Alex was never good at things like this—he was downright hopeless when it came to girls, especially the one girl who had completely undone him. Until the very end, he clung to the last shreds of his pride, though he had to admit—albeit through gritted teeth—that he had fallen for the cliché: the effortlessly magnetic, impossibly popular girl. It was a truth he struggled to swallow. For the longest time, he believed he was above that kind of attraction, convinced that if he ever found his other half, she'd be someone more like him: quiet, thoughtful, maybe a little weird. But reality rarely bowed to expectations. His heart and eyes had long since betrayed the logic of his mind, which—ironically—had nothing to say in her presence.

She was like something dreamt up, delicate and untouchable, beauty wrapped in lightness. Each day, he found himself stealing just one glance, afraid that if he didn’t, he might somehow forget her face. Not that he could—no matter how hard he tried. At night, his thoughts drifted to her, sometimes slipping into places he wasn’t proud of. He would scold himself silently, ashamed to feel like just another hormone-driven teen. But she made it so hard not to feel.

His ego shrank every time she passed by him in the hallway, eyes fixed ahead like he was made of air. She probably didn’t even know his name, didn’t register his presence at all. And why would she? She was surrounded by people—guys louder, smoother, more put-together. Guys who didn’t stammer just trying to say "hey." Alex knew he didn’t stand a chance. He was just some awkward boy with a guitar, tongue-tied and invisible.

Still, he couldn’t let it go. He didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t do nothing either. The fear of humiliating himself, of freezing mid-sentence and collapsing under the weight of his own nerves, kept him silent. His words worked best when they were written, not spoken. In writing, he could be anyone—eloquent, sharp, even brave. But when it came to speaking, everything locked up.

And yet, there was one thing she gave him without even knowing: inspiration. She was his muse, the flame that melted the ice of his writer’s block. His notebooks were overflowing with fragments of her—verses, descriptions, metaphors in which he tried to capture her essence. His pages were stained with her name, wrapped in longing and laced with awe.

But the words, as powerful as they were, never brought him peace. He wanted her, deeply, achingly—as if she were the forbidden fruit, and he, suddenly, understood Eve all too well. It wasn’t about logic anymore. It was something greater, something raw and beyond his control. And maybe that’s what scared him the most: not that he would never have her, but that he would never stop wanting her.