Eight Years of Silence(I)

In second grade, I fell in love at first sight. I was the teacher’s pet— neat handwriting, top scores, a quiet girl with too many dreams. He was the popular boy— warm smile, kind eyes, a face that looked like it had fallen straight out of heaven. We never spoke. But I watched from afar, drawn to his light like something in me recognized something in him. Then life shifted, and he disappeared from my world. Four years passed. I changed schools— hoping time and distance would finally wash him away. But on my first day, there he was again. The same smile. The same flutter in my chest. The boy I never stopped remembering. Only now, everything was different. I wasn’t a top student anymore. He was still popular, still kind, still shining in a way I no longer believed I could.