Prisoners of Love: A Tale Without Victors
“Are you not afraid?” asked Eliza one evening when Arthur clicked the lock on the door and drew the curtains shut, dimming the daylight.
“Afraid of what?” he replied, not glancing back.
“That someone might see us.”
He smirked, still facing away. “I stopped being afraid of anything long ago.”
Beyond the walls of that London flat, he was a different man. Not the one colleagues knew, not the one whose photograph sat on the shelf in a cosy bedroom with two little beds. Out there, he was the model husband and father. But here… Here he belonged only to himself. And to her.
“You’re the most important thing in my life,” he murmured, pulling Eliza close.
“But not the only one,” she answered with a bitter smile.
He said nothing. His gaze was so warm it rendered words meaningless. Eliza didn’t even know why she brought it up again. She’d known the rules of this “game” from the start.
She had met Arthur four years ago at a mutual friend’s birthday party. She’d arrived with a companion, but her friend soon vanished into the lively crowd, leaving Eliza alone with a glass of wine and unease written plainly on her face. She never cared for parties, but that night, the air seemed to hum—like the quiet before a storm.
And the storm came. In the shape of a tall man by the bar, his hair slightly tousled, his gaze weary but keen.
“Married,” her friend had whispered when she flitted past. Eliza only shrugged. Back then, she was twenty-two and believed anything could be fixed if one only wanted it enough.
“On your own?” he’d asked, stepping closer. His voice was deep, faintly rough.
“For now.”
“Mind if I join you?”
She didn’t answer, only nodded. Already, she’d lost control—of herself, of her breath.
They spoke of everything: favourite films, the sting of loss, how quickly good things fade into memory. When she made to leave, he’d asked, “Sure you want to go home?”
Eliza hesitated. Then she was in his arms beneath the shadowy boughs of an old park. His touch was electric. It was madness.
Years had passed since. They met in secret—in a borrowed flat where Arthur felt free. He joked, brought her favourite biscuits, brushed her hair while she stayed silent, never asking for more. But inside, something had begun to shift.
Once, she asked why he’d been at that party without his wife. Arthur sighed, as if reciting lines: “She’s autumn—cosy, warm, all blankets and soup. I’m summer. I want to live. And you… you’re my spring.”
For a moment, she’d felt chosen. Special. But with each meeting, spring grew colder. She started noticing what she’d ignored before—how he deleted messages, flinched at phone calls, fell silent at the word “future.”
“You won’t even stay the night!” she’d hissed once.
“I won’t leave my family, Eliza. I’m sorry. My only regret is not meeting you sooner.”
He always left. But he always returned. And she always forgave him. She hated herself for it, tried to forget in the arms of others—yet even then, she searched for Arthur in them.
Four years passed. Two of them in agony. The world moved on—friends married, had children. So did she, deciding to wed the first man who asked. His name was William, a kind, steady former classmate who entered her life like warm bathwater—comforting, but never stirring.
A wedding. A child. Work. Home. An endless cycle. She stared into the mirror and no longer recognised herself—a weary woman with hollow eyes. She had become like Arthur’s wife. Ordinary. Convenient.
Five years later, he called.
“Hello…”
Her heart stilled. That voice—unchanged.
“How did you get this number?”
“Found it. Will you meet me?”
She agreed without hesitation. Everything in her screamed: *It never ended.*
They met in that same park. He’d aged. So had she. Yet when he took her hand, time dissolved. He was her Arthur again. She was his spring.
“We’re twenty-two and thirty-one again,” he murmured.
“No, Arthur. I’m thirty-four. You’re forty-three. We’re different now.”
“You’re still the most important woman in my life.”
“Do you say that to your wife too?”
He shook his head.
Now their affair was doubly forbidden. He hid her from his wife; she hid him from William. Eliza feared exposure, feared crumbling the life she’d built—yet she couldn’t walk away.
William grew suspicious. He never made scenes, but he noticed—the coldness in her gaze, her phone switched off, unfamiliar perfume. Quietly, he’d ask:
“Who called?”
“A colleague. Late project.”
“You’ve been staying late often.”
She answered in monosyllables. He said little, but his eyes grew heavier by the day.
“I know you’re lying,” he told her once, his stare unflinching.
“You’re free to think so,” Eliza replied.
He didn’t argue. Just walked to the kitchen and stood by the window, gripping a cup of cold coffee.
“Are you happy?” Arthur asked her once.
She laughed softly. “Are you?”
The answer lay in silence—a tired, greying silence. Both knew they were prisoners. Prisoners of what had been and would never be.
And William?
William kept drinking his coffee by the window. He knew.
He just never changed a thing.
Not yet.
