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My remorse and guilt is palpable, and it’s speeding through my body as fast as a lightning bolt. Scratch that; it feels faster. More like the re-entry speed of a space shuttle.
An overwhelming wave of fear crashes over me without warning, the suffocating tightness in my chest making it difficult to breathe.
What am I doing?
Should I call my new workplace first thing Monday and tell them I’m not taking the job anymore?
Because what if he sees me?
What then?
Game over.
Boom!
Everything I’ve been planning for years will go up in flames.
So why then did I jeopardize everything for one night of sex?
It was great sex.
Life changing.
Possibly not, but it felt like it was.
It wasjustsex, Ari. Stop trying to convince yourself otherwise.
My inner reasoning flips back and forth between right and wrong, good and bad, success and failure.
It wasn’t just sex.
It wasn’t.
It was more.
Way more.
It was sex with someone I was drawn to like a bee to nectar and couldn’t resist a taste of. All despite knowing I may now have risked everything.
I’ve been such a fool.
The loud ringing in my ears makes my eardrums feel like they are wired to a fire alarm that’s screaming in my skull, and the tightness across my chest almost becomes unbearable. It feels like someone has punched all the air out of my lungs, which makes me clench the fabric of my dress in my fist right over my heart.
Pull yourself together, Ari. Now is not the time to give up.
It’s a setback, nothing more.
Or maybe I’m overthinking.
Closing my eyes, I release a deep sigh that’s heavy with shame and regret and silently pray the elevator will stop spinning like a tornado tearing through town.
I feel like I’m losing my mind.
I take another breath in.
Then blow out and hold it for a split second.
I do the same over and over again, until the sense of unbearable doom that was creeping its way through my body backs off, and I imagine myself stamping it underfoot and crushing it to smithereens.