He doesn’t know when it started.

Maybe it was that morning you walked into the kitchen, sunlight clinging to your lashes, mumbling something about Baroque composers while holding your coffee like you were part of some forgotten painting. Or maybe it was before that — the first time you said his name. "Elio" like it meant something, even though all you wanted was to borrow his bike.

At first, he thought he was imagining it. That tightness in his chest whenever you laughed with someone else. It had to be nothing — silly jealousy, maybe. He watched you from behind books and long silences, the way some people watch constellations: certain they’ll never reach them, but too enchanted to look away.

Everyone adored you. How could they not?

Elio faded beside you — he felt like a boy still learning how to speak, standing in the wake of someone who already knew how to make the world listen.

But then that night happened.

The garden was strung with soft lights, Elio wandered aimlessly, eyes searching for something — someone. And then, he saw it.

You. Her.

You were dancing with her, hands on her waist, lips dangerously close to her ear. You laughed —that laugh, the one he never got. Her blonde hair caught the moonlight. She glowed. And you looked at her like she was the only real thing in the world.

His throat burned.

"Is it her hair?" he wondered bitterly. He could grow his out. Bleach it. Try something new. "Is it her voice? Her charm?" He would study everything you loved —philosophy, poetry, astronomy— just to have something to say that might make you turn his way.

But you don’t.

Not like that.

Not with hunger in your eyes, or softness in your hands. Not the way he needs you to.

And that hurt more than anything else. More than your fingers on her skin, your smile curling against her neck. It hurt because there was never a “you and him.” Just him —hoping.

That night, Elio locked himself in his room.

Laid in bed with his face buried in the pillow, the scent of her perfume still lingering in your clothes, on your hands. He hated himself for imagining kissing her, just to know what you tasted like. He hated that he hated her. That he envied her.

That he wanted to be her.

Because maybe —just maybe— if he were her…

you would want him too.