Her Possibility

She hadn't realised quite how much she wanted this until it wasn't a possibility any more.

She had never really looked at Ross as anything more than a friend. Sure she'd noticed attractive qualities about him, just like she had in Joey and...yeah all right, Chandler...but nothing that had made her heart feel like it was racing or her words dry up into stutters.

Except that dream. That wonderful erotic dream that she could barely remember, but he'd been there when she'd woken up and she'd tilted towards him before the world had exploded into baby craziness.

Chandler's revelation though, as shocking as it was, seemed to slot something into place that she'd been missing, and suddenly Ross was a possibility. He was her possibility. A nice guy. A good guy. A friend. The feeling blossomed in her stomach before she could stop it. It filled every part of her with yearning until every breath exhaled it. She couldn't stop thinking about him; how he spoke, how he felt, how he moved. She couldn't help but imagine how he kissed and her heart almost rocketed out of her chest, leaving her breathless and tingling.

She shouldn't have let it happen, because the devastation that followed was like nothing she had ever felt before, and she realised, bitterly, that this is what he had been going through for months. It was like someone had knocked all the breath out of her lungs, leaving her gasping and weak. The panic that she was losing him and helpless clouded her thoughts, clouded her judgement. It made her do stupid things – like with Paulo. She realised too late that she should have just said something. What was a one week relationship if he had loved her for months? But the panic paralysed her and then it was too late. Already-sleeping-together too late. Buying-a-cat-together too late. She watched them together and her insides shredded a little more each time. She channelled it into dislike towards the woman that he favoured over her. The woman who had somehow managed to convince him, without any words, not to wait any more.

"Look, just forget I said anything," Chandler had pleaded with her. "Let it go back to the way it was." He flourished his arms, "You didn't like him before, right?"

Rachel had just looked at him with scorn in her eyes and Chandler had dropped his head, slightly embarrassed. He knew it wasn't as simple as that, not really. There was a flood inside her and she couldn't just scoop it all back behind the broken walls as though they were fixed again. The feelings just slipped through her fingers and dripped back into the pool of yearning.

In the end though she was glad that she hadn't been able to stem the attraction that had bloomed inside her, because despite all the heartache, despite the tearing of her insides and the desperate sobs at night; when he finally kissed her, and her heart almost rocketed out of her chest just like she had imagined, it was all worth it.