The Ten-Year Pause

On the night before I left for college, he leaned in to give me the kiss I’d dreamed of for years. Then he stopped. He walked away to ask my brother for permission and never came back. For ten years, that moment of crushing humiliation defined me. Now I’m back in our hometown, a successful architect, and he’s the contractor I’m forced to work with. He’s no longer the boy I adored, but a brooding man full of secrets. And the space between us crackles with a decade of unspoken words, unforgivable hurt, and a desire that never truly died.