Where do we talk now?

Who stood next to you on almost every break? Same spot, same hour, shoulders on the same stretch of wall. Now you don't step away with them, and a gap is opening that neither of you has named. You were ready to miss the habit. You weren't ready to miss a person.

Look at what you two had out there. Ten minutes with no screens, no audience, nothing to do but talk side by side about whatever was true that week. That was the good part. The cigarette charged admission to a conversation that was always free. It was only ever the venue.

Bands lose venues all the time. They don't break up over it. They book a better room. Breakfast. A long walk with somewhere to get to. A bench and two coffees going cold. The habit has nowhere to sit in any of those. God put this friend in your path, and He had more in mind than ten minutes by a wall. You're not ending anything. You're moving it.

Send one text today with a time and a place in it, somewhere the habit doesn't fit. Leave their choices to them. Nobody wants a friend who moonlights as their conscience. If they pass the first time, ask again. The asking is most of the message. Same friend. Better room.