“Between Guilt and Desire” ( To be continued…)

Okay, I can explain. He was my best friend’s boyfriend, but I couldn’t contain myself.

We had met a few times—enough to create electricity in the air, where every moment of distance became a magnet, pulling

us even closer. We were very similar, where glances carried the same unspoken meaning, where one moment was enough

to understand each other more than we should. One look meant more than the knowledge we had, or

than what we were supposed to be. We weren’t strangers, yet we felt closer than merely

"friends."

Guilt lived in my conscience, tormenting me every moment, but the fire extinguished any awkwardness or

fear. It is a feeling that dominates more than fear or loss. Everything else fades except the fire you feel in that

moment. To burn in a fire you’ve created yourself is one of the most beautiful and simultaneously ugly feelings.

And I was about to burn in the fire I was creating—for someone who belonged to someone I knew very well.

My best friend, the girl I had shared years of friendship with—dinners, lunches, joyful and

sad moments. Someone I had found support in, as she had in me. Someone I trusted with all my heart, and

someone who trusted me more than anything. I was falling in love with her love, with her boyfriend.

And I never had the courage to tell her the truth to her face. The feeling of conscience would have tormented me even

more if I had told her than if I kept it to myself and lived with the beautiful, fleeting sensation of burning.

But I chose to burn—in his eyes, in his heart. As if we were nothing, as if he were not someone familiar, or

someone who belonged to another. I felt as if he had been mine for a long time.

And there was no feeling more wrong and right at the same time—for me, for him, perhaps for

us… The glances, the moments, grew increasingly tense. The feeling inside me grew stronger, and

I could no longer avoid it. Perhaps because I felt the same thing from him, perhaps because

his gaze spoke just as mine did. Perhaps we both felt the same, perhaps we were both burning in the same fire without

realizing it. Until one evening, he offered to walk me home. An evening where I had spent several hours at their

house—my friend’s and her boyfriend’s. He offered to take me home; the hour was around 11 p.m.

The sense of awkwardness grew with every passing minute. Silence had enveloped us both, I kept looking out the window

to avoid his gaze, maybe even his words. •

"Do you like looking out the window, Rea?"

I heard Bjorn’s voice. I froze for a moment, and replied hastily. •

"Uh, yes,"

I said, a bit awkwardly, turning back to look at the street while clutching the car handle.

My hands were sweaty. •

"And what else do you like?"

My heart froze in that moment; I didn’t know what to say. The question seemed a bit deliberate, but

I wanted to be careful. •

"In what sense?"

I continued. •

"In general!"

•

"Why are you curious?"

Perhaps it was too much for someone who was supposedly my close friend’s boyfriend.

My answer was a bit rushed, one of those naive replies where haste speaks before thought.

•

"Maybe I’m just curious!"

•

"Why?"

The question came again, naturally. At that point, I didn’t know what I would say later.

•

"Because you’re someone I value!"

I continued. Perhaps, in a way, he was right. Maybe a part of me wanted him not to value me as he claimed, but

in another way, in another form. Like those glances, the looks we throw at each other.

Like those moments where we remain speechless, and the silence fills the air more than necessary for

both of us. I needed him more than what we were. Even though it was forbidden, I wanted him to be mine, no matter

how painful, wrong, and deceitful the truth was…