Page 67 of My Forbidden Boss

Defeated, the sound of my heavy exhale filled the space, the only company I could expect.

I dragged my feet across the room, gruffly removing my arms from my jacket and folding it lengthwise. I carelessly tossed it across the back of a corner chair. I wrangled the tie from around my neck as my emotions bubbled into a boil. Silently, I balled it up and hurled it violently toward the mirror staring back at me from across the room, but I only felt more undermined as the tie barely made it halfway before anticlimactically taking a nosedive into the carpet.

Ambivalently, I readied myself for bed, throwing back the covers and climbing in, accompanied by my thousandth sigh of regret.

I added shame to my list of self-inflicted faults as I scolded my own temperament. It was a terrific day, practically perfect in every way. I knew without even wondering that I wouldn’t have gone back and stopped myself from backing away from her at the restaurant.

It was the right choice… and the right thing to do. But goddamnit…

Again, I sighed, rolling over and dousing the bedside lamp with the click of a small switch.

My eyes didn’t stay shut for long, opening wide and glancing around the darkened room as my mind continued to let my thoughts mix and mingle. As my vision adjusted, the door to the common room fell under my stare. I watched it without seeing, envisioning the few steps beyond and walking up to its twin across the hall, willing it to open.

My mind kept stepping forward, moving through the threshold of Tisha’s room. I wondered where she was at that very moment and soon found myself physically peering through the darkness around my bed, quickly considering all possibilities since both bedrooms were virtually mirror images of each other.

I searched each shadow, encircling each spot with my mind, and leaning into it, longing for one to come to life.

It really was the perfect day, all things considered. I knew that I shouldn’t have been disappointed with how it ended, no matter how I felt. The truth was, the whole experience was spectacular and couldn’t have gone any better. For sure, it could have been indefinitely worse.

I remembered how little I actually knew about her and marveled, realizing the full scale of her depth, beauty, and intrigue that still remained to be sought out. The way that she saw details, the little intricacies of things that other people dismissed as trivial or dull, the sound of her laugh, the fluid brilliance behind every one of her offhand, edgy comebacks… It was just from one night’s worth of memories, memories that were skating circles through my mind, cutting figure eights deep within that which was consciousness and absolutely shredding those thoughts which lurked in my subconscious below.

For a moment, my spirits sank. I wondered if I was just being ridiculous; if I was just a gambler who had convinced himself that the odds didn’t apply to him. Indeed, she was out of my league, but the image of her eyes looking at me kept flashing back.

Soon, I was adjusting my pillow, feeling favorable again as I felt sure it wasn’t just all in my head.

Round and round, my thoughts swirled, dragging my hopes and fears along for the ride.

Unable to sleep, I eventually got up and paced the floor, feeling the cool stones near the bathroom beneath my feet and marveling at how much the feeling compared to that which continued gnawing its way through both my body and soul.

I stopped beside my door a dozen times, then a dozen more. I would turn abruptly, taking one quick step away. Still, I could only seem to make it a single shuffle further before I was spiraling back with newfound purpose.

Each pause saw my hand reaching closer and closer for the door’s handle, and soon, I was simply standing there with it held unmoving in my grasp. I wheeled back as the cool metal warmed from my perspiring palm, berating myself and concluding that there wasn’t any chance that Tisha was still awake.

I couldn’t get my mind off her. It was driving me mad.

The silence in my room became deafening, broken only by the rhythmic padding of my bare feet on the floor and my own bated breathing. An hour must have passed that way, but for all I knew, only mere moments had transpired, prolonged to the point of pain as pride and permission became my only barriers to breaking out of my door.

I’m not sure what precisely defined my physical limit, but suddenly my motions weren’t interrupted or forestalled with hesitation any longer.

My door was open, revealing the shaded space between our rooms. I held my breath and stepped forward, seeing through the darkness broken only by the shimmer of moonlight streaming through the back window.

Before I could think otherwise, I was at her door and barely breathing. I stood silently, imagining just what would await me with just one step further.

Should I? Is this even okay? I feel like I’m breaking some kind of rule here… or at least bending a few.

My anxiety hadn’t quite reached the concerns of Human Resources like Tisha had suggested. Still, the suspicion of my own self-delusion was close enough to that level of seriousness for my fixated brain to estimate the same potential cost. I felt ridiculous but found my body still rooted there, refusing wholeheartedly to turn back.

With a deep breath, I shut out my fears and accepted the only choice available.

My fingers tightened, wrapping loosely into a fist at my side.

My wrist lifted, hovering just shy of her door’s paneling.

This could get ugly. She’s probably asleep. I’m just going to wake her and be standing here like… ‘Hey, how’s it going? Remember me?’ Oh god, it’s going to be so awkward. And I’m not going to have anything to say. This is me, throwing the game. I should go back…

My arm shook, but I moved it back.

Fuck it.