You loved him in all the quiet ways people don’t notice until it’s too late.

You wrote him letters—handwritten, scented faintly with lavender and folded with trembling fingers. You never expected grand gestures in return. Just a glance. A word. A sign that you existed in his world, even for a second.

You brought him chocolate on his bad days. You memorized the things he liked, the color of his eyes when he smiled, the twitch of his fingers when he was nervous. You learned him like poetry, line by aching line.

You made him food. His favorite dishes, down to the detail, each meal a confession sealed in warmth.

And you gave him a shirt. A simple gift, but one chosen with care. You imagined him wearing it, imagined him smiling and thinking of you. Instead, you found it later—shoved under a desk, forgotten, wrinkled like your hopes.

And still, you stayed.

Until the day he threw the food away. In front of you.

No words. No explanation. Just the hollow sound of plastic hitting metal, and your heart shattering with it.

That was the moment you died inside.

Not all at once—but slowly. Painfully. The way stars burn out in silence, light fading across a thousand miles.

You stopped writing.

You stopped waiting.

You stopped caring.

You let the silence between you stretch, wide and empty, until it swallowed everything you once felt.

And he?

He didn’t notice.

Not at first.

But time passed. And the world grew quieter without you in it.

He looked at his desk—empty. His locker—cold. His name—never spoken by the one voice that made it feel like something beautiful.

And then he started looking for you.

He searched the halls. He paused in doorways. He stared at your seat in class longer than he should have.

He tried to speak to you once.

Your name left his lips, hesitant, fragile.

You turned. Met his eyes. And then you walked past him—like a stranger. Like he was no one.

Just as he had done to you so many times before.

It broke him.

The realization hit like a car crash he never saw coming—you were never going to come back.

You had loved him loudly in silence, and now, you ignored him just as loudly.

And God, it haunted him.

He lost sleep over the letters he never opened. The food he threw away. The gifts he left to rot. Every act of your love played on repeat in his mind, now laced with guilt and the bitter sting of what he could’ve had.

He began asking himself the same question every night:

𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬? 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰 𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘥?

But the silence remains.

And now, he’s the one watching you walk away.

Again and again.

And you?

You never looked back.