Flaw

I keep finding you in ordinary moments.

Across the office floor, between the hum of keyboards and the dull glow of spreadsheets, there you are, wearing that blue collared T-shirt like it was made for you alone. Blue has never belonged to anyone the way it belongs to you. It rests on your shoulders like a quiet claim, like the sky decided to take shape just to be closer to you.

You’re laughing at something trivial, something that doesn’t matter but I watch the way your lips curve, the way your head tilts slightly as if you’re listening to a world I’m not part of. I pretend to focus on my screen, but my eyes betray me. They always find you. They linger longer than they should.

And it hurts.

Not the kind of hurt that screams. The kind that settles sharp, precise, almost beautiful in its cruelty. The kind that makes you wonder how something so easy on the eyes can be so difficult on the heart.

I remember the café.

You were sitting there, one hand resting against your face, legs crossed, wearing that almost-smile you wear when you’re amused but still in control. I teased you half joking, half daring about sitting on your lap. You didn’t think I would.

Maybe I didn’t either.

But something in me broke its own rules that day. I walked over and sat down, right there, on you unannounced, uninvited, unstoppable. For a second, time paused. You stiffened. Surprise flickered across your face. And then… something softer. Something quieter. Something I chose to believe meant you didn’t entirely mind.

You’ve always liked control. You wore it like a second skin. And I reckless, aching me kept trying to slip past it.

I remember your eyes the most.

Dark. Deep. Unfairly beautiful.

I used to lose myself in them across the office. Work would blur into background noise, deadlines dissolving into nothing, because all I wanted so shamelessly, so completely was to look at you. Just look. As if memorizing your face could somehow make you mine.

You were a distraction I never tried to fix.

We met in fragments. A follow on Instagram. A reply to a story maybe roses, maybe your birthday, maybe something insignificant that turned into something else. I remember hoping you wouldn’t reply.

You did.

And that’s how it began. Soft. Casual. Almost forgettable until it wasn’t.

Smiles in office corridors. Passing glances. Small conversations that carried more weight than they should have. You, leaning over your desk, talking to your manager like the world was simple and structured. Me, watching you through reflections screens, glass, anything that let me look without being caught.

You receiving your award. That quiet pride in your posture.

And me holding a plant I got the same day, absurdly wishing I could place yours on your desk myself. Something living, something growing… something that could stay where I couldn’t.

But nothing stays where it isn’t meant to.

I remember the hug.

God, I remember that hug.

I had brought you something small I don’t even remember what it was now. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the way you held me. Like I was something to be kept, just for that moment. Your arms around me felt like a pause button on a life that never slows down. Warm. Certain. Dangerous in how safe it felt.

And those soft, fleeting kisses barely there, but enough to rewrite entire nights in my head. My neck, my cheek… each one a question you never stayed long enough to answer.

In that moment, I believed you.

I believed the way you made me feel.

Like I was chosen. Like I was wanted. Like maybe just maybe this could become something more than stolen time and unfinished sentences.

But I left too quickly.

Or maybe you did.

And what remained was a storm unspoken things, incomplete desires, questions that never found their way back to you. A kind of emotional debris that lingers long after the moment has passed.

I wanted more.

Not just your touch. Not just your attention in fragments.

I wanted time. Conversations that didn’t feel borrowed. Walks that didn’t end in silence. Tea that didn’t come with an expiration.

You didn’t.

You wanted something simpler. Something lighter. Something that didn’t ask for permanence.

And I foolish, hopeful, unbearably human wanted to keep you.

Not just in moments.

But in my life.

Forever, if I’m being honest.

And maybe that was my mistake.

Because some people aren’t meant to stay.

They arrive like a beautiful interruption turn your world softer, brighter, more alive and then leave you to deal with the echo.

You were that echo.

And somehow… I’m still listening.