THE LOVE THAT WAS NEVER OWNED

Iwasn't looking for her.

That's the strange thing about the beginning of this story.

I wasn't searching for love. I wasn't waiting for someone to change my life. I wasn't even thinking about relationships.

I was simply looking at the clouds.

It was an ordinary moment on an ordinary day.

And then I saw her.

For a few seconds, everything around me seemed to disappear.

I didn't know her name.

I didn't know where she came from.

I didn't know who she was.

She was just a girl I'd never spoken to before.

A stranger.

But something about that moment stayed with me.

I looked at her, and somewhere inside me, a feeling quietly began.

I didn't understand it.

Maybe it was attraction.

Maybe it was curiosity.

Or maybe it was something I would only understand much later.

Love.

I went home that day, but she didn't stay behind at college.

She came with me.

Not physically.

She was in my thoughts.

I kept remembering her face.

I wondered what her name was.

Who were her friends?

What did she like?

Would I ever get a chance to talk to her?

I had questions about someone who didn't even know I existed.

Days passed.

But instead of fading away, the feeling became stronger.

I started looking for her whenever I went to college.

Whenever I entered a place, my eyes unconsciously searched for her.

And whenever I couldn't find her, the day felt strangely empty.

I didn't understand how someone I barely knew could already mean so much to me.

Then one day, she wasn't at college.

I noticed immediately.

I tried not to.

But I did.

I asked myself why it mattered.

She wasn't my girlfriend.

She wasn't my best friend.

She hadn't promised to meet me.

She didn't owe me her presence.

Yet her absence affected me more than I wanted to admit.

The day moved forward.

Classes happened.

People laughed.

Friends talked.

Life continued normally.

But something felt missing.

Her.

By the end of the day, I realized how deeply I had become attached.

It wasn't just that I wanted to see her.

I had started depending on those small moments.

And when they disappeared, I felt their absence physically.

I would sometimes joke that I got a fever when she didn't come to college.

But somewhere beneath the joke was a truth I didn't know how to explain.

I missed her badly.

Maybe that's when I understood that this wasn't just a passing crush anymore.

It had become something frightening.

Because once someone becomes part of your daily happiness...

their absence begins to feel like loneliness.

And I was falling.

Slowly.

Silently.

Completely.