Reply to the text you’ve been avoiding. It takes up more room unanswered than any answer would.

An unanswered message keeps working in the background, coming back at odd hours, gathering the extra weight of having been left. Whatever it asks for is usually smaller than the space it now occupies, and part of what you are dreading is the delay rather than the content. Answering collapses all of it back to the original size.

Send something today, even if it is short and late. You do not owe a long explanation for the gap. One honest sentence is enough to put the thing down.