How to respond after not responding?

A two-day gap and a three-week gap ask for different replies. If she was the one who kept things moving and you went quiet mid-conversation, she has likely already decided how much effort to put in. If she is the one reaching out now after a gap, she may be testing whether you're interested or just checking in on an old thread.

Look at what she actually sent. A casual, open question like "how's your week" is a door. A message that is short and flat, or one that stacks up a question about the silence, is telling you she wants an answer about the gap itself. Respond to what she opened, not to what you wish she'd asked.

The reply needs to name the silence once, quickly, and then move on. Something that says you dropped the ball and still want to talk does the job. The point is to show you're aware, not to fix how she feels about it in the same message.

Drafts that work usually give a short, honest reason or none, then ask her something specific about her own life. Drafts that fail spend three sentences on the gap and leave her nothing to answer except reassurance. If your draft reads like an apology letter, cut it down until the question is the largest part of the message.

Sending a long catch-up at 2am reads as either drunk or desperate, and it hands her a reason to delay replying. Send during a normal part of her day so the message reads as something you wrote on purpose.

If she answers, match her energy and keep the next step small, like a concrete plan. If she doesn't reply within a day or two, one follow-up that is lighter than the first is fair. If that also gets nothing, stop. A third message after silence tells her you're more invested in the chase than she is in you, and that's the thing that ends most of these conversations for good.