I felt it before I saw her — a subtle shift, like the air itself straightened its spine when she walked in. The room changed in ways I can’t explain, as though every conversation quieted just enough to make space for her presence. She had this unteachable gift, this quiet gravity that pulled every pair of eyes toward her without asking for it. The kind of smile that felt like sunlight breaking through heavy clouds, the kind of eyes that could make even the most restless heart go still. There was a softness about her, not weakness, but something achingly pure — the kind of innocence you only ever see once and spend your whole life trying to find again. And then there was me. I stayed in my corner, an uninvited ghost in the room, watching from behind the walls I had built. I wasn’t worthy of her smile, her glance, her notice — not really. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I deserved to be breathing the same air as her, not when every breath felt borrowed, every second a trespass in her orbit. She never knew what she was to me. How even the smallest flicker of her presence could rearrange me entirely, make me believe for a fleeting moment that life might still have something beautiful left to offer. But I knew what I was — and what I wasn’t. And so I kept my distance, loving her in silence, as though even the sound of my affection might stain something so untouchably bright.