She kissed me by mistake.
But every mistake has a moment where it feels like fate.
And I—I've been waiting for her to make it again. On purpose.
The night it happened, I could have pushed her away.
I should have.
She wasn't mine. She was never supposed to be mine.
But when her lips found mine in the dark, soft and trembling, I didn't stop her.
I didn't speak.
I just let her take what wasn't hers to take.
Because for that one moment, I could pretend she was.
I told myself it didn't mean anything.
That was lie number one.
The days after, I kept my distance.
Vanessa walked the halls like she was trying to pretend it hadn't happened. I saw the way her eyes flicked away when she spotted me in the elevator. The way her fingers curled around her phone, knuckles white. Like it was her shield. Like it could protect her from what we both knew.
She was scared. Of herself. Of me.
But she never once asked me why I didn't stop her.
She didn't want the answer.
Neither did I.
Because the truth was, I had wanted that kiss long before she ever gave it to me.
Long before Jason ever introduced her as his.
And that was lie number two: That I could keep watching her be his, and feel nothing.
I started keeping things.
Ridiculous things.
The mug she once used when she stayed over. A pen she left on the counter. A single bobby pin that fell from her hair onto the hallway floor.
I kept them in a drawer I never opened unless I was drunk enough to feel like bleeding.
I told myself it was about control.
But it wasn't.
It was obsession.
It was the quiet, unbearable ache of a man who had tasted something he could never have again.
And it was killing me—softly, beautifully.
Like her.
Sometimes, at night, when Jason was out and the apartment was silent, I'd walk past her door.
I never knocked.
Never entered.
But I'd stand there, forehead resting against the cool wood, and pretend there was a version of this story where I was the one waiting inside for her.
Where I was the one she undressed for. The one who made her laugh.
The one she loved.
I didn't even need to be loved. Just… seen.
But she never looked at me like that. Not back then.
Back then, I was the mistake she wouldn't admit.
And maybe I was okay with that.
Maybe I was already addicted to being the secret.
Because secrets are harder to kill than love.
The first time I saw her cry, it broke something in me.
She thought no one was watching. She sat alone in the conference room after hours, shoulders shaking, mascara smudged. I stood outside the glass wall, frozen.
I wanted to go in. To hold her. To ask what happened.
But I didn't.
Because I knew.
It was Jason.
It was always Jason.
And I was the coward who watched her shatter from the other side of the glass.
Then came the shift.
Small at first.
A longer glance. A touch that lingered.
The night she laughed at something I said—really laughed—and I felt it like a goddamn earthquake under my skin.
I knew I was already too far gone.
So I gave myself rules. Invisible lines I wouldn't cross.
No texts.
No confessions.
No touching unless she touched first.
It was the only way I could survive wanting her.
Because wanting her was no longer the problem.
Needing her was.
I watched her unravel.
Slowly.
Deliciously.
She started showing up in places she didn't need to be. Walking the long way through my department. Asking about projects she had no connection to.
I pretended not to notice.
But I was counting every step.
Every second.
Every breath that passed between us without touching.
The day she showed up at my door—alone—I thought I was dreaming.
She didn't say much.
Just looked at me like she was asking a question neither of us knew how to voice.
So I answered her with silence.
I let her in.
She walked around my apartment like she belonged. Like she had always belonged.
And maybe she had.
Maybe some women don't enter your life.
They return.
She didn't kiss me that night.
She sat on my couch. Drank my wine. Fell asleep with her head on my shoulder.
And I didn't move.
Not for hours.
Because that moment—quiet, weightless, unearned—felt more intimate than sex ever could.
I looked down at her and thought: This is what home feels like.
Then she left in the morning, without a word.
And I knew I was fucked.
Because I wasn't just in love with her anymore.
I was hers.
And she didn't even know it.
I didn't try to take her from Jason.
Not because I was noble.
Because I was terrified.
Of what I'd do to her once I had her.
Because the way I wanted her—it wasn't soft.
It wasn't kind.
It wasn't safe.
It was wildfire.
And I didn't want to be the man who made her burn just because I didn't know how to let her go.
But the night she kissed me again—this time fully awake, fully aware—I broke every rule.
She said, "This is wrong."
I said, "Then stop."
She didn't.
And neither did I.
That night, I touched her like a prayer. Like I was trying to memorize the shape of salvation.
Because I knew it was the beginning of the end.
And I wanted it anyway.
The aftermath was ugly.
She pulled away.
She ran.
I let her.
But I never stopped waiting.
Because no matter how far she went, I knew—Vanessa was always coming back to me.
Not because she loved me.
But because deep down, some part of her knew I was the only man who would never ask her to be anything but broken.
And that was lie number three:
That I could ever be whole without her.
They say obsession is when you can't stop thinking about someone.
But love?
Love is when you'd still die for them—even after they walk away.
And I would have.
Every day.
Every night.
Quietly.
Without question.
Because long before she kissed me—
She ruined me.
And I've been thanking her for it ever since.