It started with a theft (two actually! his phone and her shirt)
all in good fun, of course.

Then came the texts... slow and steady at first, they gradually gathered speed until it was almost too much, every hour filled with conversations, every break spent lost in words. One day it all stopped (cause someone expressed “concern”)

That full stop was just a comma though, and they settled into a comfortable regularity, knowing that the pauses were not ends.

She knew all too well that parts of her heart were falling for parts of his. Falling for his heart, his disarming vulnerability, his humility, his generous sharing of love, his thoughts, his dreams, his stories...

She also knew, in the gnarly depths of her mind that he was not falling. That maybe (definitely) his heart had already found another.

She should have stopped, held back, shut him out, heaven knows she warned herself constantly. “He’s just a friend... a close friend, but a friend nonetheless.” “I’ll get over him eventually... ” “He won’t be the only one... ”

Heaven also knows that people on the path to self-destruction rarely paid heed to the signs.

So it went on for years... She built walls, he dismantled them without even trying. She pushed him away, he barely noticed while drawing her back in.

And so they grew, until that day.

It happened on the beach (because that’s where she’d always imagined it happening, the same beach his dad chose to ask his mum to marry him) He told her that there might be a wedding soon.

A glimmer of hope was shot down by the dark ghosts of the past. Tears filled her eyes. All these years she’d hidden them so well (perhaps too well) but now she couldn’t.

He was confused. “Are you... crying? ” She began to apologize, to make an excuse but then she caught sight of his eyes– concerned, caring, loving but not in love.

Those eyes broke the dam holding back that torrent of words–
“Didn’t you know?
Did your ears not hear my heartbeat every time we got close?
Did you know and choose to ignore it?
Did I imagine it all or was there at some point, some part of your heart that longed to find some part of mine? ”

She stopped to take a breath and noticed his jaw in the sand. She looked at his dumbfounded face and swallowed the rest of that stream (too little, too late).

She chuckled a bit and contemplated playing it off as a joke.

She knew that the answer to each of those questions was a 'no’ and that he was too kind to say so. So she stopped, for good.
.
.
.

They didn’t part ways though, they had grown too close to be torn apart so fast. She danced at his wedding and held a candle for the bride (a beautiful soul, more fitting for him than she could ever hope to be). She played with his children. She took care of his dog when his family went on vacations.

Eventually, she met a man who loved her and proceeded to fall irrevocably in love with him (knowing for certain this time, that he was hers). He danced at her wedding too. Despite it all, they knew that tiny pieces of their hearts would always bear the other’s name.