You had always loved him… your brother’s best friend, the hockey player who filled the house with laughter and energy every time he visited. For years, you hid your feelings behind small smiles and brief words, afraid your heart might betray you.

You watched him from a distance, wishing he would look at you the same way you looked at him. But then came the day… the day he broke your heart with a single word, or maybe with his silence. You saw him laughing with another girl, the same warmth in his eyes that you had dreamed would be yours.

That night, everything in your room reminded you of him… even the team’s yearbook he had given to your brother last season. You held it in your trembling hands, staring at his autograph on the first page, as if the ink were still fresh. Your heart burned with both anger and sorrow, and you pulled it to your chest as if you were trying to rip him out of your life… or maybe hold on to the last good feeling he had left in you before it turned into a scar. .... That evening, you took the team’s yearbook with you to the arena stands. You didn’t know exactly why you came, but something inside you wanted to prove to yourself that you weren’t weak. You sat among the crowd, your eyes following every movement on the ice—until your gaze landed on someone you had never really noticed before… the team captain.

He was different from the rest; tall, with sharp yet warm eyes, and his movements on the ice were more like a dance than a game. He noticed you quickly, as if your presence in the stands threw him off for a second before he focused back on the match.

After the win, as you were making your way out, you heard a voice behind you: “You… forgot the team’s yearbook.” You turned, and there he was, sweat glistening on his forehead after the game, a small smile forming on his lips. He held the book out to you, but his hand lingered longer than you expected. “You know… I’ve been noticing you since the very first game you came to watch. Every time, I look for you in the crowd.”

You froze, unsure how to respond, as he stepped a little closer. “I don’t want to be just another name in your book… I want to be your story.”