Yamal wasn't cruel.
That was the problem.
Cruelty would have been easier to recognize. Easier to hate. Easier to walk away from.
Cruelty leaves bruises you can see.
Yamal left none.
He was beautiful in the way people couldn't ignore. The kind of beautiful that made conversations pause when he entered a room. Tall and lean, with sharp cheekbones and dark eyes that carried quiet confidence. His skin held warmth, his voice carried calm authority, and when he smiled...
God when he smiled, it felt like something personal.
Like he had chosen you.
And he had chosen me.
Or at least, that was what I believed.
Everyone knew Yamal.
Teachers trusted him. Boys respected him. Girls orbited him like gravity had changed direction. He never needed to try. Attention followed him naturally, like breathing.
And yet, somehow, he wanted me.
The quiet girl.
The invisible girl.
The girl who existed in the background of her own life.
Sometimes, I would catch other girls staring at me not with admiration, but confusion.
Why her?
I asked myself the same question.
He was gentle in the beginning.
That's how it always starts.
He would wait for me after class, leaning against the wall like he had nowhere else to be. He'd walk beside me, matching my pace without asking permission.
"You're hard to read," he told me once.
I didn't answer.
I didn't know how to explain that I wasn't hard to read.
I was just afraid of being understood.
He laughed softly, like my silence amused him instead of frustrated him.
"I like that," he said.
Like I was something he had discovered.
Something rare.
Something fragile.
And I let myself believe that maybe I was.
There were moments when being with him felt easy.
Moments when he looked at me like I was enough.
We'd sit together in quiet corners, not speaking, just existing in the same space. His shoulder brushing mine lightly, his presence steady.
Those moments became addictive.
Because they were proof.
Proof that someone like him could want someone like me.
Proof that I mattered.
But love, I would learn later, isn't measured in moments.
It's measured in consistency.
And Yamal was never consistent.
The first time he forgot my birthday, I told myself it didn't matter.
Birthdays were childish, anyway.
Just another day.
But it wasn't just another day.
It was my day.
And he didn't remember.
I waited the entire day, phone in hand, heart quietly hopeful.
Morning passed.
Nothing.
Afternoon passed.
Nothing.
Night came.
Still nothing.
I watched his name remain silent on my screen while he posted pictures online. Laughing. Living. Existing in a world where I wasn't important enough to remember.
I told myself he was busy.
I told myself it wasn't intentional.
I told myself a lot of lies that night.
Because the truth hurt too much.
He wasn't there when I needed him.
Not really.
When I felt overwhelmed, he disappeared.
When I felt small, he stayed distant.
When I needed reassurance, he gave me silence.
But when he needed me, I was always there.
Always.
Waiting.
Loving him louder than he loved me.
I didn't realize then how unbalanced we were.
How love had turned into something uneven.
Something fragile.
Something dangerous.
Other girls loved him openly.
They touched his arm when they spoke. Laughed too loudly at his jokes. Stood too close, like proximity might make them unforgettable.
He never stopped them.
He never corrected them.
He never chose me publicly the way he chose me privately.
I noticed everything.
The way his eyes lingered.
The way his attention shifted.
The way he never reassured me unless I asked.
And even then, it felt like obligation.
Not love.
But I stayed.
Because I remembered the boy who had chased me for three years.
Because I remembered the way he used to look at me like I was the only thing that mattered.
Because I thought maybe, if I loved him enough, he would love me the same way again.
Love makes you patient.
Love makes you blind.
Love makes you stay long after you should have left.
One afternoon, I saw him standing with another girl.
She was beautiful.
Confident.
Everything I wasn't.
She leaned close to him, whispering something that made him smile.
Not the polite smile he gave everyone else.
A real one.
Something inside my chest tightened.
I waited for him to notice me.
He didn't.
I waited for him to look for me.
He didn't.
I waited for him to choose me.
He didn't.
And in that moment, I understood something terrifying.
I was no longer the girl he chased.
I was the girl he kept.
And there is a difference.
A dangerous difference.
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, my phone resting beside me.
Silent.
Heavy.
Useless.
I wondered when things had changed.
When I had changed.
When loving him had started to feel like losing myself.
I picked up my phone and opened his chat.
My fingers hovered over the screen.
I wanted to ask him if he still loved me.
I wanted to ask him if I still mattered.
I wanted to ask him why I felt so alone when I wasn't alone.
But I didn't send anything.
Because deep down, I was afraid of the answer.
Or worse.
I was afraid of his silence.
Outside my window, the night stretched endlessly.
Cold.
Quiet.
Unforgiving.
I closed my eyes, hoping sleep would save me from my thoughts.
It didn't.
Because somewhere, deep inside me, something had already begun to break.
And I didn't know it yet.
But very soon, I would do something desperate.
Something irreversible.
Something that would introduce a new name into my life.
A name that would change everything.
All because of a message I hadn't sent yet.