I didn't grow up believing in love.
Not the kind in movies, not the kind my friends chased like it was oxygen. While they laughed over blind dates and whispered about stolen kisses, I watched from the sidelines calm, certain, untouched.
I wasn't bitter. I wasn't afraid. I was just… waiting.
Waiting for something I couldn't name, a person I couldn't imagine, a feeling I couldn't fake.
"You'll regret it," they said.
"Everyone needs someone," they insisted.
But I always answered the same way, with a quiet smile:
"If love is real, I'll know. Until then, I won't settle for almost."
Years passed. The world moved fast profiles swiped, promises made and broken like fragile glass. But I stayed still, not lonely, not restless just a soul holding out for something worth believing in.
And then, on a day that began like any other, the universe finally spoke.
It wasn't a grand stage or a perfect sunset. Just an ordinary room, crowded with noise and faces I barely noticed until my eyes found his.
And in that instant, my world steady, quiet, guarded fell apart and fell in love at the same time.
He didn't smile. He didn't move. He just looked at me and in that look, decades of patience made sense.
It wasn't attraction. It wasn't curiosity. It was recognition.
As if my heart had been walking blind all its life and finally opened its eyes.
I felt it a connection older than this lifetime, stronger than reason, faster than thought. It didn't ask for trust; it was trust. It didn't ask for time; it was forever, arriving all at once.
For a girl who never believed in love at first sight, it took less than a minute to believe in him.
And somewhere deep inside, in the quiet place where only truth lives, my heart whispered the words I had been waiting to hear:
"It's you. It's always been you. I just hadn't found you yet."