Dangerous Games

LOVING IN THE DARK

"Come in." He called out when he heard a knock at the door. His fingers clicked and clacked over the keyboard.

Work was going well, and so were things in his life. After months of feeling like he was being tossed about in a storm, Samuel was finding his footing again. It felt good. He had a few jobs and found himself deep in work.

"One second, Roy, I am finishing up with this and..."

"It's me, Samuel."

His head snapped up. "Flora?"

"You don't have a secretary still, it seems. I would have tried to make an appointment." He indicated that she could enter, and she did. "Then again, if I made an appointment, I am sure you would have found ways to cancel."

Samuel couldn't argue with that. After he found out about her meeting Kali, he was haunted by the need to see her. The excuses were as deep as the oceans. The reason he never allowed himself to do it was that there was nothing he said wouldn't give her false hopes. Or, at the least, prove to her that he was using pretexts to see her.

"What can I do for you?"

"I came to ask for a favour."

"Okay?"

"Free me."

"Free you?" She nodded, and he got up from the chair and walked over to her, closing the door she opened. "What do you mean by that."

"Ever since you left me months ago, I had doubts that you would just leave me. I held on to the hope that something was making you leave me. Even now, after watching you marry another woman, the doubt is still in my mind."

"And you want me to free you from the doubt? I am sorry I don't know how to do that."

"No. I don't need freedom from doubt. I need you to free me from you."

"What?"

"I still love you, Samuel." His heart stuttered at her words, and he kept the smile from reaching his face. He couldn't deny that he was happy to hear it. He missed hearing her voice, but his joy didn't last long.

"I still love you, and I hate myself for it. You have moved on to another woman, and I am still here, pathetically waiting for you. Waiting to hear there is something more going on." She pinched her nose, closing her eyes and holding herself back from crying. "If you were going to marry her, why didn't you wait till I was over you? Why were you so merciless? Why allow me to still have love for you in my heart?"

"It's not fair that you put that on me."

"You could have waited a bit more, save me some dignity. What was I to you all these years? One second, I am the woman you love, and the moment I turn around, you aren't just in love with someone else. So in love, you are ready to marry her. And you do. With me, you wanted to wait till things were perfect until things were falling into place. But with her, the whole world could turn on its head, and you still had to marry her."

"I know how it looks."

"It looks like she has something I don't, and I want to hear what it is, Samuel. I want to hear your reason for choosing her over me."

"I know you will never believe me, but hurting you is the last thing I want to do."

She poked furiously at his chest. "This is what I hate about you right now. You want to still appear to be the nice guy in this, and it's not helping me at all. Seeing all I love about you while you treat me harshly doesn't help me."

He couldn't do what she was asking him. It was an idea that took turns in his head the day before they broke up, but he couldn't let the words out of his mouth. Tarnishing their love or demeaning it didn't sit well with him. Maybe if he had done that, she would have been at peace.

"I couldn't bring myself to hurt you."

"Why not." She cupped his face and looked into his pained gaze with her clouded eyes. "Why not tear me apart if you care for me even a little. A morsel of love would not let you watch me suffer. Set me free, Samuel."

"I don't know how."

"Break my heart. It's why I am here. I want you to finally tell me all about how you lost yourself in another woman while we were still together. Tell me all the ways she is better than me, all the things she gives you that I couldn't. Destroy me once and for all so I can stop suffering."

"By hating me?"

"Maybe, but first and foremost, by seeing what you see. Understanding why you had to leave. I might be angry at first, but I will understand your choice eventually and move on."

"Flora."

"For once in your life, don't try to be the nice person in the room. Do that much for me. Don't you see how much all of this is hurting me?"

"I do."

"You don't. What am I asking? You don't see it. You are not the one that goes to bed crying most nights. You don't have to remind yourself that you aren't less of a woman because the man you loved for years married a woman he knew in a few months. You aren't me."

He looked away, unable to bare it anymore. He just managed to scrape together a decent way of living with his new wife. He had reconciled with their situation, and now all that relief was washed away. No matter his intentions, the truth was he hurt Flora.

"I am sorry. I can't give you what you need. No matter how much I want to help you feel better, I can't do that."

"Why?"

"I just can't. You don't deserve that."

"And yet you did it."

"Not because you were less of a woman than she was. Things happened how they did. I am at fault here, not you. You don't need to hear you are imperfect to feel better. If you want to hate me, hate me."

She kissed him. It was so sudden he didn't have the time to react, and when he did, his mind didn't let him pull away. The pad of her fingers dug into the back of his neck, and she held him close against her. Unconsciously, his hand went around her hips, drawing her body closer, enveloping him in all the scents and warmth he missed.

Before he could get bolder, he snapped back into the reality of their situation.

"Flora," He held her elbow and pushed her away. With the back of his hand, he wiped his mouth. He put a much needed distance between them, stepping back till he was behind his desk.

"Do you see the situation you have put yourself in?" Flora waltzed over to the chair, coldly staring him down as she grabbed her purse. "You have damned yourself to being a married man with his heart divided into two places."

"My heart has no divisions."

"Even if you don't believe that. But repeat it a few more times until you do." She made it towards the door before spinning around to face him again. "And let me warn you, the day your love for that woman fades, and you see how you rushed things, I won't be waiting for you at my door. I won't spend my youth chasing a man who didn't value me enough to respect our relationship."

The door banged after her exit, and Samuel slammed his head into the cushioned body of his chair.