The Dawn I Realized You Were No Longer Waiting For Me

Your hand did not reach for mine when the shuttle doors opened and in that small ordinary absence I understood that the future we had delayed had finally gone on without us.

Dawn spread across the landing field in a thin silver wash barely strong enough to warm the metal beneath my boots. The colony sat low against the horizon its structures catching light slowly as if reluctant to wake. Engines cooled with a ticking sound and vapor drifted away in soft curls that vanished before rising very far. I stood at the bottom of the ramp longer than necessary watching passengers disperse and leaving space beside me where you should have been.

You had always waited at arrivals even when schedules slipped. You said arrivals deserved witnesses. I used to scan the crowd before the ramp fully lowered already knowing where you would stand shoulders relaxed eyes alert pretending patience was effortless. This morning there was no one scanning back. The space held nothing and did not apologize for it.

The walk into the colony took me along a path lined with solar glass that chimed faintly as it adjusted to the growing light. Wind moved through tall antenna grasses planted for no reason other than comfort and they brushed against each other with a dry whisper. I carried my bag lightly. It held things meant for a shared space. I did not know yet where to put them.

We had met on a research vessel drifting at the edge of mapped space where stars felt closer and rules felt thinner. You had been assigned to temporal ecology studying regions where time behaved like weather. I was there to repair systems strained by phenomena no one could fully predict. You said I fixed things that wanted to keep going. I said you listened to things that wanted to rest. We found that comforting.

The first time you explained temporal pooling you used water as a metaphor tracing invisible currents on the table between us. You said some moments sink and stay. You said others rush past too quickly to hold. I reached across and touched your hand and you smiled as if I had proven your point.

When the colony was proposed as an anchor point inside one of those slow regions you were chosen immediately. You accepted without celebration without fear. You told me it felt like arriving somewhere you had been homesick for without knowing it. I told you I would come with you and you nodded as if that too had always been true.

The colony grew around us. Days stretched gently. Nights settled without urgency. People moved more slowly here voices softer steps unhurried. We learned a different rhythm together. You stopped waking from dreams reaching for the present. I stopped checking clocks. Love felt easy in a place that did not rush it.

But even slow places change.

I noticed it first in the way you lingered alone at the edge of the fields where time thickened the most. You would stand with your eyes closed breathing evenly as if syncing yourself to something just beneath perception. When I joined you you smiled but the smile felt distant as if part of you remained elsewhere listening.

You told me the colony was stabilizing faster than expected. You told me the time there was becoming less pliable. You said people were arriving who wanted efficiency and return. You did not say what that meant for you but I heard it anyway.

The council meeting confirmed it with careful words. The colony would be regulated. Access controlled. Temporal depth reduced for safety. They praised your work and offered you a role overseeing the transition. I watched your face as they spoke and saw the decision forming quietly long before it reached language.

That night we sat together in our quarters with the lights dimmed low. Outside the slow wind moved through antenna grasses and the colony hummed gently around us. You took my hand and held it still between us. You said the deep place was receding. You said there was another deeper still beyond mapped boundaries. You said you felt called.

I asked if I could follow. You did not answer right away. When you did you said you would not ask that of me. You said the deeper place did not promise return. You said love should not demand disappearance. I said nothing because saying anything would have been a plea.

You left before dawn.

Not suddenly not dramatically. You packed what you needed and left the rest as if trusting me to decide its fate. At the door you pressed your forehead to mine and breathed with me until our rhythms matched. You said I would feel you less each day but that the feeling would soften rather than vanish. I watched you walk away and did not call after you because I understood that calling would pull you backward.

That was months ago.

Now I walked through the colony alone as it woke fully. Shops opened their shutters. Children ran ahead of their parents laughter bright and unhurried. The place still moved slowly but I could feel the current strengthening underneath preparing to flow forward again.

Our quarters greeted me with familiar quiet. Light filtered in through the wide window falling across surfaces we had chosen together. Your chair by the window remained empty angled toward the horizon. I set my bag down and sat on the floor letting the stillness settle around me. It did not feel cruel. It felt honest.

I found your notes stacked neatly on the table. Diagrams and observations written in your careful hand. In the margins you had left small personal comments meant only for me. This place is learning how to let go. So am I. I traced the words and felt close to you in a way that did not ache.

Days passed and the colony shifted. Schedules tightened. People moved faster. I took work recalibrating systems for the new flow. At night I walked to the edge of the fields where the deepest slowness had once lived. The air there felt lighter now less resistant. I stood and remembered the way you had stood and felt the echo of it fade gently.

Once I felt you near. Not a presence exactly but a warmth like sunlight remembered on skin. I closed my eyes and breathed. The warmth did not grow. It did not need to. It was enough to know it had existed.

On the morning I realized you were no longer waiting I stood again at the landing field watching a shuttle arrive. The ramp lowered. People stepped out scanning the crowd. I did not search for you. I watched the light instead the way it caught on glass and metal and moved on.

I understood then that waiting had been a way of holding you when holding was no longer possible. Letting go did not mean forgetting. It meant allowing time to move again without resisting it.

I turned away from the field and walked back into the colony as it carried on. Somewhere beyond reach you were resting in a place that did not ask you to hurry. Here I was learning how to move forward without leaving everything behind.

When the sun rose fully it warmed my face and I lifted my hand instinctively before letting it fall. The gesture completed itself without expecting an answer. Love remained not as a pause but as a depth I carried with me into whatever came next.