Distance doesn't arrive with a warning. It doesn't knock politely at the door or send a message saying, I am coming. It sneaks in quietly, almost imperceptibly, until one day you realize it's already there and somehow, you've been living with it for weeks, months, maybe even years.
That's what happened with us.
It didn't start with a fight. It didn't start with an argument or a betrayal. It started with tiny gaps. A reply that came a few minutes later than usual. A laugh that sounded a little forced. A glance that lingered too long before turning away. Little things that made me pause and wonder if I had imagined the change.
I tried to convince myself it was nothing. That life was just busy. That people grew in different ways. But deep down, I felt the subtle shift. The way conversations, once effortless, now required thought. The way closeness, once natural, now felt fragile.
We were still in each other's lives. We still saw each other. We still laughed together. But the weight of the unspoken, the hesitation, and the distance made everything feel different. Even the moments that should have been easy now carried a quiet tension.
I remember walking home one evening, thinking about all the small moments we had shared. How easy everything used to feel. How certain I had been that this would last forever. And I felt a strange mix of nostalgia and fear. Nostalgia for what we had, and fear for what we were losing without even noticing.
Distance doesn't arrive all at once. It arrives in the spaces between words, in the pauses, in the moments where someone should reach out but doesn't. And slowly, quietly, it grows until you realize that what once felt permanent now feels fragile.
I hated that I noticed it. I hated that I felt it creeping into our friendship. But the truth is, I couldn't ignore it. Not anymore.
Because once distance starts to settle, it doesn't always leave.
And I was terrified that it would stay.