Motive

So much has happened that I can’t quite trace where it began—how an ordinary day, one where I simply looked up from my laptop to steal a glance at you, became something that now lingers in every quiet moment of my life.

At first, it was harmless.

Just glances.

You, across the room, unaware—or maybe not entirely unaware. Your face is soft, almost disarming, your eyes catching light in a way that makes it impossible to look away for too long. I’d pretend to focus on my screen, but my gaze would drift back to you, drawn like something instinctive, something I couldn’t quite name.

And then there were those moments.

You’d laugh—tilting your head slightly, your eyes crinkling—and just for a second, you’d look at me. Our eyes would meet, and I’d look away too quickly, heart betraying me, fingers suddenly still over my keyboard. When I dared to look back, you’d already turned away, as if nothing had happened… but everything had.

You have no idea what you do without trying.

The way you stand, stretching your arms slightly as you explain something, your hands shaping thoughts mid-air. The quiet confidence in your posture. The way your fingers move—absently, unconsciously—over your face, your hair, your lips.

It’s distracting most dangerously.

Because while you’re there, immersed in your world, I’m somewhere else entirely—imagining what it would feel like to close that distance. To step into your space. To feel your presence not across a room, but right in front of me… closer than I should allow.

I go home, but you don’t leave.

You follow me into the quiet—into the softness of morning light, into the stillness of lying in bed, fingers tracing absent patterns against my skin as I realize, with a small, almost reluctant smile… It’s you again.

Always you.

And I wonder—why is it always the ones we can’t have who feel the closest?

The ones who never quite cross the line, yet linger just at the edge of it.

Back at work, it’s worse.

You sit across from me, completely unaware of the storm you create. Your focus is intense, your movements effortless—fingers brushing your jaw, your lips, your hair—as if each gesture has a rhythm of its own. I watch longer than I should, caught in something that feels both innocent and anything but.

You smile at someone else.

And something tightens inside me.

Because I know.

You are yours, in your world—and I am mine, in mine. We barely intersect. Different roles, different paths. No real reason for our lives to overlap the way my thoughts insist they should.

And yet—

In my mind, we do.

Too easily.

Too often.

I imagine moments that never happen. Conversations that never begin. The space between us is dissolving, replaced by something warmer… closer… dangerous in a way that feels impossible to resist.

But reality always returns.

And so I do what I’ve learned to do best—

I gather myself, tie my hair back, steady my breath… and pretend none of it exists.

Even when every part of me is quietly, relentlessly waiting—

Next time I’ll see you again.