August 2023 - the Month We Found Our Way Back to Each Other

August didn’t arrive quietly. It rolled in with heat, exhaustion, sickness, longing, and a kind of emotional gravity that made everything heavier and more tender at the same time. I had started the month covered in rashes, my body giving up on me in dramatic and creative new ways. She told me she felt sorry for me, that she wished she could help, that September had to be kinder to me than all the months before. She always found a way to make me feel less alone, sometimes by mothering me, sometimes by teasing me, sometimes by telling me in three languages that she loved me.

She had her own problems too: neck pains, relentless heat in Spain, dreams that woke her up suddenly. But she still found room to send me voice notes softened by sleep, selfies stolen from the morning light, and random messages saying "I miss you so much that it hurts". When she said her chest ached from missing me, she blamed hormones, but I knew distance had carved its own place in her body, just like it had in mine.

We talked about the letter she wrote me. She got embarrassed thinking about it, afraid that it was too emotional. I told her mine was shorter, and she scolded me and laughed at the same time. That was always her way. half warmth, half fire. I liked both.

Toward the middle of the month, I left Toronto for a camping trip with Minmo’s gang. It was loud, chaotic, full of boys and girls talking nonsense and drinking too much beer and soju, but I kept checking my phone constantly. She joked about “boy scouts,” teased me endlessly, and then somehow turned the conversation into fetishes and ridiculous scenarios that made me suffer in a tent surrounded by friends with no privacy. Even when we drifted into our slightly naughty, teasing territory, she would suddenly soften and admit she didn’t want the whole night to be sexual, that she just missed me, the real me. When I told her the first thing I wanted to do when I saw her was hug her, she went quiet in the sweetest way.

At night I sent her photos of the campsite, the fire, the sky full of stars. She asked if I was warm enough, if I had blankets, if I was eating. Then she asked if she could sleep next to me there. The thought of her curled beside me in that tent made the whole night feel colder.

By late August, we were counting down the days.

Three left.

Two.

One.

Every night she packed and unpacked her suitcase in Spain, pacing around her room, nervous and excited. She kept rearranging bikinis for the hotel pool, double checking documents, testing outfits in the mirror. She insisted she wouldn’t be able to relax until she was on the plane. Then she corrected herself: not until she saw me.

She said she was afraid of the moment, afraid of how emotional she would be, how fast her heart was beating already, how much she needed to hug me again. I pretended to be calm. I wasn’t.

The airport day, the day everything finally converged. I woke up too early in Toronto, couldn’t go back to sleep, and ended up getting to the airport hours ahead of schedule. She laughed at me and asked if it was because I was excited to see her. I said “maybe,” and she made me repeat it until I wrote “MAYBE!!!” like an idiot.

She boarded in Madrid. I boarded in Toronto. I landed in New York first, at LaGuardia, tired but buzzing with anticipation. I grabbed the rental car, drove to JFK, and waited. She landed but immediately got swallowed by the worst immigration line ever, rows and rows of people stretched under fluorescent lights, moving slowly, painfully, frustratingly.

She sent me a photo. I cursed under my breath. She reminded me calmly that the last time she’d been in JFK, the line was just as bad. She joked that it was why she hated New York and then sent an annoyed selfie, hair a little messy from travel, looking cute in her anger.

While she waited in line, hungry and exhausted, we planned what to eat. She had barely eaten, only four cookies at six in the morning. I hadn’t eaten at all because I wanted our first meal to be together. She asked what she could get in return for making her wait so long. “Starts with B,” she said. “Spanish. Something only you can give me.” I guessed everything wrong, bailar, bra, balls, until she laughed and said: “Besos.” I promised her many, many besos. She promised me many, many 뽀뽀.

Finally her line began to move. She counted rows left like a soldier in a marathon. “Seven people,” she said. My heart raced. Then the message I had been waiting for: “Going out.”

After that, no more texting.

She emerged from the doors of JFK, tired, hair all over the place, carrying her bags with a frustrated but relieved expression. And when she saw me, "really saw me", her eyes softened. I hugged her like the world had stopped spinning. And for me, it did.

We were starving so I took her straight to White Castle. Our first meal after weeks of distance was greasy sliders, shared between yawns and sudden little bursts of laughter. Then we got into the car and started our drive to Boston. The road felt long, but having her next to me made everything light.

That day, we walked through Cambridge like two kids who never grew up. Harvard’s quiet dignity, MIT’s strange futuristic angles, everything around us felt poetic and unreal. At the river, the moon rose in full brilliance, hanging low and bright over the Charles. Its reflection trembled in the water, silver and soft. She stood beside me, leaning into my shoulder, and for a moment it felt like the whole world had shrunk to only the two of us and that moon.

Later, we tried to drive into Boston, but we got trapped in those ridiculous underground tunnels, lost in circles, exits appearing too late, Google Maps melting down. We spent nearly an hour looping through the same tunnels until we both gave up and started laughing hysterically. We went back to our hotel defeated, but together, which made the whole thing something beautiful.

The day after we went to a beach near Boston to try lobster rolls for lunch. They were… disappointing. Not bad, but not magical the way everyone described. She pouted. I pretended to cry. And then we started our long drive back to New York.

We arrived at our hotel near Times Square just after sunset. It was loud, chaotic, neon-soaked, exactly like Times Square always is. We walked through the crowds, her fingers wrapped around mine, taking quick photos, laughing at the tourists, stopping to stare at giant screens.

Then a fight broke out on the street, screaming, shouts, police rushing in, someone bloodied on the ground. She froze instantly, eyes wide, suddenly small and tense beside me. I pulled her close and guided her away, whispering that everything was okay, that she was safe, that nothing would happen to her. Her grip tightened around my arm until the noise faded behind us.

Later that night, in the quiet of our hotel room, her breath finally steadied. She lay against my chest, warm and safe, and whispered that she was happy to be there with me, even with the chaos outside.

And that was the end of August, messy, emotional, exhausting, playful, sensual, chaotic, tender. A month of missing each other so deeply that our bodies ached… until we finally collided again in airports and highways, in cheap sliders and moonlit rivers, in tunnels and beaches and neon lights.

A month of breaking apart, then coming back together even stronger. A month that started with sickness and distance, and ended with her fall­ing asleep against me in the center of New York City, her heartbeat finally pressed against mine again.

A month where everything hurt… and everything healed the moment she stepped into my arms.