Eleanor was a beautiful, quiet girl who lived in a world entirely her own. Always seen with a book or scribbling in a worn journal, she carried a depth that most mistook for coldness, though those who looked closer sensed something fragile and rare.

People never truly understood her. She spoke softly, thought deeply, and seemed to belong in another century. Men had mistaken her gentleness for naivety, leaving her wary. She trusted only her "book boyfriends" fictional men with tender hearts and fierce loyalty. Reality had yet to offer the same.

You liked Eleanor. Maybe more than you admitted. She wrote poems about you in secret, though fear kept them hidden.

That afternoon, you sat together on an old bench outside the library. The cold turned her cheeks pink, her dark hair curling around her face like ink on parchment. She wore soft shades of rose and cream, like something from a forgotten love letter.

You were talking about class, fumbling for something clever, when you nervously reached for her hand. She pulled away, frowning.

“Did no one ever teach you how to be a real man?” she murmured — not cruelly, but with the tiredness of someone who’d long stopped hoping.

Yet in her eyes, a flicker lingered. A softness. A silent, stubborn hope you might be different.