Harmless flirtation. That's all this is.
I see the signals he's throwing. The extra split second his eyes linger when we talk. The weak smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth when he offers a playful joke.
It's OK. I like the attention. No reason to feel guilty. Definitely no need to tell Dan. There's nothing to tell. I'm not crossing any lines. Except...
I feel the mild infatuation, too. There is a sensation that passes through me when I talk to him. He makes me laugh. When I find myself admiring - despite myself, despite my every effort not to - the line of his jaw, there's a surge somewhere beneath my breastbone. And when those dark eyes of his lock on mine, there's a flutter somewhere lower. It's like he could look straight through me. Does he know? Does he sense it? Does his heart smile a little bit with the warmth of affection when I'm around, the same way mine does in his presence?
Not knowing is a thrill. An innocent, little thrill.
----------
I'm tearing through the house. I don't even know what I'm looking for. I am chasing the scent of a phantom.
I am rifling through the bedside table. Her side of the bed. For some stupid reason, I think to search for a diary.
She doesn't keep a diary, Dan. You know this.
But I have this vision in my head I can't shake. In it, I slide the drawer slowly open and see emerging from its shadowy recesses a right angle: one corner of a small book with a hard cover bound in pink fabric. I will grab it by that corner and slide it into the light, open it, and find inside it black ink flowing in a graceful script spilling out the secretly filthy thoughts that run through her mind.
I imagine her writing in it as a young woman, detailing the swelling between her legs the first time a boy kissed her with an open mouth, the feel of his soft lips warm against hers, the slippery sensation of his tongue writhing over hers and the thrill of being wanted causing her to ignite with the thought of being touched elsewhere. She annotates her emerging desire: the burning from her breastbone to the spot between her legs, the conflicted shame when she gets home and slips her hand down inside her clothes to touch herself only to find the crotch of her panties already wet with arousal.