just like that. I miss you.” She pressed her thumb into her palm as if holding the sentence down. “Because I did.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
She gave a short breath. “Because it didn’t make sense in that room.” She looked at me then. “You don’t miss someone who is sitting in front of you.”
The kettle hissed behind us. Someone laughed loudly at the stall and then moved away.
“Online, when I say I miss you, it means something,” she said. “It means come back. It means stay. It means I feel the gap.” Her jaw tightened. “In person, there was no gap. Just a table.”
She stared at the traffic light as it changed. “If I had said it, he would have smiled. Or touched my hand again. Or said he missed me too.” She shook her head slightly. “And it would have sounded like something couples say.”
“Aren’t you?” I asked.
Her eyes flickered.
“We are,” she said slowly. “Just not where anyone can see.”
Silence stretched.
“I missed the version of him who only existed at night,” she said finally. “Sitting across from him, I felt… close. But not the way I’m used to.” She swallowed. “It was like meeting someone you’ve already mourned.”
She inhaled sharply, then steadied herself. “And I hated myself for that,” she added. “Because he was right there.”
She missed him while he was present.
“He didn’t ask to meet anyone,” she said after a while.
“Anyone?”
“My friends. My people.” She said it lightly, but her fingers had curled into her palm. “He didn’t say, ‘Introduce me.’ He didn’t say, ‘Show me your world.’”
“And that bothered you?”
She shook her head too quickly. “No.” A pause. Slower now. “It relieved me.”
The word landed heavily between us.
“I kept waiting for it,” she continued. “For him to say, ‘Let’s meet properly. I want to know your life.’” She looked at the ground near her shoes. “He didn’t.”
“And you were glad.”
“Yes.”
The answer came without defence this time.
“Because if he had asked,” she said, “I would have had to choose.” She lifted her face, steady. “I would have had to decide whether he belongs with the rest of my life. Or whether he stays in the part that only exists at night.”
The vendor began stacking empty glasses in a metal tray. The sound was sharp.
“He didn’t push,” she said. “He kept it easy. Comfortable.” A faint, almost bitter smile crossed her face. “Like he also prefers me in fragments.”
“You think he does?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged once. “Maybe he likes that I disappear at midnight. Maybe he likes that I don’t demand anything real.” She paused. “Maybe I trained him to.”
Silence.
“I tell him everything,” she said quietly. “But I don’t ask for anything that would force him to show up in daylight.” She looked at me then, almost daring me to react. “That’s not accidental.”
A motorbike revved loudly before speeding off.
“If he met my friends,” she continued, “they’d ask him what he does on Sundays. Or what he wants next year. Or what this is.” She exhaled slowly. “And he’d have to answer.”
“And you don’t want the answer.”
She held my gaze. “I don’t want it to have one.”
The air felt thicker suddenly.
“And I’m good at pretending that’s mutual.”
She looked down at her empty hands.
“That’s the part that makes me feel small,” she added.
No explanation followed.
Just that.
Small.
And the street moved on as if nothing had been said.
Noor had once spoken about functioning perfectly while feeling nothing underneath. Anaya was not empty. She was contained.
“He asked once if I wanted to see his apartment,” she said.
“And?”
“I said the connection was bad.” Her mouth curved slightly, but there was no amusement in it. “It wasn’t.”
The kettle behind us sputtered as the vendor added more milk.
“He offered to show me around on video,” she continued. “His kitchen. His balcony. The stupid plant he keeps forgetting to water.” She looked at me. “I changed the subject.”
“Why?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Because once I see where he keeps his shoes, he becomes ordinary in a way I can’t undo.” A pause. “I don’t want to know what his curtains look like.”
Silence.
“I like him framed,” she said quietly. “Contained.” She held her hands up briefly, as if outlining a rectangle in the air. “When we talk at night, I decide how much of him exists. I can close the window.” Her voice lowered. “I can mute him.”
The wind shifted the tarp above us.
“If I’m tired, I disappear,” she continued. “If I’m anxious, I delay replying. If I need him to want me more, I wait a little longer.” She met my eyes. “It works.”
“That’s deliberate,” I said.
“Yes.”
No apology.
“Online, I can manage the pace,” she went on. “If he says something that scares me, I sit with it before answering. I can rewrite myself.” She swallowed. “In person, my face answers before I’m ready.”
She picked at a loose thread near her cuff.
"When he pulls away, I soften. When he comes closer, I go quiet. Online, I can manage my need."
Her voice did not rise. It stayed steady. “It’s easier there. I can regulate.”
“Regulate what?” I asked.
“My need,” she said.
The words landed without decoration.
“If I miss him too much, I text.” She looked straight ahead. “If he replies fast, I calm down. If he doesn’t, I tell myself I don’t care.” A beat. “Either way, I control the narrative.”
The vendor handed tea to someone else.
“In person,” she continued, “there’s no buffer. If he looks bored, I feel it immediately. If he doesn’t reach for my hand, there’s nothing to reinterpret.” She pressed her lips together. “It’s raw.”
She let the word sit.
“I don’t think I want raw,” she said finally. “I want manageable.”
Silence.
“I’m not scared of him,” she added after a moment. “I’m scared of wanting him in a way I can’t schedule.”
The street noise filled the space she left open.
“And if he meets someone in his world?” I asked.
She answered without blinking. “Then I’ll still have the messages.”
A pause.
“They don’t expire.”
“When he doesn’t reply,” she said, almost casually, “I keep the chat open.”
The street noise felt distant for a moment.
“I don’t do anything,” she continued. “I don’t send a follow-up. I don’t call.” Her voice stayed level. “I just keep it open.”
“And?”
She took a breath. “I reread.”
Not dramatically. Just fact.
“I scroll up,” she said. “To nights when he wouldn’t sleep until I did. To the first time he said he feels calmer when I’m there.” Her fingers pressed lightly into her palm. “I measure whether that version still exists.”
The vendor called out an order number. A car horn blared somewhere behind us.
“I don’t tell anyone when I feel like that,” she said. “There’s no one to tell.” She looked straight ahead. “You can’t say, ‘The man I’ve never brought into my life hasn’t replied in three hours and it’s making my chest tight.’”
Silence.
“My friends talk about boyfriends,” she continued. “Fights. Anniversaries. Meeting parents.” She gave a faint, tired smile. “I nod.”
She bent slightly, picking up a small stone near her shoe and rolling it between her fingers.
“He knows when I wake up in the night,” she said. “He knows when I skip dinner. He knows what I look like when I cry.” A pause. “But if I disappeared tomorrow, no one in my life would know he existed.”
The stone dropped from her hand.
“That’s the strange part,” she added quietly. “He’s the person I talk to most. And he doesn’t occupy a single chair in my world.”
A bus slowed near the signal. For a second, the reflection in its window caught her face.
“I don’t want to lose him,” she said.
This time, there was no strategy in it.
Just fact.
“I just don’t know where to put him.”
The air between us felt thinner now.
“And sometimes,” she said after a long pause, “I wonder if I’m not lonely because he’s far.” She swallowed once. “I wonder if I’m lonely because he fits exactly where I keep him.”
She did not look at me after that.
She did not need to.
The tea had gone cold in her glass.
The street moved.
And she stood there with something that had no address.
She lifted the glass finally and finished the cold tea in one swallow. It made her flinch, just slightly. She set it back on the counter with more care than necessary.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” she asked.
I waited.
“I don’t feel dramatic about it.” Her voice was steady again. “I go to work. I attend meetings. I reply to emails. I laugh at the right time.” She looked at me. “Nothing collapses.”
A man asked the vendor for less sugar again. The vendor ignored him.
“At night,” she continued, “I lie in bed and the room is quiet. And I don’t reach for anyone in it.” She did not blink. “I reach for him.”
The words were plain. That made them heavier.
“I don’t miss a body,” she said. “I miss being read.” A pause. “Sentence by sentence.”
The traffic light changed. She did not move.
“When he writes, it feels like someone is sitting with me,” she said. “Not fixing. Not solving. Just staying.” Her jaw tightened. “In person, he doesn’t stay the same way.”
“And you?” I asked.
She gave a faint smile that didn’t hold. “I don’t either.”
Silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t empty. It had weight.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that I built something that works perfectly for my loneliness.” She looked up at the leaves above us. “It asks nothing I can’t provide.”
“And what does it give you?” I asked.
She answered without hesitation. “Proof that someone is there.”
A small pause.
“Even if they’re not.”
She stood very still after saying that.
The vendor began rinsing glasses in a steel bucket. The water turned cloudy. Someone ordered another cutting. The day continued without hesitation.
“Do you know what he said before leaving?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“He said, ‘Next time, we’ll plan better.’” She smiled faintly. “Plan.” She let the word rest on her tongue as if testing it. “He’s thinking in days. I’m thinking in hours.”
She looked at her hands. There was no ring, no mark, nothing that indicated attachment. “He thinks proximity will fix whatever felt off,” she said. “More time together. More places. More… normal.” She inhaled slowly. “I know more time won’t change the shape.”
“And you won’t tell him that.”
“No.”
The answer did not waver.
“He’ll try,” she said. “He’ll suggest meeting again. Maybe meeting properly. Maybe even staying over.” She looked at me when she said that. Not flirtatious. Just factual. “And I’ll agree. But I’ll keep a part of myself back.”
She rubbed her thumb against the edge of the counter. “Because if he occupies the whole space, there won’t be any room left for the version I prefer.”
“And what happens to that version?” I asked.
She met my eyes fully now.
“I keep it alive,” she said. “Even if I have to feed it myself.”
Silence.
A scooter brushed past too close and she stepped aside at the last second. For a brief moment, she reached for my arm to steady herself. Her fingers pressed into my sleeve and then released quickly.
“I don’t think I want him to belong anywhere,” she said quietly. “Belonging makes things accountable.” A beat. “I don’t want accountability. I want continuity.”
The wind lifted the tarp above us. Light shifted across her face.
“He thinks we’re moving forward,” she said again, softer now. “I think we’re circling something that only works because it never lands.”
She looked down the road, toward the direction she had come from.
“If he stops replying one day,” she added, almost to herself, “I won’t have a place to go with that.” A pause. “There’s no photograph. No mutual friend. No memory in a room.”
Her voice lowered.
“There will just be a blank chat window.”
She swallowed.
“And I will still be here.”
She didn’t look at the road anymore. She looked at the ground between her shoes.
“I don’t think I would know how to date someone properly,” she said.
The statement came without self-pity.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean… I’m used to being wanted in fragments.” She exhaled slowly. “Late at night. In sentences. In thoughts.” A pause. “Not in the morning. Not at breakfast.”
The vendor shouted for someone to collect change. She didn’t react.
“If someone called me randomly during the day,” she continued, “I’d probably feel invaded.” She glanced at me. “Isn’t that strange?”
I didn’t answer.
“I’ve trained myself to be available in windows,” she said. “Between eleven and two. After work. Before sleep.” She pressed her fingers lightly against her collarbone. “That’s when I’m… open.”
“And the rest of the time?” I asked.
“I function.”
The word was clean.
“I don’t think I’m lonely all the time,” she said. “I think I schedule it.”
That landed heavier than anything before it.
She looked up finally.
“He fits perfectly into that schedule,” she said. “He doesn’t ask for more. I don’t offer more.” A pause. “It feels intense. But it doesn’t disturb anything.”
The air shifted.
“If I let him step into my real life,” she continued, “he would see how quiet it actually is.”
“There are nights,” she said, almost absently, “when I text him something small.”
“What kind of small?” I asked.
She shrugged. “A complaint about traffic. A photo of my dinner. A line about how the office AC is too cold.” She paused. “Nothing important.”
“And?”
“And I don’t even care what he replies.” She looked straight ahead. “I just need to see that he does.”
The vendor dropped a spoon. It clattered against the concrete.
“It’s not the conversation,” she said. “It’s the response.” A pause. “The proof.”
“Proof of what?” I asked.
“That I register somewhere.”
The words came out steady.
She folded her arms, not defensively, just to contain herself.
“At work, I speak and the meeting moves on,” she continued. “At home, the room stays the same whether I’m in it or not.” Her jaw tightened. “When he replies, there’s evidence.”
She let that sit.
“And sometimes,” she added after a long silence, “I realize I haven’t been touched in weeks.”
The traffic noise dulled for a second.
“I don’t mean like that,” she said quickly. “I mean… casually. A hand on the back. Someone bumping into me and not apologizing immediately.” She swallowed. “Something unplanned.”
She looked at her own hands as if they belonged to someone else.
“When he writes, I feel contact,” she said quietly. “It’s ridiculous. But it’s something.”
I didn’t interrupt.
“In the café,” she continued, “he touched my wrist once while laughing.” A pause. “It startled me.”
“Because?” I asked.
“Because I’m used to imagining him,” she said. “Not being reached for.”
The wind shifted again. A dry leaf scraped across the pavement.
“I think I’ve built something that lets me feel close without ever being close,” she said.
There was no pride in it now.
Just recognition.
“And the worst part,” she added, softer than before, “is that it works.”
Silence.
She looked at me then.
“Do you know how dangerous that is?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
She didn’t need me to.
“It works,” she repeated, almost to herself. “That’s the problem.” She shifted her weight but did not step away from the stall. “I don’t have to risk being inconvenient. I don’t have to ask where I stand. I don’t have to see if someone chooses me in front of other people.”
The vendor began counting coins into his drawer.
“I get the intensity,” she continued. “The late-night honesty. The confessions. The part where someone says, ‘I’ve never told anyone this.’” Her mouth tightened. “And then I get to close the app.”
She looked at me then, very directly.
“I don’t have to wake up next to it.”
The sentence sat heavily between us.
“Sometimes,” she went on, slower now, “I wonder if I even want to be known in daylight.” A pause. “Daylight has context. History. Other people.” She swallowed. “Online, I am only what I type.”
A motorbike revved and sped off. Neither of us moved.
“If he saw me on a Sunday afternoon,” she said quietly, “with my hair unwashed and nothing to say, would he still wait?” Her jaw tightened slightly. “I don’t want to find out.”
Silence stretched.
“And if I saw him bored,” she added, “or impatient, or distracted by something that isn’t me…” She shook her head faintly. “That would rearrange everything.”
She bent down and picked up the empty tea glass, turning it in her hands though there was nothing left inside.
“I like him,” she said finally. No decoration. No qualifiers. “I like him enough to keep him where he can’t disappoint me properly.”
The vendor cleared his throat behind us.
She set the glass back down.
“And I hate that about myself,” she added.
No drama in it.
Just fact.
The street continued to move.
She stayed where she was.
She did not move for a while after saying that.
A boy from the stall carried a crate of empty bottles past us. One of them clinked against the others and cracked faintly. He didn’t stop walking.
“I think I’ve trained myself to prefer almost,” she said.
“Almost?” I asked.
“Almost chosen. Almost together. Almost real.” She looked at me steadily. “Almost hurts less.”
The wind pushed a strand of hair across her face. She didn’t fix it.
“When he’s online, I feel wanted,” she continued. “Not fully. Not loudly. But consistently.” A pause. “If he were here properly, in my life, that wanting would need maintenance.”
“And you don’t want to maintain it.”
“I don’t know how,” she said.
Silence.
“I’ve never had someone in my space for long,” she added, and this time something cracked slightly under the calm. “Not in a way that lasted.” She looked down quickly, as if she had revealed more than intended. “Online, nothing lasts either. But it doesn’t look like it’s leaving.”
The distinction sat there.
“Do you know what I did after the café?” she asked.
“What?”
“I came home and lay on my bed fully dressed.” She kept her eyes on the ground. “I didn’t cry. I didn’t call anyone.” A small pause. “I just opened our chat.”
The kettle hissed again, but softer now.
“I scrolled,” she said. “To the first time he said he feels understood with me. To the night he told me about his father.” Her voice thinned. “I reminded myself it was real.”
“And was it?” I asked.
She looked at me, not defensive.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s what makes it worse.”
A car horn blared impatiently at the signal.
“I think if he walked away tomorrow,” she continued, “I would not have the right to be devastated publicly.” A faint bitterness edged her voice. “There would be no anniversary to mourn. No pictures to delete.”
She swallowed.
“But I would still know the exact time he used to message me.”
The wind shifted again. The tarp snapped lightly above us.
“I’ve built a relationship that can disappear without witnesses,” she said. “And I’m the only one who will feel it collapse.”
Silence.
Her voice dropped lower.
“And part of me prefers that.”
The words were barely above the noise of the street.
“Because if no one sees it,” she said, “no one can tell me it wasn’t enough.”
She looked at me then.
“And it isn’t,” she added quietly.
The admission hung there.
Unprotected.
The street did not pause for it.
Neither did she.
She did not move for a long time after that.
The vendor began stacking the glasses in a metal tray. The afternoon light had shifted; the shade from the tree no longer covered both of us evenly. A thin strip of sun had reached her shoulder.
She looked down at it the way people look at their own reflection when they are not prepared to see it.
I did not ask who it was.
She did not pretend. She checked her phone.
Her thumb hovered for half a second before she unlocked it. I watched the change happen before she even spoke. Her jaw loosened. Her shoulders dropped. Something in her face warmed.
“He reached,” she said quietly.
She did not read the message out loud. She did not need to. Whatever it was, it was enough.
The street noise faded around us, not because it stopped, but because she had stepped somewhere else. Somewhere I could not follow.
She typed back.
Not hurried. Not desperate. Measured.
I could see the rhythm of it in her breathing.
When she finished, she did not put the phone away immediately. She held it, waiting.
It vibrated again.
That small smile returned. Not wide. Not foolish. Just real.
And that was the worst part.
None of it stopped the relief.
“You see?” she said softly.
I did not answer.
“He’s there,” she added. The words were simple. They were also fragile. “That’s enough for now.”
The vendor called out for someone to move their scooter. A child began crying somewhere across the road. The world kept negotiating its own small urgencies.
She reached into her bag and took out another cigarette.
“You’re overdoing it,” I said.
She looked at me briefly. “Probably.”
She lit it anyway.
The flame flared briefly against her face. She inhaled deeply, almost angrily, as if she needed the burn to match something inside.
Smoke curled around her head and thinned into the afternoon air.
“I don’t think I’m brave enough for a love that has witnesses,” she said after a moment.
I let that sit.
“Online,” she continued, “if he disappears, I can tell myself it was timing. Circumstance. Distance.” A pause. “If he were in my life and left, I wouldn’t have that excuse.”
She took another drag.
“Do you think something can be real,” she asked, her voice low now, “if it never enters the room?”
The question stayed between us.
A bus roared past. The tarp snapped overhead.
She did not look at me for the answer.
“I don’t know if I want him to walk beside me,” she said instead. “I just want to know he would.”
The cigarette burned quickly this time. She did not tap the ash. It fell on its own.
“I think that’s the difference,” she added. “Between being lonely and being alone.”
She crushed the cigarette under her heel.
The vendor poured the last of the milk into the kettle and scraped the bottom with a spoon. The sound was dry.
Anaya watched the road, but her eyes were not following anything.
“I won’t stop,” she said finally.
I didn’t ask what she meant.
“I won’t stop talking to him.” Her voice was even. “Not because I believe in it. Not because I think it will become something else.” A pause. “Because it fits.”
The word settled heavily.
“It fits into my nights. It fits into my silences. It fits into the parts of me that don’t show up anywhere else.” She swallowed once. “I don’t have to move furniture for it.”
A truck passed too close and the dust rose around us again. She did not step away.
“He thinks we’re moving forward,” she said. “I’m not.”
The sentence did not carry guilt. Just fact.
“I don’t want him in my kitchen,” she continued quietly. “I don’t want him sitting on my sofa, asking where the plates are.” She looked at me now. “I don’t want him seeing how quiet it gets after ten.”
Silence.
“I want him where he is,” she said. “Where he waits. Where he asks me to stay. Where he thinks I’m calm.”
She almost smiled at that.
“In person, I’m measurable,” she added. “Online, I’m chosen.”
The vendor slid a stack of coins across the counter to someone else. Life resumed its small transactions.
“If he ever asks directly what I want,” she said, “I’ll tell him we’ll see.” A faint breath escaped her. “And I’ll mean nothing by it.”
She looked at the tree, at the roots breaking through the pavement.
“I think I’ve confused being witnessed with being loved,” she said.
That was the first time her voice cracked.
“I don’t know if I want to fix that,” she added.
The afternoon light had shifted fully now. The shade no longer covered us. Heat pressed against the back of my neck.
She finished the last piece of mathi without noticing she had picked it up.
“Do you think something can exist only in one dimension and still count?” she asked.
I didn’t answer.
She nodded once, as if she hadn’t expected one.
Then she stepped away from the stall.
A brief hug.She crossed the road when the traffic thinned.
Halfway across, she slowed slightly, as if adjusting her pace to match something unseen.
Then she continued. The tea stall returned to its usual rhythm behind her.
The kettle began to boil again.
And I stood under the tree, wondering whether she was lonelier with him or without him.
There was no way to ask.
“I’ll go,” she said.
She began walking toward the main road, already typing as she moved, her face lit faintly by the screen.
Someone ordered another cutting.
I watched her cross the road without looking back.
And for a moment, I wondered which version of her was walking away.
The one under the tree.
Or the one inside the light of her phone.
The question stayed long after she turned the corner.
--------------
FAQs
1. Why do online relationships sometimes feel more real than real life?
Online relationships often feel intense because they focus on words, attention, and emotional availability without physical distractions. When communication is text-based, people can curate themselves, creating intimacy that feels concentrated and deliberate.
2. Can digital intimacy replace real-world connection?
Digital intimacy can feel powerful because it offers emotional closeness without logistical complications. However, it lacks physical presence and shared environments, which can limit how deeply the relationship integrates into daily life.
3. Why do people hide online friendships from their real lives?
Online friendships sometimes exist in private emotional spaces that don’t translate easily into physical settings. Introducing them to real life forces clarity, accountability, and definition — things that may threaten the intensity of the connection.
4. Is emotional loneliness different in online relationships?
Yes. Emotional loneliness in online relationships often isn’t about absence, but about containment. A person may feel deeply connected at night yet isolated during the day because the relationship occupies no visible space in their world.
5. Why do some people prefer screen-based relationships?
Screen-based relationships offer control over timing, vulnerability, and exposure. For some, the ability to regulate closeness makes online relationships feel safer than fully embodied, real-life intimacy.
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