I knew you were not coming back when the door slid shut and your shadow remained on the wall a moment longer than your footsteps did. The corridor lights were set to night cycle low and amber and the metal beneath my bare feet held the cold of space no matter how long the heaters worked. I stood there watching the faint outline where you had been as if the station itself was reluctant to let you go. The air smelled of recycled oxygen and the sharp tang of sterilizer. I waited for the sound of your breathing behind me the soft hitch you made when you were thinking. The…

I knew you were gone when the room stayed quiet after I said your name and the wall of stars outside the viewport did not change the way it always did when you answered. The observatory was dim lit only by instrument panels and the distant glow of the nebula drifting past us like a slow wound in space. The air smelled faintly of ozone and recycled water. My fingers hovered above the console still warm from where yours had rested moments before. I waited for the familiar hum of your chair shifting or the soft sound you made when you leaned closer to read a display. Nothing came. The…

I heard your breath catch over the comm just as the capsule doors began to close and by the time I said your name the sound had already thinned into static. The launch chamber glowed with a pale blue that made everyone look unfinished. Vapor curled along the floor cold against my ankles and the smell of sterilized metal clung to my clothes. You stood inside the capsule framed by curved glass one hand lifted not quite touching the surface as if you were unsure whether the barrier was real. The countdown lights pulsed softly steady and patient. I pressed my palm to the glass knowing the heat would never…

I felt your fingers loosen from mine at the observation window while the pulse light dimmed and the reflection of our faces slid apart on the glass. The room smelled of warm circuitry and dust that never quite settled in orbit. Outside the window the star flared and softened in its long rhythm as if breathing for us. You kept your eyes on that light instead of on me. I counted the seconds between each pulse the way I always did when I was afraid to speak. When the count slipped I knew something had already ended even though neither of us had said a word. Footsteps echoed somewhere behind…

I watched your boots lift from the platform as the gravity field disengaged and knew before the alarm sounded that you were already somewhere I could not follow. The hangar lights flickered from white to amber and the air smelled of hot metal and coolant. My hands were still on the console where I had been pretending to monitor readings that no longer mattered. You rotated slowly suspended between magnets and intention and your hair drifted around your face like it had learned a new rule. Someone shouted your name. It might have been me. The sound was swallowed by the rising hum of emergency systems. They stabilized you within…

The last thing you said to me arrived half a second late through the helmet speakers and by the time your voice reached my ears the airlock door was already sealing between us. The corridor outside the shuttle bay was too bright and too clean and my reflection in the glass looked like someone leaving on purpose. The vibration of the engines traveled up through the soles of my boots and into my bones. I kept my hand raised even after the door went opaque as if you might still see the gesture through metal and protocol. When the pressure equalized the silence hit harder than the sound ever had.…

I let go of your hand in the docking corridor while the station lights dimmed for cycle shift and the warmth of your glove slipped away as if it had never learned my shape. The corridor smelled of recycled metal and faint citrus cleaner and the floor hummed with the quiet vibration of a thousand lives moving elsewhere. You did not look back when our fingers separated. I told myself that was mercy. My chest tightened anyway as if the air had changed composition without warning. I stood there longer than I should have listening to my own breathing until it sounded unfamiliar and wrong. Someone brushed past me carrying…