There she was. In the middle of a crowd, her bright smile is the only thing I could see. As my footsteps slowly closed the space between us, more of her frame was revealing itself to me, her slender neck, her bare shoulders, the volume on her chest, and finally her stomach, whose abs I could project in my mind even under the off-shoulders tight dress she was wearing. But something was not right. While my eyes slowly got down through her body, absorbing each and every well designed line of it, something got in the way. It was not something or someone in my path, because it was clear and it was taking me directly to her, as if the universe wanted me to follow it. No, something was unexpectedly stopping me from visualizing what was in my imagination. A hand, to be exact. A hand that was not hers, because I knew the exact shape of her slender and long fingers, as I often watched them sliding through my body and reaching parts of it I myself didn't reach often. No, it was someone else's hands, not only touching her stomach, but slightly caressing it. I couldn't even see who was doing it, because while I stopped on my tracks, my eyes could only focus on the movements of those bold fingers sliding down. But before they could get any lower or even go back up, they stopped abruptly. It was then that my eyes noticed the fingers I would recognize even miles away. They were firmly grabbing the wrist that connected that foreign hand to a foreign body, which I still didn't dare to look up to see who it belonged to, too entranced by the movements of the hand I admired so much. That firm touch instead of encouraging the foreign hand to keep its movements, slowly removed it from her body, whose shape was again becoming clear to my eyes. However, instead of admiring her defined stomach, they were too focused to see what would be those slender fingers’ next steps. I couldn't even notice how my breathing stopped, how my body stiffened and how fast my heart was beating, too immersed in that scene that seemed to be happening in slow motion. My mind, filled with the beautiful images of her figure, now started to run thousands of unwanted images of those long fingers intertwining with those foreign fingers or even taking them to a place they didn't belong to, they shouldn't be, a place only I could reach. It was only when I released my breath that I could notice the reactions of my body, the sudden trembling of my own fingers, the bite on my lip. However, it all stopped when my body suddenly relaxed, because the strong fingers I loved so much didn't follow the images on my head, instead, they pushed that foreign hand away. It was just then that my eyes went back to her toothy smile, which was no longer there. Instead, her lips were pressed tightly against one another, still trying to portrait a smile, but now also showing a little discomfort. Then my eyes traveled even higher, to her eyes, and I was surprised to see they were not looking at me. Against my own self-sabotaging thoughts, I realized she didn't stop that hand because she saw me approaching. In fact, she hadn't even noticed me yet, too absorbed by their conversation or, as I would like to believe, by the discomfort of that foreign touch. Somehow, I felt proud. Proud of myself. Proud for choosing so well who I was giving my heart to. Proud of myself for giving my heart to someone that respected me even when she thought I was away. Someone that would push away someone else's advances toward her even when th