Love doesn't always arrive loudly.
Sometimes, it slips in unnoticed — between shared laughs, inside long conversations, in the way someone makes you feel safe without even trying.
That's how it started with him.
He wasn't just anyone. He was my brother's best friend. That meant he was around all the time — hanging out in our living room, eating from our fridge, teasing me like I was part of their little circle. I was just "the younger sister" to him. That's all I had ever been.
But somewhere between childhood and now, something changed. Maybe it was the way his voice deepened. Or how he started asking me about my day. Or how he stood a little closer when we spoke.
I don't remember the exact moment I fell for him. But I remember the feeling. The butterflies when he said my name. The way my heart skipped when he smiled at me — not even differently, just… genuinely.
I didn't tell anyone, not even my closest friend. I kept it tucked away, like a soft secret, because what was the point? To him, I was off-limits. Untouchable. The girl he probably saw as a kid sister — and his best friend's sister at that.
So I loved him in silence.
When he laughed at my jokes, I smiled a little harder. When he asked if I needed help with anything, I said yes — just to keep him close a little longer. When he dated other girls, I smiled through it, even when it hurt.
It wasn't fair, but that's what love sometimes is — unfair, complicated, quiet.
And I told myself I'd be okay with that.
That I'd rather have him near me, even as a friend, than not at all.
That someday, maybe, I'd get over it.
But love doesn't work on our timelines. And the heart — well, it has its way of rewriting everything we thought we knew.
I was falling.
And he didn't even see it.