3
I didn’t dare say a word, terrified that he would recognize my voice. In a way, this was for the best. He was just as the rumors described him: aloof, untouchable, utterly uninterested in the women who flocked to him He had loyal subordinates to build his walls and keep the world at bay.
I took a deep breath, swallowed the lump in my throat, and ran.
The day I left five years ago, I swore I would never appear before Harris Croft again. Because seeing him, even once, would throw my world into chaos.
I couldn’t forget him. I couldn’t stop loving him.
Unrequited love is a lonely war, and it’s exhausting. It was better for us to go our separate ways, to never
meet again.
I found a nearby bar and started drinking, one glass after another, trying to quench the fire in my soul.
So many nights, I would dream of him. In my dreams, I would secretly kiss Harris. All the things I never dared to do in reality, I did with a fearless passion in my sleep.
The Harris in my dreams never rejected me. He would stroke my hair gently, letting me push him down any- where, anytime. Like against the grand piano in the corner of the Croft family living room.
After we were rescued, he loved to sit with me there, his hands guiding mine over the keys. Those were bea- utiful, sun-drenched memories.
In my dreams, I loved pinning him against that piano, taking off his gold-rimmed glasses, and unbuttoning
his shirt. He would always have that faint, lazy smile on his lips.
He would lean in, his breath warm against my ear, and whisper wickedly, “You want to kiss me? How badly?”
“Desperately,” I would answer through tears.
His voice would drop to a low, seductive murmur. “Then I’ll let you. Alright?”
The dream blurred the lines of reality, giving me a courage I never possessed when I was awake. I would pull off his tie and use it to blindfold him, feeling bold and reckless.
“Okay,” I’d say. “But you can’t move.”
But every single time, just as my lips were about to touch his, I would wake up.
I’d throw my pillow across the room in frustration, then close my eyes, trying desperately to recall the feeling of his voice in my ear, to slip back into the dream and finish what I started.
It never worked.
I was drunk. And my drunken fingers did something stupid. I logged into my old, private social media accou
I hadn’t touched it in years. It was a secret diary, filled with all the forbidden thoughts and feelings I’d had for Harris since I was a teenager. It was the chronicle of my lonely war. I had tried to bury it, to never look at it again. But seeing Harris tonight had stirred up a storm inside me. I couldn’t stop myself. I typed out a new
post.
[Everyone says I’m his irreplaceable, long-lost love.]
[If only that were true.]
[But I’m the only one who knows the truth. To him, I can only ever be his sister.]
I had no idea that this small, drunken act was about to cause an earthquake.
