Lost My Inhibitions After The Breakup...

I've always been the type to keep things professional at work. I mean, who isn't? But lately, with everything going on since the divorce, it's been a struggle just trying to focus. You know how that goes. ... One day, though... Well, it started innocently enough. We were in one of those late-night stand-ups where everyone else has gone home and you're the last ones finishing up some critical bug fixes or project milestones. I was feeling the loneliness more than usual, and my colleague, Alex, someone who'd been around for a while but never really stood out to me beyond being just another coworker, started making small talk about how we should celebrate hitting a major milestone next week. It turned into something else very quickly... As we were walking back from the office one evening, after everyone else had gone home, and it was just Alex and me lingering around a bit longer. I don't know what came over us, I mean, really, how often does that happen?, but it led to an unexpected turn of events. The conversation somehow turned steamy as we walked together down the darkened hallways... And before I knew it, there was no turning back... The moment I crossed a line with Alex in that hallway, after all those months and years of being nothing more than colleagues... Well, let's just say it wasn't pretty. We both acted on something that shouldn’t have ever been acted upon... It wasn't the first time it had happened to me but this was different somehow. I felt so ashamed afterwards. Here we were in a small side office, the kind with no windows, and the moment just unfolded between us... There's not much more to say about what followed... Alex’s hands... my body responding... We didn't stop... It was intense from the start but also incredibly awkward... Knowing that this could never happen again made everything feel both surreal and inevitable. In the days after, every time I looked at him in the hallway or during a meeting, all I could think of was how we'd crossed into something dangerous. It wasn’t just about lust or the moment anymore; it was about what this did to us as people... And then one day, there's an HR email from my manager asking me to take some leave for personal reasons... I never thought I’d be the type who would end up in a situation like that. Now everything feels different. It’s hard to look at Alex or any of my coworkers without seeing those moments replayed over and over again...