After the movie situation, I realized something—I genuinely loved spending time with her outside the office too. It wasn't just lunch breaks or random conversations anymore. Even small outings with her felt special to me in ways I never admitted aloud.
About a week later, I thought of asking her again for a movie.
That morning, me, Felix, and Ryan were standing in the corridor near the office entrance, casually talking about random things before work started. A few minutes later, Ruth walked into the office premises. Like always, we stopped her and started having our usual conversations—small jokes, casual teasing, nothing serious.
Somewhere during that conversation, I asked her:
"Movie this weekend?"
I expected teasing. Maybe excuses. Maybe even a yes.
But instead, she said:
"I already have plans that day."
Normally I would have stopped there. But for some reason, I insisted.
"What plans?"
And before she could answer, Felix casually said:
"Her boyfriend is coming to meet her."
For a second, everything around me stopped.
The corridor noise faded.
The conversations faded.
Even my own thoughts froze.
I genuinely couldn't process what I had just heard.
To confirm it, I looked at her and asked:
"Is that true?"
And then she said it.
"Yeah. My boyfriend is visiting me."
That moment felt like watching every dream I had built quietly inside myself collapse all at once.
Ryan noticed it too. I could feel him observing me from the side, probably realizing what was happening inside me without me saying a word.
But inside my head, chaos had already begun.
Boyfriend?
Since when?
Why didn't she tell me before?
Then what about all those conversations?
I remembered the time when I had asked her directly whether she was in a relationship. Back then, she had said no. Or at least that's what I believed she meant.
And suddenly I felt stupid.
Like I had followed a lie too far and built feelings on something that was never real to begin with.
Trying to keep my voice normal, I asked:
"Wait… boyfriend? You told me you were single."
She replied calmly:
"No, I never told you I was single. I just hid the fact that I had a boyfriend."
That statement hit even harder.
What does that even mean?
Was I actually a fool this whole time?
Or was I slowly made into one?
But despite all of that, I acted normal. I had to. The last thing I wanted was for her to realize how deeply I had fallen for her.
So I smiled.
And then, as if nothing had happened, she started telling us about her relationship—how it began, how long they had been together, little stories about him.
I listened.
Or at least I pretended to.
Because with every sentence, something inside me kept breaking further. Still, I nodded along with a calm face, acting like it didn't affect me at all.
After that conversation ended, I went back to my desk.
But work became impossible.
Every thought I ever had about her started replaying in my mind—every smile, every lunch break, every moment I had secretly treasured. And now all of it felt different. Broken. Meaningless. Or maybe meaningful only to me.
That entire day, I became unusually quiet.
And she noticed.
At one point she asked me:
"What happened to you today? Why are you behaving differently?"
How could I possibly answer that?
How could I tell her:
"Because the thing you told me this morning completely shattered me."
So instead, I rebuilt myself again.
I forced my usual behavior back onto my face. I laughed at jokes. I spoke normally. I acted like the same person I had always been around her.
But inside, there was too much noise.
Smiling had always been like makeup for me. I was never someone who cried in front of people. Most people only knew my happy version. The joking version. The easygoing version.
No one saw what existed underneath.
That night, one truth became impossible to ignore:
What I wanted was probably never going to happen.
And somewhere deep inside, a painful thought kept repeating itself—
I wish I had met her before him.
But what hurt me even more was this:
Even after knowing she had a boyfriend…
even after feeling my heart break because of it…
I still loved her.
And I didn't understand why.
I asked myself that question again and again that night:
Why?
Why do I still love her?
Why can't I stop?
But love rarely waits for logic before it enters a person's life.
And sometimes, by the time reality arrives—
the heart is already too deep to return.