Before you read this story, I want to talk to you. Not as a narrator, not as some distant character in a tale—but as a girl. A girl who once loved someone… in silence.
This isn't the kind of story about a perfect girl, or a perfect boy, or even a perfect ending. It's about something messier. More human. More real. And if you've ever loved someone who never looked back at you the same way, maybe—just maybe—you'll understand me better than I ever understood myself.
Ten years ago, I wasn't the girl people turned to look at when I walked into a room. I didn't have glossy lips or perfectly curled hair. I didn't speak softly or flutter my lashes at the right moments. I didn't know how to flirt or play cute. But I knew how to listen. I knew how to wait. And more than anything, I knew how to love someone… without ever saying it out loud.
He was my best friend. That one person who could read my thoughts just by looking at my face. The boy who made everything easier—homework, bad days, growing pains, life. He didn't knock when he came into my world. He just walked in and made himself at home. Loud. Carefree. Always smiling. The kind of boy who forgot half his books but remembered every weird dream he had, just so he could tell me about it the next day.
"Yixin!" he used to call out from the end of the hallway, loud and unapologetic. I would act annoyed, rolling my eyes or sighing, but the truth? I liked it. I liked how he always found me first.
With him, even the most ordinary moments felt special. Lunch breaks, after-school walks, study sessions that turned into snack raids… they were all filled with laughter and teasing. He mocked my neat handwriting. I joked about his messy one. We were always just… us.
People used to say we were inseparable. That we looked like a couple. But we weren't. Because he never saw me that way.
He liked girls who carried perfume in their pockets and wore lip gloss like confidence. Girls who knew how to laugh at the right time, who could make his heart skip a beat just by flipping their hair. He liked the kind of girl I never learned how to be.
Not the girl who brought backup pens.
Not the girl who stayed up all night finishing his project without telling him.
Not the girl who waited for a sign that never came.
Me.
I loved him. Quietly. For years. Completely. Without asking for anything in return.
He never noticed. And maybe that's what hurt the most—that it was so natural for him to not see me that way.
But I noticed everything. The way his eyes lit up when he saw someone he liked. The heartbreaks he carried without ever talking about them. The songs he hummed when he was nervous. The way he mumbled nonsense in his sleep during overnight study camps. I noticed it all, and I loved it all.
He once told me he wanted to live near the ocean. Have a dog. Maybe two kids. He never knew I'd imagined that life with him—hundreds of times—just never out loud. Because I was scared. Scared that if I told him how I really felt, I'd lose him. That he'd laugh. Or worse—look at me with pity. That the rhythm we had, that easy closeness, would shatter.
So I stayed quiet.
And in time, that silence became my home.
I cheered him on when he got his first girlfriend. I smiled and clapped, even though it felt like someone had pressed a knife into my chest. I cried alone in the school bathroom the day I saw them kiss. I even helped him write a breakup text once—each word feeling like it tore out a piece of me. But I smiled anyway. Because that's what best friends do.
I never asked, "What about me?" Because what if the answer was something I didn't want to hear?
So I held onto our memories like little treasures. His laugh. His late-night messages. His stupid jokes. His warmth. His chaos. I kept them all like letters I never had the courage to send.
If you're reading this and you've ever loved someone from the sidelines—hoping they'd turn around and really see you, not just as a friend but as the one who's always been there—I hope this story makes you feel a little less alone.
I'm not telling you this for sympathy. I'm telling you because, before this story begins—before I take you into the days that changed everything—I need you to know how real it was. How real it still is.
This isn't a fairy tale.
It's not about a prince falling for the invisible girl.
It's about being invisible to the person who means everything.
It's about loving quietly, because loving out loud felt too dangerous.
But just because love is silent, doesn't mean it's not strong.
It stays.
It lingers.
It grows in the pauses and in the spaces where words never reached.
If you've ever been that girl, I want you to know this: quiet love is still love. And you are braver than you think—just for feeling it.
Now... let me tell you what happened—
when everything changed.
—
Yixin
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