forbidden love (Callie Hope One-shot)

She remembers the first day she meet him, her Dario.

She would always remember his warm smile, his patience. It was truly amazing how be had been able to sit next to a distressed stranger, one who wept by his side, and not complained, or judged once. Dario was something like a much needed ray sunlight in her life, which was growing darker and darker each passing night. She used to think that her and Leo would be able to surpass their differences, that they would one day sort themselves out... if not for themselves but for their children. But as the days went on and on they seemed grow further and further apart. The distance between them no longer able to be fixed by simple words, or acts of kindness.

Or maybe they both simply had just stopped trying.

Dario had invited her to coffee after that. Even though he new she was married he had expressed his desire to want to get to know her, to understand her more. He wanted to know what made her tick. What made her smile, or frown, or cry. He wanted to know what she thought of moments before falling asleep at night. Or what thoughts crossed her mind the first thing in the morning. She new that it was wrong, she knew that she shouldn't, that she would be crossing a line that she would never be able to fix.

But she was drawn to him. She was drawn to his energy, to his life. She was drawn to the fact that he wanted to know about her. That he asked small questions, ones as simple as 'how was your day?' How long had it been since Leo had bothered to ask her how her day had been? What she had gotten up to that day? or simple 'how are you?' Maybe if he had she would not find herself growing closer and closer to that line. Though she knew that she could not only blame him. She too had forgotten that relationships take effort and she had forgotten more than one occasion that she must also take hold of the baton that they seemed to keep dropping between them.

In the coming months she got to know Dario more. Sneaking away from home she could spend forbidden nights with him. Just talking at first. Each time she joined him, they would talk for hours. He would ask her what she could be if she could be anything. If districts didn't exist, they didn't restrict the outcome of our life, he asked what she would do. "Pilot." She had answered, her eyes filled with wonder. She had always wondered what it would be like if she wasn't born in District Eight, if she had been born in a different world. To watch the earth grow smaller and smaller beneath her, to feel a sense of freedom that she would never be able to feel. But she had smiled anyways, thinking of a time where that would have been possible.

Another night he had asked her what she wanted most in life, in the life she had. "To be loved." She had replied. Simple, really. Love. To be loved my her family, by her children, her husband... "I love you." He had responded and she had kissed him. Crossed that forbidden line, one that she had waded so close to over the past few months, her fingers testing the line. She was on the other side now, there was no doubt about it.

When he kissed her back she was filled with warmth, her heart felt full. She cherished the feeling, holding onto him so tightly as she lost herself to the world in his arms, with his lips against hers. I love you. She had waited so long to hear those words. Yes, it was not from the man she had envisioned it to be, her husband. But from a new man, a man who had stolen her heart and held it captive in his hands. And despite herself she wanted him to have it, to keep hold of it until one day she might have to ask for it back.

Little had she known that that day would come sooner rather than later.