The Red String Theory

"What time is it for you?"

"It's 8. Which means it's-?"

"It's 2 here."

Learning to adjust to their new time differences was a scenario that Luna and Erik struggled with. Luna often woke up to messages from Erik sent in the middle of the night, relatively normal times for him, only to find that when she woke up, nearly Eric's entire day had gone by already.

"That's not too bad. Still have all day left," Erik replied, trying to sound upbeat.

"Yeah, but then it means you'll be heading to sleep soon."

Erik's silence on the other end of the screen made Luna squirm. It was harder for her to tell if she had said something that annoyed him, not that he ever seemed annoyed, or if he was trying to process the same information she was. Their friendship had been confusing the moment he returned to the Netherlands, almost hot and cold but still maintaining a soft warmness that made Luna wish she could wrap herself up in it. The thought of it left a funny feeling in the pit of Luna's stomach, though she didn't entirely understand why.

She couldn't figure out if things were easier or harder with Erik away. On the one hand, they had fallen into a sort of rhythm, but on the other, she was very aware that things were going to change the moment he was out at sea. Not that it mattered much, Luna argued with herself. It wasn't like she didn't have everything she needed already, so she let out a small huff.

"What is it?" Erik finally asked.

"Nothing," Luna replied, her tone a little sharper than she intended it to be. "Listen, I know it's getting late for you, so I'll just head off now. Good night." She didn't wait for Erik to reply and clicked the end call button. She stared at her laptop's screen briefly before slamming the top closed when she saw Erik typing something to her.

Luna let out a groan, rolled off the couch and onto the floor, and covered her face with her hands. She had no idea what was wrong with her lately, and she didn't understand why she was suddenly so short with Erik. Things had been going great, all things considered.

Sam had been keeping up his end of the bargain, letting Luna relax for just a little while until her unemployment could kick in. The squeaky wheels of the government meant having to wait entirely too long for it to arrive, and the days seemed to stretch longer and longer with each passing hour. Luna had more than deep cleaned the house seemingly several times over with Erik being on the other side of her phone or laptop screen nearly the entire time. She went out every so often, mostly to walk the dogs and to the store, but met up with a few of her ex-coworkers every so often.

So what if Sam had been exceptionally grumpy and had started arguments with her over the smallest things? She understood why Sam grew increasingly irritated every time she would go out, reminding her that her $4 coffees once a week were too much and that he deserved his new $60 game that he would play late into the night, often falling asleep on the couch. If he was spending so much extra time at work, it was okay. Luna understood that he was taking the brunt of the work to care for them.

Luna grimaced as she heard the rattle of her phone vibrating against the wood table next to her head. She knew that the only reason her cellphone would vibrate was because Erik had finally finished writing what he wanted to say, but she couldn't look. Instead, Luna grabbed her phone and her laptop and trudged upstairs. She dropped everything on her bed and returned downstairs to start an exceptionally early dinner. Or, Luna realized as she stared at the baking sheets she had decided to clean just to have something to do; she could let herself not think too much and bake. It had been a very long time since she had made macarons.

Ordinarily, Luna would have taken the time to prep her ingredients better, but with where her mind was, she didn't care. She pulled out her mixer, set it on the kitchen counter, and gathered her ingredients. Luna stood on her tiptoes to grab her bag of almond flour and sugars. She turned to the fridge to grab her eggs and paused for a moment to think.