Between Desks [Episode One: First Remark]

She noticed him the way one notices a quiet change in the weather: subtle, undeniable, impossible to ignore once felt.

It began with nothing dramatic. A shared meeting room. A passing glance while waiting for the coffee machine to finish its slow, irritated gurgle. His voice - steady, unhurried—cutting through the noise of the office floor as he explained something to a client. She told herself it was curiosity. Professional admiration. Nothing more.

But curiosity does not linger.

She knew the rules. She had built her life around them. A husband who trusted her. A four-year-old son whose laughter filled her evenings and whose small hand fit perfectly into hers. A routine that was safe, respectable, complete.

And yet, every morning, as she adjusted her ID card and stepped into the office, her thoughts betrayed her.

She never crossed the line. Not once. No messages. No excuses to linger. No invitations disguised as work. Instead, she maintained a careful distance, measured, disciplined, almost clinical. The kind that protected reputations.

But inside her, restraint burned.

Sometimes, she imagined the simplest rebellion: a conversation that lasted longer than necessary. A moment where neither of them looked away first. A sentence that carried meaning beneath its professional tone.

That was all she wanted. Or so she told herself.

She caught him watching her once, not openly, just enough to confirm that she wasn’t alone in this quiet tension. Their eyes met, held for half a second too long, and then both looked away, pretending nothing had happened.

Her heart did not pretend.

That evening, as she tucked her son into bed and listened to him talk about school, she wondered how something so small, so harmless, had begun to feel so dangerous.

She had not touched him. She had not spoken her thoughts. She had not done anything wrong.

And yet, as she lay awake later, staring at the ceiling, she knew this was only the beginning.

Some distances are harder to maintain than others.

To be continued…