She looks at him sleeping by her side. She looks at the scar below his eye, his sharp nose, those large eyes, now closed, his thin lips. She looks at the lines that are beginning to crease his forehead, the hairline which is starting to recede. She looks at his fingers, his hands...she knows how it feels to be held by them, she knows their touch and their warmth. Her heart overflows with love for him. She respects him for the man he is. She adores him for the father he is. She wants to cuddle up to him, to smell him.

But there is a shadow which stops her. Her dark secret, which calls her a liar, an infidel.

It all started a year back. She had been restless and lonely, in a state of limbo. It seemed to her as if she was waiting for something to happen. As if there was emptiness nothing could fulfill. She did love her husband even then. But their love was different. They were good at working together, facing challenges together. But she hungered for his words, words he would use sparsely. She hungered to talk to him about things that she instinctively felt. But he could not understand what she was talking about. Oh, he was a good man. But they fought each other…she fought for passion and he fought back for stability. Romance and pragmatism rarely go together.

It was stifling her, this need to express, this desire to be understood. She wanted to feel alive. She wanted to run away, leave everything behind. She wanted to fill her mind, her days so that there was no time to think or feel. It began as a harmless exercise but nothing could prepare her for what came through. She stumbled onto him in the virtual world. His every word seemed as if written from her heart. She read his stories and knew what he meant. She could see her life and pain felt by her lived by him. She could feel his ache, she could feel his loneliness in this parallel dimension. And she reached out. This in itself was an act of boldness on her part….she would never reach out to a stranger. She was comfortable in anonymity. But somehow she wanted to know him better. Perhaps, she just wanted a friend. She was still innocent enough or naïve enough to believe that friendship is a context in itself, that two strangers can be friends. And then it all began….mails, chats, conversations on phone, meetings.

She felt so alive. She felt as if she had someone who could finally understand her. She was swept by such joy at finding a person who could talk velvet to her, make her feel like a woman. She was overwhelmed by the grace of understanding his every word, every inflection of his voice. She was happy. But her practical mind kept warning her….this is too good to be true, be wary. She did not heed her practical mind…she did not want to. She wanted to feel….she wanted to just let go. She would be his muse, if he wanted. She would live out all his fantasies, if he wanted. It was as if she was in a time warp….when she was with him, she was only a woman. Nothing existed besides them. The universe shrunk into his eyes, it reverberated in his laughter. She was just herself. And she reveled in the way he made her feel. She felt him intensely and passionately. She trained her mind to remember every word he uttered. She stamped her mind and soul with the way he looked, the way he smiled and laughed. She felt that she had known him forever.....

In the lucid intervals during this heady time, she would question everything. She knew answers to most of her questions. No, she would not break her family. No, she would not sleep with him. Yes, she will have to let go. But she could never muster the courage to let go. One more week, just one more day….let me hear his voice, let me talk to him. One more time, let me kiss those lips, one more time, let him kiss me back…..just one more time. She would rage with him….oh! why can’t you be normal? Why can’t you just be my friend? Why do you have to complicate everything?

And just as it had started, it ended. He said he was being honorable. He said he did not want to intrude. He said his desire was too much for him handle. She laughed at the irony of the situation. No one had desired her as much as he claimed to. And now the desire was so strong that he wanted to leave her. She could not bear to cut the thread. She could live on the fringes of normality, comfortable with amorality. But how could she deny him what he wanted. The thread was cut and she felt life bleeding away. They parted ways with her mind full of his words, her memories stamped with his voice, her body seared with his touch.

In a way, she was also relieved. Relieved at letting go of her dual existence....she was basically an honest person! Her feelings for him went against her mind. She resolved to never look back. But she feels like an outsider in her own home and a liar. She can't answer her husband when he says he loves her. She can't meet his eye. But sometimes she misses the other too......she misses the conversations, she misses the understanding. She wages a fight against these thoughts. She wants to let go.  She wants to come clean with her husband, tell him all, but she is scared. She is scared to lose everything for something that is not there any more. She continues to live her life, but she hurts inside. She tries to move on and fill her life….but her guilt and memories consume her.

Should she tell her husband? Or will it be better to let it be? Why rake up a dead issue? Will time make it alright? What should she do?

She wonders if the other thinks about her. She knows he is strong and worldly wise…he has definitely moved on. She cannot even differentiate any more if it was real or was it all in her mind. Did she conjure up everything….and did he just flow along, as long as it was convenient? Was this just a manipulation or was there any truth to what they shared? Is it so easy to let go….to share so deeply and never even look back?

Meantime, she splits in agony in her mind, she cries to be free from feeling this searing pain and loneliness; she tries to grope her way back to who she was before she met him…..What should she do?