Before you start reading, I want to speak—not as a narrator, not as a character, but as a girl who once loved someone quietly.
This isn't a story about perfect boys or perfect girls, and it certainly isn't about a perfect ending. It's messy. Real. Full of emotions that sneak up on you when you least expect them. If you've ever loved someone who didn't feel the same way, maybe you'll understand me better than I understood myself.
Ten years ago, I wasn't the girl anyone noticed. I didn't have glossy lips or perfect hair. I didn't know how to flirt or be cute. But I knew how to listen. I knew how to wait. I knew how to love someone without saying a single word.
He was my best friend—the one who understood me even when I stayed silent. He made hard days easier. He didn't knock before stepping into my world. He just walked in—loud, carefree, always smiling. A boy who forgot his books but never forgot his dreams… and always shared them with me.
"Yixin!" he'd shout from down the hall. I pretended to be annoyed. But secretly? I loved it. Loved how he always found me first.
Every moment with him felt special—lunch breaks, walks after school, study sessions that turned into snack raids. He teased my neat handwriting. I laughed at his messy scrawl. We were just… us.
People said we looked like a couple. But we weren't. He never saw me that way.
He liked girls with perfume and confidence. Girls who made his heart skip with a smile or a hair flip. Girls I wasn't.
Not the one who carried extra pens just in case.
Not the one who finished his projects quietly, without asking for credit.
Not the one who waited for a sign that never came.
Me. I loved him quietly. For years. Fully. Without asking for anything in return.
He never noticed. And maybe that hurt the most—that my love was invisible.
But I noticed everything. His bright eyes when he liked someone. The heartbreak he tried to hide. Songs he hummed when nervous. Nonsense he muttered while sleeping. I saw it all. Loved it all.
He once told me he dreamed of living by the ocean, having a dog, maybe two kids. I imagined that life too—so many times—but never out loud. I was scared. Scared that telling him would change everything. That he'd laugh… or pity me. So I stayed silent. And that silence became home.
I cheered him on when he got his first girlfriend—even though it broke my heart. I cried alone when I saw them kiss. I helped him write breakup texts, feeling every word cut deep. But I smiled. Because that's what best friends do.
I never asked, "What about me?" Because I feared the answer.
So I held onto memories—his laugh, late-night texts, silly jokes, warmth, chaos. I kept them safe, like letters I never sent.
If you've ever loved from the sidelines, hoping to be more than a friend, maybe this story is for you.
This isn't for sympathy. It's real. Painful. Honest.
No fairy tales.
No prince.
Just an invisible girl.
Loving quietly because loud love is too scary.
But silent love is still love.
It stays.
It lingers.
It grows in the spaces between words.
If you've been that girl, know this—you're brave just for feeling it.
And then, one day… everything I thought I knew about him—and about myself—shattered in a single moment.
I saw him. Not as my friend. Not as the boy I loved quietly. But as someone I might never have again.
And in that instant, I realized: some love doesn't stay quiet forever.
—Yixin