“No.”
He nodded as though he understood.
Then he said, “I don’t want to wake up at forty and realize I’ve spent twenty years living somebody else’s dream.”
For a moment, I saw something familiar in him.
Not attraction.
Not desire.
Loneliness.
The kind that can exist even in a beautiful house surrounded by people who claim to love you.
“Then don’t wait until you’re forty to start asking yourself what you want,” I told him.
He smiled.
“See? That’s why I like talking to you.”
I should have ended the conversation there.
Instead, I stayed.
And that was how the boundaries began to blur—not through one dramatic decision, but through a series of small choices that each seemed harmless on their own.
The Night We Should Have Walked Away
On the second evening, a summer storm rolled over the neighborhood.
Rain hammered the roof, and thunder rattled the windows. We watched an old movie in the living room, sitting at opposite ends of the sofa.
