He went back to the laptop the next afternoon. 'Not coming,' he typed, watching the blinking cursor, waiting. Suddenly the little tick appeared. She'd seen! He watched for the dancing dots. He felt Eva pass by. Hell. He cared for this woman he'd married - or he respected her or - there was so much history between them! Hell!

'Do it, please!' The dancing dots had stopped.

'NO!'

'Call this story 'One week in August'...

'No! Calling it "No Way."'

'You are crazy,' he quickly added. She was crazy. This conversation was crazy. 'Should have talked to me first.'

'Angry?'

'Vexed.'

'You're overthinking it. I warned you not to.'

'YOU overthink everything woman!'

'Not negotiable. Ticket is non-refundable and non-transferrable.'

'Got to go. Will talk about this later.'

'Nope.'

'Yes!'

'Nope. Byes. See you in a while.'

She was gone. August was... just over a month away. Enough time to convince her of how foolish this was. Enough time.

He had dinner with his wife and daughters and then settled with Jane on the couch, his other daughter heading out with friends. His eyes were on the screen but his mind was-

'Back in a minute,' he heard himself say midway through the show. He wandered over to the satchel and withdrew the ticket. He allowed his thoughts for the briefest time to wander over there, to feel this itinerary. The urge overcame him... the temptation toying with the usual common sense he applied to everything. Crazy, plain crazy, throwing all this money away, he thought; fighting the urge internally. Never mind she claimed it was no big deal. It was to him!

'Dad? You coming back?'

He resumed his place on the sofa, the ticket hurriedly tucked in the back pocket of his jeans. Damn her!

He didn't speak to her for days. After a solid eight months of constant conversations, he faced emptiness and it vexed him, as she liked to call it. He wanted to speak to her, unleash this pent up anger - maybe just plain tell her to get out of his life, to stop meddling, intruding... yet he could not form the words. Was he missing her?

Every morning, he'd go sit at his regular spot at the café two doors down and have a cup of his favorite blend; the airline ticket accompanying him, secreted in his satchel. He'd log on and check what she was doing. No hints there, not much output from her really, when he considered the sheer volume of her earlier work. Facebook gave him no clues either - she must have altered the chat settings, for her green light never showed up on his screen.

He'd rarely commented or 'liked' what she'd posted and she'd rarely asked him in the past to read anything really. Writing had become secondary to their continuing conversations; their back and forth passing of witty lines, their oft bitching about life and screw-ups as they both carried on with their separate lives. This is what had drawn him to her... her words were that good in his mind. "I has the words," she'd quip, when he'd mention something or other of hers catching his attention.

This morning, he thought back to how they'd met. She'd come to his defense, over a post of his - even offering advice - on their very first exchange. Her naivety back then! Yet out of the hundreds of notifications, he'd replied to her! And not publicly but rather in a message... which of course elicited a message in return from her... full of more naïve support. Hell, had she not noticed what he'd retired from? Stunt work wasn't exactly a desk job? What were the odds though, he mused... her landing on his comment out of millions of others? It boggled the mind.

And what had he sought from her really? Some relief from the mundane? A fantasy where he could just be, outside of the daily routine and- but he'd found himself delving further, entering her life! He cursed his incessant need to go 'deep' to unravel people, to get to their secrets and their private thoughts... He cursed her own openness in turn; her total acceptance of him, unquestioning, revealing the self behind the alias, her face smiling mischievously at him from the photos she'd sent to him in private.

Had he let this drift too far, too long? Was he partly responsible for this ticket - was it the product of his constant being there? It bothered him. The fact he may have let it go beyond the casual friendships he enjoyed with other females. Why he'd been a little distant the past weeks. Needing to break whatever it was, ever so slightly, divert it perhaps, less of the personal - more of the mundane, like other conversations between dear friends?

He knew she'd caught on. Words and statements thrown at him, oft challenging, at times appearing as pleas... or, more of her questions - questions he disputed, and states of mind he claimed were created by her mind... her attempting to decipher non-existent meanings within his words.

So this point they'd arrived now, it was an end really. He understood it for the ending that it was. It tore him. He'd never expected this ending, certainly not this one, not with her. Not now. Her absence was palpable; it fed off his insecurities, his self-doubts, those hidden things, those once reserved for her despite his supposedly disguising them. Oh how she'd soothed him, her praise of the man he was, his picture on her wall - like he was some hero, some larger than life being? And her relentless drive to make him believe that he was worthy - only of what? What did she see in him? Her life, his life were worlds apart. Hell, she could walk down the street and- the thought of her with someone else... why did it bother him?

Each day, he was haunted by this single message he'd woken her with one day: "I love you dear-ly." The impulse - for it had been an impulse - mocked him; spoke of his need to have her on his screen, never mind the most prosaic of exchanges. What mattered was that she'd be there, replying within seconds to any nonsensical greeting he offered up. Hell, truth be told, he considered her his, no doubt about it. Foolish woman had gone and branded herself, placing him forever on her skin?

But did he love her? Or did he love more what they'd created between them, did he love it. He was certain of it. But what he had outside of her - the real, the daily life external to the screen - it mattered more that she possibly could. He believed this. Only a niggle now and then. "What if?" Two words he never allowed room, twin words banished, confined the very moment they made entry.

He took the ticket out again and stared, the departure date mere days away now. Too late. Even if- no! Better it be too late.

'Refill Joe?' The waitress stood alongside, coffee pot in hand. He nodded, tucking the ticket away again, noting how creased it had become; the edges beginning to fray a little?