It wasn't supposed to be like this. I never meant for it to get this far.
At first, it was just a passing thought. A distraction. A daydream I could brush off when the bell rang, when the class ended, and when I walked out of the room. But now? Now it was different. The silence between us had grown heavier, like a distance I couldn't cross, no matter how hard I tried.
Every morning, I sat by the window, the seat where I could pretend I wasn't here. I'd stare out at the courtyard, at the empty spaces, and feel that same weight in my chest—the weight of something I couldn't name. Something I couldn't fix. But every time I looked out the window, I could still see her. The way she moved at the front of the room, the way her eyes swept over the class, always looking at everyone but never stopping at me.
I told myself it didn't matter. That it was nothing. That she was just a teacher, and I was just another student in a long line of faces she would forget. But it hurt every time she smiled at someone else, laughed at a joke someone else made.
Every glance that didn't land on me felt like a knife twisting in my chest.
I didn't want to care. I didn't want to feel this way, but I couldn't help it. The more I tried to bury it, the deeper it sank. Like the way the rain soaked into the earth, the way the cold seeped through the cracks in the walls, this feeling was settling in me—and I couldn't get rid of it.
It wasn't just the way she looked at other people. It was the way she treated me. Like I was just another student, just another name on the roll call. She didn't know me. She never would. And that thought, the thought of never being seen by her, cut deeper than anything else.
I started to dread walking into her classroom. I dreaded hearing her voice, even though I knew it was all I ever wanted to hear. I hated the way my heart would race, the way my breath would catch whenever she walked too close, whenever I thought she might notice me. But it never lasted. It never meant anything.
Her eyes never lingered on me. Not once.
And the worst part? I hated myself for it. For feeling like this, for wanting something I could never have. For wanting her to see me, to care about me the way I cared about her.
But I knew it was a fantasy. I knew it wouldn't happen. It couldn't.
She was out of my reach, out of my league, and it hurt in a way I didn't know how to explain. It wasn't just the disappointment that stung—it was the realization that I wasn't even worth noticing. That I was just another face she would forget as soon as she left the classroom.
I could feel myself fading. Slowly. Every day. Every hour I spent in her presence, I sank deeper into myself. Into this hollow space where the idea of her became my only source of comfort, my only source of pain. It wasn't love. It couldn't be.
But it was something. Something I couldn't stop.
And that was the worst part of all. I was crushed—and I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to stand up again