The days are folding into each other. Every morning feels like the last, but somehow heavier. There's this strange kind of pain that comes when you know something is slipping through your fingers, and you can't do anything to stop it.
That's what this is. That's what she is.
I still sit by the window. I still carry the same notebook I barely write in. But now, I've started filling it. Not with schoolwork, not with essays or notes—but with letters I'll never send. Words I'll never speak.
It started one night when I couldn't sleep. I got out of bed, sat at my desk, and just wrote her name. Over and over. And then, everything I had held back for so long came pouring out like a flood.
"I wish you knew how often I think about you."
"I wish I could tell you how much it hurts just to sit near you and say nothing."
"I wish I was someone else. Someone you could look at the way I look at you."
Each page feels like a confession. A scream into a void I know will never answer back.
At school, I pretend like I'm okay. I laugh when my friends say something dumb. I nod along in conversations. But every second of it feels like acting. Because the truth is, everything I do is shadowed by her. Every smile I fake, every sentence I force out—it's all happening under the weight of what I can't say.
She's been more attentive lately. Not in a way that would mean anything to anyone else—but I notice. I notice how her eyes flicker toward me more often, how she asks if I've eaten, how she tells me to take breaks. Simple things. Kind things.
But they crush me.
Because every word feels like hope, and I know hope is dangerous. I cling to it anyway. That's what hurts the most.
One afternoon, I stayed after class longer than usual. Everyone else had already left, their voices echoing down the hallway. She was gathering papers at her desk when I dropped my notebook. A few pages slipped out—those pages. My heart stopped. I reached for them fast, too fast. She looked up.
"You okay?" she asked, and I could tell she noticed the way my hands were shaking.
I forced a smile. "Yeah… just tired."
She tilted her head a little, eyes narrowing. "You've been saying that a lot lately."
I didn't respond. I couldn't. Because if I opened my mouth, I was afraid the truth might fall out.
She walked over, holding out a pen I didn't realize I'd dropped. Our fingers brushed. I felt it all the way down to my ribs.
Her voice was so gentle. "Take care of yourself, okay?"
I nodded, gripping the notebook like it was the only thing keeping me from collapsing.
And that night, I wrote another letter.
"Do you know you're the reason I come to school?"
"Do you know how often I rehearse conversations with you in my head, just to stay sane?"
"Do you know I'm falling apart pretending I'm not in love with you?"
I never let anyone read these letters. I never will. Because they aren't meant for the world. They're meant for the space inside me that feels too full of her. The space where her name echoes like a prayer no one ever answers.
Some nights, I dream that I say it. That I finally tell her. That she doesn't look at me with pity, or disappointment, or fear. That maybe—just maybe—she smiles.
But I always wake up before I hear her respond.
Sometimes, I think about what it'll be like after graduation. What the halls will feel like without her voice echoing through them. What the mornings will be like without the quiet hope of seeing her face.
Empty, I think. Like I've carved a piece of myself out and left it in that classroom.
I wonder if she'll remember me. Just once. Not as a student, not as a grade in her book—but as a boy who loved her quietly, so quietly she never even heard it.
But maybe that's all I'll ever be. A silence she never noticed.