“I miss you,” I said.

“You just saw me a few days ago,” he said.

I stared at the phone, bewildered by the words before my eyes. I saw the letters; the letters made words; the words made a sentence, but none of it made sense to me. I should have known, at once, that it was never going to work. Missing someone isn’t a logical or mathematical problem; it’s a visceral experience that cuts to the very core of your nervous system, causing everything to stand on edge until you’re satiated by the person’s presence once again; Literally speaking, your brain is impatiently awaiting the surge of Oxytocin, the chemical released in your brain when you’re falling in love.

Missing someone has nothing to do with how long it’s been since you’ve seen that person or how many minutes it’s been since your last text, or when you last heard their voice. Missing someone has everything to do with that aching feeling; the one inside your heart that feels like someone is pulling in opposing directions on that powerful muscle keeping you alive, making you wish that they were there with you at that very moment so you could see the corners of their mouth curl up when they smile at you and laugh at your jokes. Or how you miss the way they smell on your skin after fall asleep next to one another, skin pressed to skin. The warmth their body radiates when it’s next to yours. And the way their hand fits around yours, and you feel like you could do everything as conjoined hand twins for the rest of your life, so long as they never let go.

And I wonder how it is I can miss someone I’ve never met.