Hard to Let Go: Celeb FF

Let me tell you about the time I realised soulmates are for real. I have always dismissed people that talk of soulmates as melodramatic bullshitters whose sole purpose in life is to promote the trade of those of who write romantic novels, or make mediocre movies, attempting to sell a make-believe world to an unsuspecting audience.

I'm not saying I used to think love doesn't exist, because I have been in love with another and made a home with her, its just that I never bought into the idea of love so consuming, it defied all logic and rubbished societal norms and barriers to be with the beloved. But that's what I felt when I first met her: a connection so strong I had to fight the urge to be with her, and when I got over the initial awkwardness created by raging hormones, I found immense pleasure in talking to her. I'm known to be a bit of an introvert, a quiet character who just likes to get a move on and struggles to make idle talk and let people in, but with her I just couldn't stop talking, it was like I had met my best friend, and the best part is, she seemed to enjoy our tete-a-tetes.

What happened then? Ah, I see you're falling into the usual traps of boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after following halfhearted resistance from family. But we had to be different, and why not, as she often told me, it was because I have never believed in true love.

You see we were both married to other people when we met, so ours was a relationship doomed from the start. How would we ever make it work? Her husband, my wife, the children we had from our marriages, it was all too complicated. To make matters worse, we had gotten married of our free will, fought our families because we were in love with an individual and forced them to get us married; saying we'd fallen out of love, or gotten to the sort of age where you evolve and find out you're incompatible was hardly an option.

I told her it didn't matter, we would make it work somehow because even though none of us had said it, we knew we had been drawn to each other because we'd fallen out of love with our spouses and were tired of dragging around the caskets of our marriages. Her because of an abusive and alcoholic husband and I, because of an excessively insecure and controlling wife, who in her defence, was dealing with something unexpected, my newfound status as the country's biggest celebrity.

But my reasoning fell on deaf ears, the woman I had fallen in love with had other ideas, she had a strong sense of fidelity and, what is it that you say? She'd already wavered by getting into a relationship with me? Erm, I'm not sure if you can describe what we had as a relationship. We were friends who were deeply attracted to one another. Yes, you're right, that's just a minor detail.

But anyway, she does tend to think about others, the families, the children and above all, making sure there's "no scandal" as she puts it. I still remember the day she walked away from me.

"So you're telling me we can't be together?" I looked into her eyes in the way that I know makes her forget what she's thinking. For once, she didn't look away and matched my gaze, and for a second, only for a single precious second I saw her resolve breaking, but then she put her hand over my heart to steady herself, push me back and said, "yes, its for the best" and just like that, she walked away from my life. I've been very lucky professionally, but I've paid a big price for what I have today, I've paid for it by not being with the woman I love, the person who gets me like no other.