Our Long-Distance Relationship Was Falling Apart, So He Flew Across The World To Save Us

The final click of the mouse sent the revised logo concepts into the digital ether, and with it, the last dregs of Elara’s patience. She pushed back from her desk, the muscles in her neck and shoulders screaming in protest. Fourteen hours. Fourteen hours spent nudging pixels and cycling through fifty shades of beige for a client who communicated exclusively in vague, contradictory feedback. Her flat, usually a sanctuary, felt like a cage wallpapered with her failures.

A glance at the clock on her laptop screen jolted her. 10:52 PM. Eight minutes until Liam.

A wave of something akin to panic washed over the exhaustion. She couldn't let him see her like this—drained, irritable, with dark circles already forming under her eyes. Their time was too precious, too limited to be tainted by her professional frustrations. He deserved the best version of her, not the husk left over at the end of a London workday.

With a deep breath, she began the ritual. First, the lighting. She switched off the harsh overhead light and turned on the soft, warm glow of the lamp on her bedside table. It cast a flattering, gentle light that smoothed the edges of reality. She fluffed the pillows behind her, arranging them just so, and pulled the grey cashmere throw over the corner of her duvet. It was the one he’d bought her last Christmas, a tangible piece of him in her bed.

Next, herself. She scrubbed her face until her skin was pink, washing away the day’s grime and stress. A quick application of under-eye concealer, a brush through her tangled hair, and a swipe of lip balm. She exchanged her paint-stained sweatshirt for a soft, oversized t-shirt of his that she’d stolen from his last visit. It smelled faintly of his soap and the salty air that always clung to him. The scent was a comfort, a ghost of his presence against her skin.

She sat on the edge of her bed, angling her laptop on the nightstand until the background was perfect: the soft lamplight, the cozy pillows, the corner of a framed photo of them on the Brighton Pier just visible. It was a carefully constructed scene, a small, perfect square of domestic peace carved out of her chaotic reality. For him, it was 6:55 AM. He would be fresh from sleep, coffee brewing, the Pacific morning light streaming into his small research station. He didn't need to see the stack of bills on her desk or the takeout containers overflowing from the bin. He needed to see home. He needed to see her, waiting and happy. She took one last deep breath, forcing a placid expression onto her face as the screen lit up with an incoming call. Liam.

She clicked ‘accept’, and his face filled the screen. For a moment, it was a blur of pixels, a digital ghost, before sharpening into the man she ached for. Liam. The early morning sun of British Columbia backlit him, catching in the messy brown hair he’d clearly just run his hands through. He was holding a steaming mug, the logo of his research institute stark against the white ceramic. Behind him, she could see the metallic gleam of equipment and charts pinned to a corkboard. He was awake, energized, at the start of his day. She was at the end of hers, a ghost in the soft lamplight, and the eight hours between them felt like a physical chasm.

“Hey, you,” he said, his voice crackling through the laptop’s speakers, a tinny, hollow version of the deep timber that could make her shiver. A wide smile spread across his face, crinkling the corners of his tired, beautiful eyes.

“Hi,” she breathed out, her own smile feeling fragile. “How’s the Pacific?”

“Wet,” he laughed, and the screen froze on the motion. His face was a distorted mask for three long seconds before it lurched back into movement. “—phone array is acting up again. I have to take the boat out to check the…the…El? Can you hear me?”

His voice broke apart into digital noise. “I can hear you,” she said, leaning closer to the screen as if it would help. “You’re just… breaking up a little.”

She tried to tell him about her day, editing the truth into something more palatable. “It was busy,” she said, leaving out the part where she’d wanted to throw her monitor out the window. “Finally sent off the concepts for the new client.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, his pride warming her despite the static. He took a sip of his coffee, and she watched the muscles in his throat work. Her own body responded with a familiar, low throb of longing. It was a constant, dull ache that sharpened at moments like this—watching him perform a simple, mundane act she couldn't be a part of. She wanted to feel the warmth of that mug through his shirt, to trace the line of his jaw with her thumb, to silence his next words with her mouth.

“I miss you,” she said, the words slipping out, heavier than she intended.

His smile faltered, the light in his eyes dimming with a shared sadness. “I miss you too, El. More than—” The audio cut out completely, his lips still moving. He tapped his headset, a frustrated look on his face. The image flickered violently, dissolving into a mess of green and purple blocks before his face returned, strained.

“—every single day,” his voice returned, catching the tail end of his sentence. The disjointed conversation was exhausting. Every dropped word and frozen frame was a reminder of the thousands of miles of ocean and land that separated them. They were trying to bridge the gap with technology, but it felt like shouting across a canyon in a windstorm. The connection was failing, and with it, the carefully constructed sense of peace she had built for this call began to crumble, leaving only a raw, unfulfilled need in its place.

“We should—” Liam started to say, his expression earnest, but the screen dissolved into a frozen mosaic of pixels. “—try to book—” The audio was a garbled mess of electronic shrieks. Then, blackness. A small, sterile box popped up in the center of the screen. Call ended.

Just like that, he was gone. Elara stared at her own reflection in the dark screen, the carefully constructed calm on her face having collapsed into an expression of pure, desolate loneliness. The silence that rushed in to fill the void left by the static was immense, amplifying the quiet hum of the refrigerator and the distant siren wailing its way across London. She snapped the laptop shut, the click echoing in the small room.

She fell back against the pillows, pulling his t-shirt tighter around herself as if it could somehow conjure his arms. The faint scent of him was a torment, a reminder of everything she didn't have. The ache that had been a low thrum in her chest all evening intensified, spreading through her limbs, settling deep in her belly. It was a hollow, physical pain, a craving for the simple weight of him beside her in the bed, the warmth of his body chasing away the chill of the empty sheets.

Her hand found her phone on the nightstand, her thumb swiping through the lock screen out of habit. She opened her photos, her fingers scrolling past the recent, sterile images of her design work until she found him. A picture from last summer. They were on a crowded beach, his arm slung protectively around her shoulders, his lips pressed to her temple. She could almost feel the phantom pressure, the warmth of his skin against hers, the scratch of his day-old stubble.

She swiped again. A photo she’d taken one morning, just after waking up. He was still asleep, lying on his stomach, his back muscles defined in the soft morning light filtering through the curtains. She remembered tracing the line of his spine with her finger, feeling him stir under her touch. She remembered how he’d rolled over, pulling her on top of him, his hands sliding down her back to cup her ass, his mouth finding hers in a slow, deep kiss that tasted of sleep and longing.

A sharp, electric heat shot through her, pooling between her legs. The dull ache became a focused, insistent pulse. It was a visceral need, a cellular memory of his touch, of the way his fingers felt tangled in her hair, the way his hips moved against hers. She closed her eyes, her own hand drifting down over the soft cotton of his shirt to rest on her stomach. It was a poor substitute. She wanted his hands, his mouth, his weight. She wanted to be filled with him, to feel the solid, undeniable reality of his presence erasing the miles, silencing the static for good.

She must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew, a soft chime pulled her from a restless, dreamless sleep. She blinked, her room still dark save for the glow of her phone screen. A new message.

Liam: For when you wake up. Good morning, my love.

Beneath the text was an image. A massive humpback whale, its entire body launched out of a sapphire-blue ocean, captured mid-air against a backdrop of a fiery sunrise. It was magnificent, powerful, and utterly wild. It was a piece of his world, a world she couldn't touch or feel, sent across the ocean just for her. A small, digital promise that he was out there, thinking of her, bridging the distance one sunrise at a time.