The Confession

“ We shouldn't have done that.”

“I know,” Sarah sighed, breathless. “ But I couldn't hold back any longer.”

“ Me neither” Tom confessed, guiltily. “For weeks I've been thinking about doing this, but I kept telling myself that I shouldn't. It'll hurt me as much as everyone else.”

“Sometimes, we have to give into our instincts. It's only natural.” Sarah reasoned. “But I can't keep this a secret. We're going to have to tell Mark what we've done.”

Tom looked mortified. “We can't! He'd be so angry with us, me in particular. I initiated this.” Tom rung his hands together in an unconscious reenactment of what Mark would do to him, if he found out their secret.

“We have to! I couldn't live with the thought of what we've just done.” Sarah lowered her head in shame.

She had always been the type to tell the truth, even when the consequences, would be worse for her.

When Tom and Sarah met two years before, she found herself telling him about her life, her family and her weight problems. She had never felt so comfortable with a man before then.

She told Tom about the way in which Mark had made her feel ashamed about how she looked and she how he pointed out all of the things that were wrong with her.

No matter how hard Sarah tried though, her efforts were never enough. It wasn't so much what Mark said, it was the looks of reproach and almost disgust, that made Sarah feel useless. He would look at her in the mirror and sigh at the sight of her.

“But do we have to tell him the truth? This could be a one off and we can go on as if nothing had happened.” Tom shrugged to show that what they had done, was really no big deal.

“How can I explain where I've been today then? I was supposed to meet him at three.”

They both looked at the clock. The time was 4.30. It was getting darker early now, with the onset of winter.

“You can tell him that you bumped into a friend, you got talking and lost track of the time. It's not exactly a lie, is it?”

Sarah paused, thinking about whether or not she could say that to Mark.

“I don't know,” Sarah answered, biting her lip. Sarah always did this when she was nervous or considering something. Tom found this very endearing, almost sexy. “Could I tell him that? Would he believe me?”

“Of course he would!” Tom wanted Sarah to go along with his idea, not just for her sake, but his own. “It nothing out of the ordinary, things like that happen all of the time.”

“Yeah, I suppose...”

The pair remained silent. Tom was relieved that it looked like Sarah was going to accept his idea.

The silence was broken by Sarah.

“But what if we want to do this again? It was difficult to stop the urge the first time.”

“We won't.” Tom insisted. “This will be the last time.”

Tom was definite, but Sarah could detect a hint of regret in his voice. Thinking about it, Sarah wasn't sure that she wanted this to be the last time either.

Without warning, Sarah rose, jolting Tom out of the way.

“I've made a decision. I'm going to tell Mark.”

“You can't!” Tom rose from his spot. “I thought we decided to keep this afternoon between you and me.” Sarah tied her trainers and grabbed her coat.

“Sarah! Wait!” Tom called to the empty space, as the door closed.

“Shit!” Tom grabbed his things and ran out, to stop Sarah from revealing their secret.

It wasn't just the consequences of their actions that he was worried about. It was the fact that he and Sarah had a secret that was theirs, it was time that they had spent, just the two of them.

He didn't want to admit it, but Tom had fallen in love with Sarah. He didn't care about the way she looked. He loved her sense of humour, they never had awkward silences between them and he loved that she loved geeky things, like he did. He had to say though, that when he thought about her smile, her eyes and her curvy body, a shiver of pleasure ran through him.

“Sarah! Sarah!” Tom ran out into the car park of the fast food restaurant, nearly getting himself run over, by a car pulling out of the drive through.

“You can't stop me!” Sarah strode with determined focus, towards her car. She pressed the fob on her key ring, the light flashed, indictating that the car was unlocked.

“I'm going to tell Mark that we've just eaten a Double cheese burger and fries.”

Tom reached Sarah's car. Out of breath, he leaned against the car.

“Well ok.” Tom sighed in defeat. "Just don't tell Mark about the milkshake. You know how many calories are in them!”

“Look!” the look of panic went out of Sarah's face. “We're adults. Why should we care what some bully of a personal trainer thinks? We don't have to hide our secret. If we want to eat a burger now and then, what's the problem?”

“Exactly!” Tom smiled, suddenly felt more confident about confronting their personal trainer,Mark. “I mean, you don't need to put up with that creep. He's nothing but a power hunger gym bunny, who gets his kicks by putting people down. You're beautiful, just as you are.”

Sarah was stunned by what Tom had just said “I....I don't know what to say. I thought we were friends.”

“We are, but..” Tom wasn't even sure that he should say what came next, but he knew that he had to, “I had hoped that we could be a bit more...”

Tom thought for a moment that his friendship with Sarah was over. They could never go back to being friends, if she didn't feel the same way as he did. Then, without warning, Sarah leaned in closer and kissed him.

“Well I think we can arrange that.”

They stayed silence for a moment, before Sarah opened the car door and got into the driver's seat.

“Come on, what are you watiing for? We've got gym subscriptions to cancel.”

Tom smiled broadly and got into the car. Both of them felt light, knowing that however Mark reacted to what they were about to tell him, they would deal with this together.