It happened again.
A glimpse. A second glance. A fleeting moment that burned with quiet hope — the kind that made her heart race and her stomach twist.
It wasn't much.
But somehow, it felt like everything.
She was at the pantry, her fingers curled around a warm cup of tea, when she felt it — that subtle shift in the air.
And then she saw him.
Standing by the door. Still.
Looking at the shelves as if they held some answer he didn't know he was searching for.
Coffee in hand. That same posture — relaxed, composed — like he didn't even need to try.
She knew it too well. That quiet presence that made her heart flutter long before her eyes could confirm it.
But nothing had changed.
He didn't speak.
He didn't smile.
He didn't even hold her gaze for more than a second.
Just like before.
Still, her eyes flicked toward him — too quickly, too instinctively — and just as quickly, she looked away.
Was he looking at her, too?
Or was she chasing shadows again?
The thoughts swirled — a storm of maybe's and never-will-be's — tangled in the silence between them.
Later, at the door of the production floor, she tried to slip past unnoticed. No noise, no presence — just passing through like a ghost.
But then, their eyes met.
Just for a moment.
And it was enough to make the world falter.
It wasn't like before — when his eyes seemed to skip over her entirely.
No.
This time, he looked.
And for that heartbeat of a second, it felt like the universe held its breath.
Then it passed.
As it always did.
She looked down at her shoes. Pretended to adjust her grip on her tumbler. Pretended not to feel the truth pressing against her ribs like a question without an answer.
Nothing had changed.
Nothing was going to change.
And still, she hoped.
In the quiet corner of a convenience store, she saw him again — aisle lights humming above them, the chill of the coolers pressing against her back.
He was just standing there. Ordinary. Unremarkable.
But to her, he was everything.
She turned quickly, almost ran.
Walked away before her heart could betray her again.
Her mind screamed at her to stop — stop hoping, stop imagining, stop setting fire to every corner of her heart in the name of someone who wouldn't even look her way for long.
Maybe he had looked.
Maybe he hadn't.
Maybe it didn't matter.
She wasn't sure anymore if it was the hope that was slowly killing her —
Or the aching certainty that she would never really know.
Still, every time their paths crossed, it was there.
That pull.
That fragile, invisible thread tugging between them — electric, delicate, dangerous.
Like standing too close to something that could burn you and light you up all at once.
But the silence stretched longer now.
Heavier.
More unbearable.
What once felt like the beginning of something — a seed, a spark, a whispered chance — now felt like just another chapter of things left unsaid.
Moments that brushed against almost but never quite became anything more.
She wondered if she was delusional.
If her mind was turning glances into stories, silence into meaning, absence into longing.
But the ache in her chest said otherwise.
She didn't know what she had hoped for.
A smile?
A friendship?
A single word?
A sign that he had seen her the way she had seen him.
But all she had now were unanswered questions and unreturned glances —
And a heart still hoping for something that it knew would never come.
So, she kept her head down.
Kept walking.
Kept pretending.
Even when the truth was screaming inside her,
Even when the silence felt louder than anything he could've said.
Even when her heart kept reaching for something
that never reached back.