Near closing time on a rare, rainless Cornish evening, I wander toward the shop where you work, unable to explain how I got here other than transport by sheer longing. The same compulsion told me where to find you in this village across the sea.

A display window’s counterfeit moonbeams stripe the dark sidewalk. Tongue-tied with grief and hope, I push the door open and step under clean fluorescence.

There’s no one attending the counter; it’s a relief to have another moment to muster my thoughts. Placards advertise sweet nostalgia in a pastel spectrum: Mint Mocha Chip, Raspberry Swirl, Cocoa Marshmallow. Relics from another lifetime.

Like when your secret world found its long-lost twin in mine and exploded into a wonderland of white heat. You called it love.

The enthusiasm with which you opened your heart after opening your belt swept me deeper and deeper into the fantasy until we lip-locked at its core. Burned before, I basked in your open affection, even as I told myself you were too good to last.

A grizzled gent whose waistline shows regular indulgence in the Flavor of the Day materializes between me and the counter. Good. He can go first. It’ll give me more time to form the questions that torment me with each phase of the moon.

The moon was our bond. Sometimes its brightest smiles stirred us from our dreams of one another, but we didn’t mind. How could we, when our shared waking rode bursts of solar flares chased by shooting stars? When hesitations between keystrokes screamed silently of infinite pleasure?

Three euphoric months after those introductory emails, you confessed you wanted us forever.

Will you be my cyber wife?

My ‘yes’ rang from Cloud Nine.

You insisted we do it right. What a whirlwind of fun we had selecting rings, bridal finery, and a wedding-night destination.

The first years flew by in an extended honeymoon. When work took you out of town, I greeted you with birthday-suit surprises in your hotel or guest quarters. When extended holidays knocked us offline, you fretted for my return until we could exchange kisses via burner phones.

When you moved to one of the UK’s most scenic corners, we christened each room you renovated in your new flat. Plumbing, electrical, carpentry, your practical skills seemed as limitless as our joy at finding one another.

After you finished the house, we risked arrest for indecency in towers on the South West Coast Path and held hands like besotted tourists in every seafront idyll from Fowey to Falmouth.

You swelled with pride at my musical training and said the sweetest things when I sang your favorite tunes in and out of bed.

From the street entrance, you appear. Handsome as I dreamed you’d be, though Len Whiting as Romeo exceeds expectations. No, not really. When I first heard your voice, its raspiness advanced your stated age. But through infatuation’s filters, it caressed me with the thrill of stolen Verona evenings.

Your expression is apologetic at keeping customers waiting, but your eyes remain a somber riddle as they brush me and move on.

How could you recognize what you’ve never seen?

But after nearly six years of soul-merging, how could you not know?

As the demands of offline life compressed our bubble, we opened different doors of intimacy and comforted one another through the slow decline and passing of those who meant the world to us. The faithful hound who woke you every morning so you could type an ‘I love you, darling’ before work. My great-granddad. Your mum.

The pandemic brought an upside, however. Both our significant others moved closer to home. Tacitly, the warp and woof of our romance shifted to the friend zone. Yet we continued to sign off with ‘your husband,’ ‘your wife,’ and all our hearts.

It’s true I must be a sight: travel-ravaged, clothes crumpling over thinness. Only the curls, fierce in fledgling Esperanza flight, inspire confidence in the beauty you’ve attributed to me. You knew most of my hair had fallen out post-covid but not its triumphantly different return. It was me you loved, not my hair, you said.

“Hey, Ron,” you greet the large chap first, followed by a fainter, “Hi...” that may or may not include the strange girl you see before you.

Fresh disappointment spears my chest as I watch you walk by. Didn’t your eyes recognize the kindred sorrow in mine?