They met by chance, or by fate,
one humid summer day.
They clicked, as people sometimes do,
without even meeting face to face.

He had answered an ad,
there was an opening in his town.
She called him in for a meeting,
and it turned their worlds upside down.

Sparks, they flew, as they sometimes do,
and things were right as rain.
They laughed and talked for hours on end,
but then something changed.

He had no clue her hand was taken,
a revelation soon brought to light.
She had made a vow,
to someone else in her life.

When next they met,
with broken hearts, she whispered not a sound.
When next they spoke,
he gave her his blessing, on the love that she had found.

But from time to time, the truth creeps out,
and things become so clear.
He feels the weight of such a loss,
especially when she’s near.

He jokes about what could have been,
things he says he doesn’t mean.
He feels his mind slipping away,
and wishes he could have foreseen.

Meanwhile, she steals a glance from across the room,
then quickly looks away.
She feels her heart skip a beat,
so many things she cannot say.

Sometimes she wants to take it back,
she longs to be with him so.
He wants nothing more than to hold her,
To take her hand and never let go.

But that was not the road that chance,
the road that fate had in store.
Now they are only friends,
when it could have been so much more.

That look on his face will forever haunt her,
when he saw her hand that day.
And the golden shackle that weighed it down,
a diamond that did betray.

She remembers well that moment,
and it shall haunt her hitherto.
The day that she accepted that ring,
and spoke the words “I do.”