Do you want to share the story?

Why not. One day I'm at work happily minding my own business and a co-worker comes up to introduce the new starter she had with her. I looked up, our eyes met and I felt like I'd been electrocuted. I know it's as corny as anything but that's how just how it was, I felt like I couldn't breathe.

This new girl, let's call her L, turned out to be fiercely intelligent, quietly direct, had a wickedly dry sense of humour and was great fun. Myself another girl and her were all working on the same project and became great friends. We spent a bunch of time together and it was great. Every time I saw L I was just on cloud 9, just being around her was intoxicating.

At the same time, I'm happily married and had two young children with a woman I love and am best friends with. I'd found adjusting to being 'Dad' pretty difficult and I was not at all in a good place really. It was a ripe time for something to go badly wrong and for me to screw up my life in the worst way possible. I know this is the time for everyone to say it was just a crush, but all these years later and still with the same feelings it's hard to see it that way.

Anyhow, it turns out L has this douche of a boyfriend who she practically has to beg to go out with her. She couldn't stop talking about how much she loved him but it seemed like he barely noticed her. I remember her saying that after much cajoling he'd agreed to go travelling with her, but as our mutual friend's boyfriend said, 'who wouldn't want to go travelling with a pretty girl?'

And yes, she was pretty. Blonde with a strikingly elfin face and amazing fair skin. She came in to work not long after I met her and she'd had her long hair cut severely short. It looked incredible and when Emma Watson did the same years later L was all I could think of, the resemblance was uncanny - at least in my mind.

I think almost the worst thing that nearly happened was I came close to punching out a co-worker who called her 'a man in a dress' on a night out continually. She was a rower and she had a stunning, lightly athletic physique, I still remember the almost indescribable sense of outrage that someone could be so crass about a girl who pretty much everyone I knew thought was almost indescribably beautiful.

In the end, she didn't feel the same way about me. She moved away to another job and another life. I've not heard from her or seen her since. I heard she ditched Mr Douche and got together with some sort of sports person, maybe married him now who knows.

I'm grateful really. I love my family and my wife dearly and it scares me sometimes how close I came to losing that. But it still hurts. I can still hear her laugh and picture her smile and the play of light on her hair. The sense of wanting to be with her is no weaker now than it was the first time I saw her. God I miss her, but I'm glad she left all the same.

I really hope someone decent is making her indescribably happy. She deserves it.

Love you L. Always will.