INSIDE THEIR MINDS

Why

KATE

I attempt to rub hard at my lips, the guilt now vibrating inside of me.

"This can't happen again." I whisper.

"I understand." He whispered back.

For some reason I feel even more guilty after he spoke. He "understands"? What does he understand? What is holding him back, my own guilt or his? The honest truth is that I want more, but more of what?

Was I just so desperate for some physical attention that I would just toss away my morals? Am I just so stressed out being in my current situation that I just begged from some overwhelming distraction to get me through it? Or is it because I am actually interested in the Phil Harrison?

"Is this something you always do?" I ask, my curiosity getting the best of me.

"No. "This" is something I've never done before."

"Then what makes me so special?" I ask.

"I honestly don't know." He said actually sounding truthful. "I can't help but think it's all of the recent stress that I have been under, this just being the tip of the iceberg, but that doesn't excuse my behavior."

"You're right, it doesn't." I say trying to win the battle of my own mind against my more basic human instincts.

It also isn't right that I am having inappropriate thoughts of him, it isn't right that my mind is creating beautiful imaginary thoughts of him and us together. None of this is right, but is it wrong? Is it wrong to let your instincts make choices for you, to "go with your gut"? Is it wrong to want the touch of the man? No, but in my book it is wrong to lust after a man that is so unavailable.

"Maybe it would help us both to talk about ourselves for a little while. Maybe we could learn things about each other that we don't like." He suggests finally inching himself away from me, now a full foot away.

"Yeah, maybe that could work."

"Well we could start off with odd things, the odder the better I suppose. Do you have any gross habits? I used to have a lucky sock in high school..."

"Ew, gross."

"No." He says laughing so hard he could barely breathe. "That's not. No!" He continues laughing. "I had a lucky sock that I would wear when I would play soccer, I would never wash it so it reeked but I always won when I wore it." He continues to laugh so hard that his voice echoed inside the confined space.

I couldn't help but laugh too. "That's still pretty gross."

"Hey, everyone has their gross habits. Don't you?"

"Not any I can think of at the top of my head."

"Oh." He says sounding disappointed.

"Do you still have it, the "lucky" sock?"

"Yes, actually. It's tucked away in my garage, my wife would kill me if she knew about it." He laughed again.

It was such a calming laugh. Something about it was so authentic and it somehow always made me smile too, and in this circumstance I'm glad that he couldn't see my own smile in the darkness.

"I don't see it that way, okay maybe a little, but it's much more than just some "dirty sock" a good chuck of your childhood you spent working hard and winning games. That's one of the only physical traces of that time you have left, and success should never be laughed at, even if it is achieved with a disgusting stocking."

"Well I'm glad you're not completely grossed out, unlike, what's your coworker's name?"

"Chad."

"That's true, Chad does make me feel a little disgusted from time to time."