He Went Quiet and You Filled In the Rest

A man can become quieter for half a day and suddenly you are mentally preparing for a breakup he has not mentioned.

Yesterday everything was perfectly normal. Today his messages are shorter, he seems distracted, and the usual little warmth has gone missing somewhere between breakfast and whatever he is doing instead of reassuring you.

The awkward part is that you have absolutely no idea why.

And not knowing can be terribly uncomfortable when you have a lively imagination and nowhere near enough information. So rather than leave the mystery alone for a few hours, you do something much more satisfying: you invent an answer.

It is rather like opening a crossword and finding one stubborn blank sitting in the middle of the page. You could leave it there until a few more letters appear and everything becomes obvious.

Of course you could. You simply chose not to. You have a pencil now.

One Blank Is Quite Enough

The first answer tends to appear with astonishing confidence.

He is losing interest.

Five minutes ago you knew almost nothing. Now, somehow, we have a situation.

And once that answer is sitting neatly in the middle of the grid, everything around it begins looking remarkably useful. That distracted expression yesterday suddenly means something. The shorter message this morning looks different too. Even that woman from work he mentioned weeks ago, who until now enjoyed the modest role of woman from work, has been given a far more interesting part.

Goodness. The crossword is practically solving itself.

There are, admittedly, a few clues causing trouble. He was affectionate recently. He made plans with you. He quite clearly said he had a lot going on.

Rather poor timing from reality.

Still, insecurity can be wonderfully inventive when the facts refuse to cooperate. Maybe the affection meant guilt. Maybe the plans meant nothing. And “busy,” well, that word can become wonderfully vague once you are in the mood to worry.

By now, one blank has become quite an evening.

Then the Other Answers Start Appearing

And somewhere along the way, something rather funny has happened. You are no longer simply wondering why he seems distant. You have already chosen the answer and now everything else has to cooperate.

Anything that agrees with it slips beautifully into place. Anything that does not gets another look.

A lovely evening becomes the lovely evening before things changed. A sweet message starts looking a little too sweet. Even his perfectly ordinary tiredness begins carrying meanings nobody gave it earlier.

Before long, perfectly innocent parts of the relationship are being rearranged around an answer you wrote down far too early.

Meanwhile, Sir may simply be busy. He may be tired. Something completely unrelated to you may be going on. He may simply be having an off day, without secretly preparing an entirely new romantic life behind your back.

Not nearly as interesting.

But possible.

And by the time one of these ordinary explanations finally turns up, you may already have traveled rather far without him.

Madam Has Finished the Whole Thing

Give your imagination a few quiet hours and it can get surprisingly carried away.

By the time Sir reappears, you may have an explanation, another woman, several perfectly lovely memories that now look rather different and a fairly bleak idea of where the whole relationship is heading.

You may even be waiting for an apology.

All from one blank.

Then he finally tells you what was going on—work was awful, his family needed him, he had a headache, he wanted a little time to himself, or, quite possibly, he was taking a nap.

Oh.

That does leave us with a small problem, because half the grid has now been completed around an answer that may never have belonged there at all.

And from across the room, the whole thing is almost magnificent. Sir went quiet for a while, and in his absence you found the motive, promoted the woman from work, reconsidered several lovely evenings and predicted the end of the relationship before he had even explained the first clue.

The blank was uncomfortable.

Madam simply completed the whole crossword before she knew what half the clues meant.