You know the exact moment where it starts. You might decide to ignore it, pretend it did not happen, make it smaller than it was, but below all those layers, you just know it was there

It’s all in the eyes, you see.

One random day, out of the blue, after 1h or 10 years that you’ve met each other, your eyes lock. And there’s an instant mute on the world, your mind turns blank and you can not move away. The seconds seem like hours, time moving at a different pace. Connection without unnecessary words. A magic spell that you have to break (eventually), but you don’t want to. An alchemy that happens so seldom in one’s life.

And I know exactly the first time it happened with us. After years working together and hundreds of delivered projects, I entered just another meeting room. Colleagues were gathering around us, ready to start one more meeting. You were already there, talking over your laptop when you looked up at me. I frozen in my tracks and all the sound turned instantly off.

People started looking between us, a confused ping pong of eyes not knowing exactly what we were waiting for.

With air trapped in my lungs, unable to look away, to move, I swallowed with effort. Chill spread on my neck, one heavy breathing and I sat down and broke contact.

After it happened a few times, our closed colleagues started to notice. We could not help each other, we did not even tried to avoid or justified it to anybody, least ourselves. Living under the pretence that those spell bounded moments were nothing. Expendable. Replaceable.

How wrong we were. What a mess did we make of everything by the end.