Playing with Fire

It was an ordinary day, or so she thought. Catching up at work, she met a colleague – a friend, if you may say. Harmless. Needless to say, it was just one meeting that attracted them to each other. They grabbed some lunch and talked. They talked about their lives – the people in their lives and life in general. He was engaged and she – she was committed to one soul mate in her life. However, the commitment could not suppress the fire in them - the fire of attraction, the fire to know each other – to feel each other.

               She thought it was just one lunch and then it will be back to being colleagues, until she got a text later that evening. One simple ‘Hi’ is all it took for the fire in her heart to soar. However, she did not know what he felt. All she wondered was if he would acknowledge the fire in her heart. A simple hi turned into a conversation and slowly into a series of compliments about her beauty.

               He is playing me, she thought, I am not that beautiful. He kept insisting that she was beautiful and then gathering all his courage, he finally asked her out. Her eyes gleamed with happiness. Then came in another message – from her boyfriend and it pulled her into the reality. She could not do this – not to the love of her life, her soul mate, but she could not even give up on this one chance of doing something out of feeling. She tried to reason with him – reminded him how they both had different relations they owed their loyalty to. He kept telling her that this is all above right and wrong and he just wanted to kiss her, to feel her for once.

The night ended, the thought did not. Both of them were lost in their own world, thinking about right and wrong, about heart and mind, love and desire. He kept insisting, she kept backing down. One day out with her boyfriend made her realize how terrible it was of her to even think about it all. Later that night, they talked again. After a long discussion, they both agreed – it was not the right thing to do, no matter how much they desire it.  Later that night, out of the blue, he texts - – ‘I love you and tons of kisses to you’. She never expected this. She did not know if it was love – for the only love of her life was her boyfriend, her soul mate. She knew she could not lead this on. She knew she had to block him out of her life – for she could not let him destroy himself.

               That night, one honest, innocent desire ended, an honest feeling of love, a thought of selfishness buried because it did not fit the definition of what’s right. Night after night, she thought to herself, what if she would have listened to heart this once, what if she would have done it for her happiness. It was goose chase – and she gave up. It did hurt her for not being able to reciprocate his love, for not following her heart.

               She visits that night in her mind from time to time, wondering if she could change anything. Maybe he has forgotten her now and he might even be happily married now, but in the back of her mind, that moment is one thing that always makes her think was that really love, or just infatuation.