Chapter Text
The problem with three thousand miles is that it cannot be optimized.
Zoey Miller sat in the corner of the Barker Engineering Library, surrounded by three empty paper coffee cups, a stack of linear algebra textbooks, and a laptop screen displaying a mass of failing code. It was 11:45 PM in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The autumn wind was rattling the massive windows, throwing dead leaves against the glass.
According to her calendar app, it was 8:45 PM in San Diego, California.
Zach’s practice was supposed to end at 8:30 PM. Her phone sat right next to her mousepad, entirely silent.
Zoey sighed, rubbing her temples. When they had agreed to try the long-distance thing, she had built a literal spreadsheet. She factored in their respective class schedules, Zach’s travel days for away soccer games, her lab hours, and the three-hour time difference. On paper, they had exactly four optimal windows per week for dedicated, high-quality communication.
Data, however, rarely accounted for traffic on the Interstate 5, or an extra thirty minutes of post-game video review ordered by a frustrated coach.
Her phone finally buzzed, lighting up with a photo of Zach grinning on a beach, his hair windswept and chaotic.
Zach: Just got back to the dorms. Coach ran us into the dirt tonight. You still awake, brilliant?
Zoey’s fingers flew across the keyboard.
Zoey: Barely. My brain is roughly 85% espresso at this point. Can you FaceTime?
The screen instantly shifted to the incoming call screen. Zoey scrambled for her headphones, shoving them in just as Zach’s face appeared on screen. He looked exhausted, his hair damp from the shower, sitting on the edge of his twin-xl dorm bed. But the second he saw her, that familiar, lopsided smile broke across his face.
"Hey," he said, his voice a low, soothing contrast to the frantic hum of the MIT library. "Look at you, buried in books. You look like a mad scientist."
"I am currently trying to debug an array that refuses to compile, so 'mad' is highly accurate," Zoey said, leaning her chin on her hand, her eyes softening as she looked at him. "How was practice?"
"Brutal. Coach is convinced our backline is lacking 'spatial awareness.' I told him we just need a better geometric algorithm, but he didn't appreciate the advice." Zach winked. "Thought of you when I said it, though."
Zoey let out a soft laugh, feeling a knot in her chest untie. "I’m glad my brand of cynicism is rubbing off on you. How's the shoulder?"
"Sore, but fine. The trainer taped it up." Zach leaned closer to his camera, his expression shifting from playful to grounded. "You look really tired, Zo. When was the last time you ate something that didn't come out of a vending machine?"
"I had a bagel at noon," Zoey countered defensively.
"Zoey."
"Fine. It was a stale bagel. But it had protein!" She sighed, closing the lid of her laptop halfway so she could focus entirely on him. "It’s just... everything moves so fast here. Everyone is trying to build the next tech empire before midterms. If I take a night off, I feel like I'm falling behind."
"You're not going to fall behind," Zach said gently, his eyes steady through the pixelated screen. "You're the smartest person in any room you walk into. Even an MIT room. Just... promise me you’ll go sleep after this? The code will still be broken tomorrow."
"Statistically true," Zoey admitted. She stared at the screen, a sudden wave of longing hitting her so hard it felt physical. Digital pixels were a poor substitute for the weight of his arm around her shoulders or the smell of his laundry detergent. "I wish you were here. Or I was there. The spatial coordinates of this relationship are deeply inefficient."
"Me too," Zach murmured. He reached out, his thumb brushing against his camera lens as if he could touch her cheek through the glass. "But we're making it work. Two percent odds, remember?"
"Two percent," she echoed softly.
They talked for another twenty minutes—mostly Zach recounting a hilarious argument his roommate had with a campus parking enforcement officer—until Zoey’s eyelids became too heavy to keep open.
"Go to bed, Miller," Zach whispered, a soft smile on his lips. "I’ll text you when I wake up for my morning run."
"Goodnight, MacLaren."
The screen went black, and the silence of the library rushed back in. Zoey packed her laptop into her backpack, her mind already shifting. Long-distance was a high-friction environment. But as she walked out into the cold Massachusetts night, she knew that some variables were entirely worth the drag.